Unfortunately dubbing has some disadvantages: It can be done well and you can still tell that the mouth movements don't quite fit. Puns don't translate and you don't learn the language. But the worst thing is, that they don't always use the same voice for the same actor and that is really annoying.
For example the voice of Mr. Sulu in Star Trek was changed for the movies and he got the German voice of Alf.
Subtitles or dubbing
In Germany it is quite normal to watch films that aren't German and those films are normally dubbed into German. Fortunately that is quite skillfully done, so you can hardly tell, that the voices aren't quite right. I've seen so much worse, when just one person speaks all the text and doesn't even try to act. Only very artsy films aren't dubbed and get subtitles.
I hardly ever see films on UK TV, that aren't in English. How is that usually done? Do you ever watch films, that aren't in English? According to US TV shows, foreign films are only for the culture vultures and will have subtitles, so normal people won't watch them, because it is too exhausting to read all the time.
Salami
When you get a sandwich in the UK you have quite a range of spreads, but I've never seen salami.
In Germany that was my go to as a kid to have a slice of bread, some butter and a slice of salami, for breakfast, dinner or taking a sandwich to school.
In Germany you can get loads of different kinds of sausage for sandwiches, big slices of sausage, salami, bologna or Teewurst, which is a spreadable sausage and has nothing to do with tea, or Liverwurst.
There isn't that much choice of that kind of stuff in the UK and at first I really missed it.
The weirdest thing to me was the fact that you get German Salami in supermarkets, because I never thought of Salami as being something German. We do have Hungarian, Italian, French and Spanish Salami and if you want more exotic sausages you get Polish, which are delicious as well.
I know that sausage an Germany is a common joke, but I think that only refers to sausage shaped sausages and not presliced or spreadable stuff.
Things I had never eaten before visiting the UK #17 Indian Food
There are a few Indian restaurants in Germany, but there weren't a lot thirty years ago.
I love spicy food, so I was always keen to have real Indian food.
I used to have Vindaloo, because I always wanted to try the spiciest variety until a friend always had Butter Chicken and I had to try that. That changed my default.
Weirdly in Germany those staple names like Korma, Madras, Balti, Dhanzak, Jalfrezi aren't that famous. I think most Brits will know what to expect when you say "Madras", but I doubt that is the case in Germany.
The word curry in Germany is usually a yellow spice mix like Madras and forty years ago it was mainly used in a pasta salad with mayo, chicken and canned pineapple.
Supermarkets don't have a lot of ready made curry sauces either though it is getting better, so we always take some home. Going for Indian at least once on our holidays is also non-negotiable.
UK things in Germany
Until some years ago we did have BFBS Radio one, there was still UK military around and that got us shops where we could buy English products, but all that is gone now.
You can still order stuff form specialised websites, which Brexit made even more expensive, so we usually get stuff on our holidays.
Yesterday we've been to an "Irish pub event" on an colliery, which featured a stand with English jams, a Scottish bagpipes group from a town nearby, German groups, who did highland games.
You could get Guinness and Kilkenny and for food there was shepherd's pie and Irish stew.
There was a stand selling whisky and there was also Irish folk music.
All that was paired with German mining nostalgia, the bagpipes played the "Steigerlied", which is a famous miner's song always played at historic events around here.
While the amount of Britishness could have been improved, I didn't even hear anybody speak English, but I'll take what I can get, and we had a very nice day out.
a hard shoulder
When we drove through England in a car there was the occasional sign of "no hard shoulder". We were wondering what it could possibly mean, but we always forgot to look it up.
Finally I met some Brits with a car who I could ask and they explained to me that hard shoulder is what we call in German a Standstreifen - a lane for stopping.
But also they couldn't explain why it would be called after body parts. Now I always envision some invisible head in the middle of the road to go with the shoulders.
I assume other architectural structures, that have some kind of level parts in between slopes might also be called shoulder, but I was always too lazy to find out. And I probably wouldn't know that kind of vocabulary in German either.
The only practical reason I can think of is that you don't have to get the curtains out of the way to open the window.
But you can't really clean the outsides of the windows by yourself. I've never seen window cleaners, who come to wash your windows with a long hose from the outside in Germany.
In the US you can somehow fold the window so you can reach the outside parts, but I doubt that is the case in the UK.
Windows
The windows in our B&B and the flat that I've seen are the kind you have to move one half up to open. I've never seen those in Germany.
Isn't that really impractical?
You need a special construction to counterbalance the window.
It is held closed only by a little latch anyone could break off if he really tried, so how come there are not many more burglaries?
It is quite difficult to open those windows, because they always seem stuck.
And then there seems to be a law about not allowing windows in the second floor of B&Bs to open all the way or people will fall out. So you can only open that window about 5 inches, which is really impractical in summer when you would like to air the place.
Chips
I like chips a lot more than fries.
AFAIK the difference is mainly the size of the chunks. In Germany you get Pommes or Fritten, and they are usually not as thick as chips. We never eat chips with vinegar and I am convinced that quite a lot of Germany would think chips are crisps.
When I was in the UK for the first time people took me to a restaurant, got me a lasagna, and asked me if I wanted chips with that. I was wondering why one would eat lasagna with crisps, but I really love crisps, so I said yes and was VERY surprised. Learned the hard way.
I wonder if there are Germans who don't realize that fish and chips don't come with crisps.
In Germany you can't even get malt vinegar, even though different chip sizes are available.
(I never see curly fries as well.)
Chips and cheese are a favourite, especially with chili.
Shame that BBC doesn't do +1.
Also: Times in TV guides don't say 20:00, instead they will say 8:00 and for a while I thought that was in the morning.
Shows tend to start at 8pm instead of 8:15 like in Germany and if there is ads they are on at the same time on all channels (at least it seems to me).
Quite nice, that programmes tend to end when other programmes start and don't overlap, so you won't miss either the ending of show A or the beginning of show B.
British TV channels
So many to choose from and the program guide is included in the TV.
Nowadays you have that in Germany too, but at least for me it doesn't work too well.
Comparing the channels BBC1 and BBC2 are like ARD and ZDF. There aren't local channels like our WDR, but you get local versions of BBC, so you get different news.
We don't have anything like Parliament, food network, challenge, together tv or +1 programs. At first I didn't understand that +1 only means that everything is repeated one hour later. I thought it was a different channel. Why aren't there +2 and +3 etc? I often see a movie I would have wanted to watch, but it started more than an hour ago.
2) Sockets
Of course they are different from Germany, so don't forget your travel adapter. But the really weird thing is that they come with a switch.
I knew about it and still fell for it. Switched the kettle on, but it never boiled. Thought it had switched off after boiling, but the water was still cold. Not good for instant coffee or tea.
I had seen lots of people asking at the reception why all the sockets don't work.
I have never seen a socket with a switch in Germany. There aren't any fuses built-in the plugs either.
Additionally you don't get any normal sockets in your UK bathroom. Probably too dangerous just like light switches, but you can have an electric shower right where it is getting completely soaked.