It may be cumbersome, but it's one of the things you do once. Colleagues can help you with translations.

Many internet, phone and other companies employ young people for support tasks who can speak english most of the time, so it shouldn't be a big issue. Especially if you go to offline stores in Berlin to fill out the forms.

I had the opposite experience that I would get constantly hung up on by government offices and even places like Doctors when I lived there and couldn't speak German but still worth the tradeoff and definitely easy enough to get a friendly colleague to help you with translations

For your bank I recommend N26; it’s one of the tech startups here, an online-only bank, and they talked me through the setup process over my phone in about 10 minutes, in English.

Don’t bother trying it before you actually move though, because the website appears to be geo-locked and the American and UK versions aren’t open yet.

> I recommend N26

> an online-only bank

It's a direct bank as any other, quick internet search will reveal more options in Germany. Their "innovations" in comparison with personal banking even in neighbouring Czechia (e.g. Fio), or Poland (e.g. mBank, Inteligo) are laughable.

What do you mean by “direct”?

Thanks! I’d never heard that term before.

I had originally tried getting an account in a Sparkasse branch, but it was much more difficult than N26. No doubt there are other online only banks, but I cannot comment on their quality without using them.

I had Deutsche Bank and N26 when living in Berlin (in addition to my personal accounts) and strongly recommend N26. Super easy online setup, Black card has some good benefits, and clean mobile and web experiences.