<<Austrian guidebooks suggest 10% as a general rule>>

Is that in English or German!

In Germany, mit/ohne Gas is definitely what I saw most commonly (though, if you just ask for Mineralwasser, it usually is carbonated, and you just ask if you want it still). For the OP, you can get still mineral water, but it's usually quite minerally. Try it, but I can't stand the taste (and I love sparkling mineral water).

Geordie: both. French, too.

<<In Germany, mit/ohne Gas is definitely what I saw most commonly>>

I've never seen it, by the way if you don't want carbonated water ask for 'stilles mineralwasser'

Now in Spain I've used con or sin gas when ordering agua.

Pretentious, moi?

Geordie

Stilles will certainly get the job done, too, probably a regional variation.

> mit/ohne Gas is definitely what I saw most commonly.
I've never seen it or have heard somebody asking "mit/ohne Gas" either. And I'm native German, live on this planet for a few decades and do usually visit some restaurants now and then. :-) "Mit Gas" just sounds silly!!

We always tip at least 10% in Vienna. We have friends there (native Austrians) who informed us that wait staff, for the most part, are not well paid. I have heard both terms used (mit gas,mit Kohlensäure) used in all cafes and restaurants by the servers. They will know what you want, so who cares about the "correct" way.

We live in Germany, in an area with lots of Americans, and are often asked "with/mit gas?" when we order mineral water. I've always figured it was the server's way of asking me the question with a word they know I'll understand. Maybe "gas" is easier to say that "carbonation"?

Never thought of that. It may well be that waiters say "gas" when they realize that the customers are foreigners! Kohlensäure may lead to "irritations" ;-)

My tipping guidelines are:

In the United States, don't leave coins for a tip.

In Europe, don't leave paper for a tip.

The coins are worth more in Europe and the 15% tip is included. But don't make the server walk all the way back to your table to give you .50 Euros.

Ah, another example of the rather irritating habit that Germans have of just assuming that Americans can't speak German (it's worse when I order something in a restaurant & they reply in English; my German isn't perfect, but I've written academic papers in it, so it isn't all that bad).

You need to speak accent free German or a German dialect, if not the first thing people do is to make it as "easy" as possible for you. ;-) Wrinting academic papers in German doesn't count.

"grising", don't feel badly. I was born and raised in Germany and speak with a distinct Bavarian accent. It always caused my kids great joy, when on the streetcar I spoke in German to the conductor (when there were still some of them around),and they answered back in English. But, then I also flunked the test for Reading for the Blind in German. They didn't like my dialect. But that's another story!
Incidentally, in Bavaria I usually ask for "Mineralwasser ohne Kohlensaeure", unless I want a "Kracherl" (what we call in the Midwest a "soda pop").

In Bavaria I usually ask for "ein (insert whatever bier sounds good), bitte." ;)

>ein
Yes, but you need to know if the beer you want is male or female, so that would be "ein" or "eine". "Ein" is more liky however :-)

Yeah, that's my biggest pet peeve with German, and probably the easiest way to tell I'm not German: I just don't care about the genders, and it really doesn't matter, because, with only a handful of exceptions, everyone knows what you mean.

I know! It's this tiny thing, when you get everything correct, no accent but then this "stupid" error which shows clearly, you're non native... If you just could be perfect. You can't...

Sometimes those gender articles or noun endings make all the difference in the world. A female acquaitance of mine was newly married to a GI and living in German. She was invited to a formal dinner party with her husband, and when it came time to introduce him to the hostess, she wanted to say, "I am a new wife and this is my husband. Instead she said, in her best German, "Ich bin eine jung frau, und hier ist mein Mann."

Logos...

Ops, sorry. Eine jung Frau. It was a quote, but I am sure she capitalized the F when she said it.

Accents are always a funny thing, whether you're a native speaker or not. My East Prussian father-in-law emigrated to Canada after WW II and still speaks with the accent of educated Germans of that era (even though he was pulled out of prep school at 15 to be trained as a glider pilot for the Luftwaffe). When he's back in Germany, older people are always in raptures over his accent, telling him he speaks the beautiful German they never hear anymore in Germany (his older brother, who lives near Appenzell, Switzerland, has lost that accent but refuses to speak Swiss-German).
Our German relatives say I have very good articulation, but when it comes to genders and verb endings, I know I'm a regular metzgerei.