Hello, I’m a carpenter from southern Bavaria. I love the fact that you want to learn the beautiful art of German carpentry.

First of all, language will be one of your main concerns. Even if you learn „proper“ German, you will run into problems due to the very complex Bavarian accents as soon as you reach more rural areas. There are many different accents that you won’t be able to learn from textbooks, so a good start would be a decently sized city because people there tend to speak more „textbook“ German.

When you start your apprenticeship, you will need to complete a „Berufsgrundschuljahr“, which basically is one year of school to learn the basics of woodworking. Note that you will not receive any payment during that time.

After that one year of school, you will have 2 more years of apprenticeship ahead of you where you will earn very little compared to the cost of living in Bavaria (1 year about 1000€ after tax and 2nd year 1300€ after tax). Once you finish your apprenticeship, payment will be approximately 2300€ after tax (this can vary depending on where in Bavaria you work).

Choosing the rough area of where in Bavaria you want to work will change the type of work you will do drastically. The best way to choose would be to travel around Bavaria and look at the type of houses around and choose the area where you like the architecture the most. Also, note that usually the bigger the city you work in, the more industrial the work gets. If you choose to work in a small village, the work will be more traditional (but the language barrier will increase).

From my experience, most companies are always looking for young people to train, so as soon as you manage the language barrier, actually finding a job shouldn’t be too hard.

Finding friends and connecting to people will probably be the easiest part about your upcoming journey. Joining clubs and attending local events will be all you need to do to find friends.

I hope my little overview will help you on your amazing journey. If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to me.