the german lanaguage?
November 29, 2008 by admin
i'm an 18 year old who first experienced traveling and touring at age 16. i spent two months in france and learned the language very well..and quick..i then went to italy, hated the language, i went to luxembourg, too much of a confusion with luxembourgoise, german and french, so gave up on that..earlier this year i went to germany for two weeks and OMG the language was a disaster..the only thing i learned were bad words..like seriously..fall of 08 i will bea freshman in college and planning on taking german..all the people doign the registration for me just gave me the eyes and look that said, seriously? why? is german that hard? will i never learn it? the only languages spoken in my family are khmer, french and english! how will i practice my german? germans, can i please have a view? is it worth taking german? or shouldi just drop it?
German is a wonderful language (well, I'm native). If you took French, German will be easy for you. Four cases, verbs and nouns do flex, and all the tenses and irregularities will be much like in French. You might encounter gender problems, as German has three of them, male, female, and neuter. But don't be too much afraid of that: Even if you ask something like "Wohin kann ich nach das Bahnhof gehen?", which is really bad German, everybody will understand and show you the direction.
[The correct phrase would be: "Wo geht es hier zum Bahnhof?"]
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7 Responses to “the german lanaguage?”
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I have been learning German for 20 years and still cannot speak it perfect and make small mistakes still.
It takes shear will and determination and desire to want to learn it. It also helps to have a Native helping you as I do. The Grammar will be your hardest part to learn, try to build a vocab base and learn how to make sentences with them correctly.
Their are a few schools, tutors and such that could assist you with this in Germany or where you are possibly.
I like the language I am just not a Master of it, but I learned fast as you did French. I think it also has to do with the desire and practise too!
Viel Gluek. Good Luck.
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Shihan
Well learning German can be difficult but learning any language is. German's grammar is almost impossible to get perfect, and German's have 16 different words that mean the and if you use the wrong the word people kind of look at you funny, besides that I find the actually German words easy to learn and remember. I had started by taking Spanish then after a year of Spanish I changed to German I personally like German better then Spanish. At first German Can seem a little overwhelming but it does get easier.
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German is a wonderful language (well, I'm native). If you took French, German will be easy for you. Four cases, verbs and nouns do flex, and all the tenses and irregularities will be much like in French. You might encounter gender problems, as German has three of them, male, female, and neuter. But don't be too much afraid of that: Even if you ask something like "Wohin kann ich nach das Bahnhof gehen?", which is really bad German, everybody will understand and show you the direction.
[The correct phrase would be: "Wo geht es hier zum Bahnhof?"]
References :
as someone already wrote, any new language can be hard to learn, but it´s always worth it! And there is no language you can "never learn" if you´re determined to do so. That aside, German is actually not that different to English, in terms of vocabulary. The grammar is a different story, but hey, you learn that too.
A good idea is certainly to practice a lot, find someone to talk to, possibly a native speaker. If you´re going to take German in college there´s sure to be someone who already speaks it right?? And btw, German isn´t such a rare language;)
Good luck!!
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take it from somebody who learned english and german and is now fluent in both: if you did not get it from the first answer
german is really really really hard. even the maajority of the german population can't get it 100% right. here is a good example for you: you probably red Shakespeare in school, notice how his english is different from today's enlglish? i had to read Goethe in german school, well it is not that different from todays german. so imagine you would be learning english as a foreighner, but shakespre's english.
however there is a big big pro in learning german, opposing to let's say french. reading and pronouncing is very straight forward. no matter how funny you will pronounce, people will most likely understand you.
so think for yourself, and here is another little something to consider: there are onlly a couple of german speaking countries in europe in the world, compared to let's say.. spanish.
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To compare todays German to Shakespeares english is really idiotic… I haven`t heard of anything that stupid in ages.
Even for a native german like me reading Goethe is hard.
I don`t think German is such a hard language to learn. My parents came from Poland in the 70s. They learned it in a year. I think the key to learning german is not to compare it too much to english. Since there are many differences. The best way to learn a foreign language is to speak it. And practise speaking it, by talking to others only in german. Of course it`ll be hard for you to move to Germany and speak it…but you could go abroad for a semester. I went to the US for a highschool year, and thats where I learned english. That worked well for me. German isn`t more difficult than other roman languages. Because its related to english and french for example. You will get used to it. Just because it doesnt sound as fancy as french , doesnt mean it is as rough as it sounds to foreign ears…give it a shot !
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german native, who learned english abroad