Why German is unpopular
I've heard from multiple sources that German almost became the official language in the US but was narrowly defeated by English! Not sure how true that story is. I heard elsewhere that the US in fact does not have an official language, only a defacto one.
It's true that Germans like to speak English but if one describes them as "militant" in their desire and then others describe the French as "rude" in not wanting to speak English, it kind of becomes hard to win.
Personally I believe it's great when people don't want to speak your language - then you have more of a chance to learn theirs. It does indeed make it more difficult to learn when the people you are speaking to (e.g. Germans) hear you speak German and respond in English. However the trick is to fight - continue speaking (bad) German to them as they speak to you in English. This is the only way you will learn. If your German is good enough, pretend you don't speak English (stare at them blankly). The more languages you can learn the better!
Disclaimer: I might be slightly biased - this is being posted from a language school in Spain where we teach German, French and plenty more (www.ablalenguas.com/en).
German is more related to English than French.
"German is more related to English than French."
Really? :-)
Compared to most languages in the world, German is quite popular. It's one of the most spoken languages in the world and it's taught at about every university in the western world. The only place it seems unpopular is here at antimoon.
German is not one of the 10 most spoken languages in the world. About universities, even minor Romance languages like Catalan are taught as well , so it does not mean anything that German is also taught in universities.
I sometimes regret not having learned German.
It was offered to me on middle/high school level, plus I could have studied it any time I wanted on my parents' expense in private lessons or language school, but I never wanted to take it, and none of the arguments my parents brought up to persuade me to take it helped a bit - I had some intuitive disliking of the language and refused to study it. My parents never forced me to, though they weren't really fine with me not wanting to learn it (and the subject was brought up from time to time in our house), as they considered it an important language. According to them, I had all the "important" languages under my belt and as integral parts of my school curriculum - French, English & classics - but lacked German as a sort of "hole in my education", as they would point from time to time. There was even this one period in which they were willing to pay me to learn German (so now you see how I disliked it, because even for money I would not learn it :D), but then when I was a junior-senior in high school they gave up.
Ironically, somewhere about that time I was slowly starting to be able to tolerate the sound of German and then later I even grew to be interested in the language and literature, but was occupied by many other things and did not quite feel like learning another language for a long time, and then some other languages and interest were dominant, and... And so it happened, I never learned German, and it surprises me how often I wish I had learned it. I do not know even elementary tourist German, let alone anything past that, and everybody around me seems to know at least the basics. I wish I could read literature in German, but perhaps it is really a bit too late now - no time enough to invest into it right now, and who knows if there ever will be.
I definitely do not think it is an unimportant language - it is also very rich in culture, particularly literary. Now I understand perfectly why would somebody *want* to learn German - I wish I understood it years back.
"but perhaps it is really a bit too late now - no time enough to invest into it right now, and who knows if there ever will be."
Granted, I don't know your situation, but you had time to post here. If you want to learn German, you can do it. It seems that you know some
other languages already anyway, so German should be pretty much of a cakewalk unless you have a psychological block to learning this language.
I mention this because I have found that these "blocks" do cause an impediment for some people learning a specific language.
You'd need to look at what resources are available and find something that appeals to you first. Then you could spend as little as ten minutes a day on the language. If you find that you enjoy those ten minutes, you'll naturally start finding an extra five or ten minutes to spend on it over coffee, tea or a snack perhaps.
I actually dislike it when someone tells me that I should or should not learn a language. Only you know if you have enough interest in German to make the easy dive into learning it.
German is unpopulär???
Seit wann?
because it is the language of the nazis. Am i right?
A certain cabal of people conspired to bring it down with their liberal propaganda network.
<<A certain cabal of people conspired to bring it down with their liberal propaganda network. >>
Well it didnt work. German is very popular where I live.
After learning about the numerous assassination plots against Hilter and seeing the "Valkyrie" movie based on the most famous one, I have more respect the Germans. It was nice to learn that there were many right-minded people who oppossed Nazism within Germany at the time. Unfortunately it was difficult to confront it without being labeled a traitor and killed.
Thank goodness more Germans didn't confront Nazism, they'd be all killed and there'd be nobody left to speak German.
<<I've heard from multiple sources that German almost became the official language in the US but was narrowly defeated by English! Not sure how true that story is. I heard elsewhere that the US in fact does not have an official language, only a defacto one.>>
This is incorrect. It's a common misconception, but the fact is the US has no official language. It's called the "Muhlenberg legend" because an early vote in the US House of Representatives denied having certain documents translated into German. Muhlenberg, a German-American and probably native German speaker, said that the sooner the Germans become American the better.
Some states have official languages (English and Hawaiian are the only ones I think are actually de jure official languages though). But the US itself does not.