Spanish vs German

Guest   Sat Mar 25, 2006 11:09 am GMT
Kant, Spinoza, Nietsche, schopenhoer, Freud ?... French writers ?
Nostradamus   Sat Mar 25, 2006 4:34 pm GMT
And don't forget, Uderzo, Goscinny, Herge, Morris, Jacobs...etc, etc.

I don't know these days about German in the scientific and cultural issues but I have the notion that France have been since ever the Mecca in this areas. I see all the time lots of books from 19 and 20th century made by frenchmen and translated into Spanish way much more than by any other country. It's amazing the lots of areas that such literature covers, novels, mathematics, photography, dictionaries, art, etc, etc. At least this is my perception.

An important advantage of learning any romance language is that you could learn with less difficulty any of the other ones.
JR   Sat Mar 25, 2006 6:08 pm GMT
The future of Germany will determine the future of the German language, since Germany is the only major German speaking country, unlike Spanish, which has many contenders to fill this position.

Nineteenth century author and British scholar Halford Mackinder predicted the decline of power from Great Britain, predicting that either Germany or Russia would become the majory world powers. He was eventually proven wrong, but it took 3 major world catastrophes to do so, WWI, WWII, and the Cold War.

I'd say if Germany (along eith the german language) had a chance to rise, it was then.
greg   Sat Mar 25, 2006 9:30 pm GMT
Goethe ? Schiller ?
a.t   Sun Mar 26, 2006 3:35 am GMT
I thought german was used frequently in science in the 1970s to 1990s.
Guest   Mon Mar 27, 2006 12:16 pm GMT
yes i think so
Bardioc   Mon Mar 27, 2006 2:13 pm GMT
I think, the discussion here goes somewhat comparing apples with pears:

You talk about German used in sciene and compare it to Spanish or French role in literature. What's about the role of Spanish or French in science? To be faithful, in science, today and for a very long period in the future, only English is important, nothing else! You list some french literature from the past and compare it to German literature, also from the past. Maybe some people do learn a language out of that reason, but, I think, that's only a few minority. In every country where children are taught to read and to write, sooner or later, literature will be produced. Contemporary literature. Why do you ignore that? Is a series like Perry Rhodan less literature than From The Earth to The Moon by Jules Verne? Both of them are science fiction. How many amateur writers are out there, in France, in Spain, in England, and in Germany, too? People using their native language to write literature but are never published?
greg   Tue Mar 28, 2006 4:29 am GMT
Bardioc : tu penses que le français n'a aucune relation avec les sciences ? Tu te rends coupable du même cliché que Brennus avec l'allemand et la littérature.
Bardioc   Tue Mar 28, 2006 11:59 am GMT
Non, greg, je ne pense pas que le français n'a aucune relation avec les sciences. Il y a des universitées en France dequis quelques siècles. J'ai seulement posé une question rhétorique.

No, greg, I don't think that French hasn't any relations to the sciences. There are universities in France for hundreds of years. I only asked a rhetorical question.

Maybe that rhetorical question sounded like I would think that there isn't science in Spain or France. But learning Spain, French, or German for sciences sake dosen't really help you in most of the fields of science, because today, the language of science is English.
Guest   Tue Mar 28, 2006 12:24 pm GMT
English is definitely used in the science but german seems to be number two.
Bardioc   Tue Mar 28, 2006 1:35 pm GMT
If you want worldwide recognition of your scientific work, you must publish in Englisch! Maybe decades ago, you could have published in German in some special fields.
Nostradamus   Tue Mar 28, 2006 2:14 pm GMT
I think the road of the topic is twisted. The first question was:

<<i mean should i learn spanish or german?>>

and I keep my opinion I think that the decision depends on why you want to learn a language or for what.

Really it's not important if there are more publications made in German or Spanish or French or whatever. Today any kind of literature is translated into any language.

If we talk about music things change, the Spanish production is more copious than the German. Of course this has some of relevance if you just want to understand the lyrics.