How hard is German for an English speaker?

Koreasparkling   Sun Dec 02, 2007 7:40 am GMT
Interestingly enough, Germans generally speak English much better than French even though French language shares much vocabulary with English.

Germanic people(Dutch, Swedes, Norwegians, Danes...) speak English far much better than Latin people/Romance people(French, Spaniards, Italians).
L'italofilo   Sun Dec 02, 2007 7:56 am GMT
When it comes to the "tense" or "conjugation", German is apparently very similar to English, perhaps only a little more difficult or even easier (tense) than English. But when it comes to the "vocabularies", "syntax" (4 cases, 3 genders, & inverted sentence), German is even less similar to English than Romance languages. For example: hospital (En), hopital (Fr), hospital (Sp), ospetale (It), BUT...Krankenhaus (German). There're so many suchlike examples.
greg   Sun Dec 02, 2007 8:13 am GMT
« Guest » : « noun declension is pretty easy in German compared to other l anguages like Icelandic, Slavonic language or Greek ».

Si tu voulais dire que le volume total des inflexions nominales disponibles en allemand est moins élevé qu'en polonais, tu as raison.

En revanche les conditions d'application de tel ou tel type de déclinaison (forte, faible ou mixte) sont assez complexes.
Guest   Sun Dec 02, 2007 9:26 am GMT
Greg est-ce que tu connais un petit peu la grammaire islandaise? Elle est bien plus conservatrice et riche en terminaisons nominales que l'allemand. En tout cas, les deux langues gardent un système de flexion avec quatre cas: nominatif, accusatif, datif, génitif
greg   Mon Dec 03, 2007 10:48 am GMT
« Guest » : « Greg est-ce que tu connais un petit peu la grammaire islandaise? ».

Non, malheureusement pas : j'ignore à peu près tout de l'islandais. C'est pour cette raison que j'ai comparé l'allemand au polonais, langue que je connais davantage que l'islandais. En polonais, comme en islandais d'après ce que tu dis, le volume total de désinences distinctes (suffixes grammaticaux de flexion = terminaisons morphologiques casuelles) est supérieur à celui de l'allemand, laquelle langue n'utilise que {#Ø — #e — #en — #em — #er — #es — #n — #s} soit (si ma mémoire est bonne) une petite dizaine de possibilités.

J'ai compté {#Ø} pour deux car il peut y avoir ajout de l'Umlaut ou pas : <die Frau#Ø> (nom sg) → <der Frau#Ø> (dat sg) versus <der Vogel#Ø> (nom sg) → <die Vögel#Ø> (nom pl).

En fait il faudrait également compter {#er} pour deux : <der Krank#e> (article défini) → <ein Krank#er> (article indéfini) versus <der Mann#Ø> (nom sg) → <die Männ#er> (nom pl).

Mais sans trop entrer dans les détails, on peut dire que le volume total de flexions nominales (y compris les adjectifs substantivés) se limite à 10 environ.

Donc je suis de ton avis : l'allemand offre moins de diversité que le polonais (ou l'islandais) sur ce point précis. En revanche l'allemand recèle un degré de complexité d'une autre nature : 1] la typologie des déclinaisons nominales (forte, faible, mixte) — 2] la typologie des pluriels des substantifs.

Mais là où l'allemand se révèle être assez complexe c'est l'application d'un type de déclinaison (fort, faible, mixte) pour les ajectifs épithètes. Ce que je veux dire c'est que la complexité ne se limite pas aux seules terminaisons morphologiques : les règles d'application des types de déclinaison sont une difficulté supplémentaire pour les apprenants.
Guest   Mon Dec 03, 2007 4:36 pm GMT
@ L'italofilo

<<... German is even less similar to English than Romance languages. For example: hospital (En), hopital (Fr), hospital (Sp), ospetale (It), BUT...Krankenhaus (German). There're so many suchlike examples.>>

We also have the word "Hospital" in German. But in everyday speech, it would be "Krankenhaus", of course. By the way, if you wouldn't know the meaning of hospital, you would not be able to deduct the meaning from the word. In German, if you know the words ''krank'' and ''Haus'' its easy to derive the meaning of ''Krankenhaus'' as "house for sick people". So, German is easier because you can easily deduce the meaning of a compound word from the meanings of its compounds.
Guest   Mon Dec 03, 2007 4:36 pm GMT
@ L'italofilo

<<... German is even less similar to English than Romance languages. For example: hospital (En), hopital (Fr), hospital (Sp), ospetale (It), BUT...Krankenhaus (German). There're so many suchlike examples.>>

We also have the word "Hospital" in German. But in everyday speech, it would be "Krankenhaus", of course. By the way, if you wouldn't know the meaning of hospital, you would not be able to deduct the meaning from the word. In German, if you know the words ''krank'' and ''Haus'' its easy to derive the meaning of ''Krankenhaus'' as "house for sick people". So, German is easier because you can easily deduce the meaning of a compound word from the meanings of its compounds.
Guest   Mon Dec 03, 2007 4:37 pm GMT
Sorry, double posting.
Guest   Mon Dec 03, 2007 4:54 pm GMT
"We also have the word "Hospital" in German. But in everyday speech, it would be "Krankenhaus", of course. By the way, if you wouldn't know the meaning of hospital, you would not be able to deduct the meaning from the word. In German, if you know the words ''krank'' and ''Haus'' its easy to derive the meaning of ''Krankenhaus'' as "house for sick people". So, German is easier because you can easily deduce the meaning of a compound word from the meanings of its compounds."


I agree with Guest
Travis   Mon Dec 03, 2007 5:21 pm GMT
>>When it comes to the "tense" or "conjugation", German is apparently very similar to English, perhaps only a little more difficult or even easier (tense) than English.<<

I would definitely agree. German use of tense and aspect is much simpler than that in Late New English, and most Standard German verb conjugation is predictable, with the lexically-unpredictable parts really being not much more complex than in English. For the vast majority of verbs, for instance, marking of person and number for verbs is very predictable, with the only variation being that a good few more common verbs have an extra principle part for the second person and third person present singular. While there are more strong verbs than in English, Standard German seems to have less irregularity of weak verbs aside from the extra principle part for some weak verbs (which is usually predictable from the normal present principle part when it is present).
Guest   Mon Dec 03, 2007 8:49 pm GMT
TRavis What about the German subjunctive mood?
Guest   Mon Dec 03, 2007 8:52 pm GMT
moreover German uses two auxiliary verbs to form all compound tenses. this is much harder than in English. In German the subjunctive mood is not used frequently as in Spanish or italian but it still exists unlike English.
Guest   Mon Dec 03, 2007 9:01 pm GMT
If I were you......the exception confirms the rule
Travis   Mon Dec 03, 2007 9:36 pm GMT
>>TRavis What about the German subjunctive mood?<<

The present and past subjunctive moods are formed regularly in German, even though it they involve *predictable* morphosyntactic stem changes in many verbs.
Travis   Mon Dec 03, 2007 9:45 pm GMT
>>moreover German uses two auxiliary verbs to form all compound tenses. this is much harder than in English. In German the subjunctive mood is not used frequently as in Spanish or italian but it still exists unlike English.<<

I would not necessarily say that; Standard German uses "haben", "werden", and "sein" for indicating tense, aspect, and voice aside from the basic present/preterite distinction, while Standard English uses "have", "be", and "will" (which can be considered a modal) for such, and standard colloquial English also uses "get" and "be going" (which is a quasi-modal form) for such.

As for the subjunctive, it is *most definitely* not dead. It is very much alive in North American English as a whole, with both the present subjunctive and past subjunctive still being used very productively in everyday speech, and it is still retained in many English English dialects and more conservative Standard English English even though it has been lost in more progressive English English.