How hard is German for an English speaker?

Papitico   Fri Nov 30, 2007 12:11 am GMT
I'm Wondering if I can learn German, but I would like to listen to some comments from people learning this weird language. I would like to learn it because of its importance and because also Know French and Spanish.
Skippy   Fri Nov 30, 2007 12:15 am GMT
German grammar is initially difficult, but as you get to the more advanced subjects, it actually gets a little easier, while the vocabulary starts off very similar to English with lots of cognates (especially function words like prepositions) but gets harder as you get more advanced (because most of English's "advanced" vocabulary tends to have to come us through French). At least, this was my experience with German.
Guest   Fri Nov 30, 2007 12:16 am GMT
German is easier for an English speaker than Spanish and French. Why? Because German and English belong to the same linguistic family. Everybody thinks so.
Guest   Fri Nov 30, 2007 1:04 am GMT
Yes it means.
furrykef   Fri Nov 30, 2007 10:39 am GMT
<< Yes it means. >>

That's not even a grammatical sentence.

Anyway, Josh is right. Relatedness means little as far as difficulty is concerned. English shares more vocabulary with Spanish and French than it does with German, for example.

- Kef
Koreasparkling   Fri Nov 30, 2007 11:00 am GMT
Sigh. Just because they share more vocabulary doesn't mean it's easier to learn.
furrykef   Fri Nov 30, 2007 12:45 pm GMT
<< Sigh. Just because they share more vocabulary doesn't mean it's easier to learn. >>

All else being equal, a language that shares vocabulary with English will be easier than one that does not. True, perhaps not all else is equal in this case, but it still counts for something. Relatedness does not. Two languages can be related and yet still bear little similarity that is actually useful for a language learner. Likewise, two completely unrelated languages can have very useful similarities, such as the similarity of grammar between Japanese and Korean.


<< furrykef, you didn't learn Spanish and German so your opinion is useless. >>

As useless as your social skills? That wasn't a very good display of tact. ;)

<< For example, verbs are similar in English and German, at least compared to Spanish or French. Future tense is expressed with particles instead of conjugations: werden/wil, and so on. >>

What about the lack of declension for case in English and Spanish? What about grammatical gender being more predictable in Spanish? What about Spanish having two genders instead of three? What about the almost utter lack of irregular plurals in Spanish? Spanish has its own advantages, y'know. ;)

Also, just to be clear, I am not biased against German. I doubt I'd find it a terribly difficult language. (If you're studying Japanese, pretty much any language looks easy.) I just doubt the claim that it is easier than Spanish, and in any case the claim that it is so because it is related is certainly a spurious one.

- Kef
Guest   Fri Nov 30, 2007 12:52 pm GMT
I'm a native English speaker, and when I was studying German at university, people who were studying both French and German claimed they found German much more difficult because of the grammar. It seems that native English speakers find it easier to get to grips with verb conjugation, even when it is complex, than with noun declension.

On the other hand my persoanl experience with German was that I didn't understand the cases and adjective endings at all at first, but once I did things seemed much easier. But I haven't learnt much French or any other Romance language so I can't really compare.
JLK   Fri Nov 30, 2007 1:41 pm GMT
That wasn't my post!


Josh: What hasn't an admin banned this SOB?!!!


I'm sick and tired of it!
Guest   Fri Nov 30, 2007 3:14 pm GMT
What does SOB mean?
Guest   Fri Nov 30, 2007 3:20 pm GMT
Ok, SOB means son of a bitch. Are insults allowed here?
Guest   Fri Nov 30, 2007 3:27 pm GMT
I never would do so.
Guest   Fri Nov 30, 2007 4:23 pm GMT
noun declension is pretty easy in German compared to other l anguages like Icelandic, Slavonic language or Greek
Guest   Fri Nov 30, 2007 4:28 pm GMT
Spanish is more inflected than German.
Xie   Fri Nov 30, 2007 5:04 pm GMT
>>I'm a native English speaker, and when I was studying German at university, people who were studying both French and German claimed they found German much more difficult because of the grammar. It seems that native English speakers find it easier to get to grips with verb conjugation, even when it is complex, than with noun declension.

On the other hand my persoanl experience with German was that I didn't understand the cases and adjective endings at all at first, but once I did things seemed much easier. But I haven't learnt much French or any other Romance language so I can't really compare.

I agree with everything above. My reply would be everything above except: I'm a native Chinese speaker (so, as I read along Assimil, I have to check both German and English dictionaries), no ordinary Chinese would ever study 2 non-English European languages together, and I don't even know any French except a few (international) words.

>>Relatedness means little as far as difficulty is concerned. English shares more vocabulary with Spanish and French than it does with German, for example.

And both relatedness and vocabulary mean little for me. I've been endowed with a language with virtually no cognates (not even an international item such as a hotel, which is never called 'hotel'), and I've never had (native) experiences with all kinds of intricate (but funny) inflectional stuff of European languages. Spelling problems such as those in English (my native script isn't spelt but always written regularly), messy case, gender and irregular plural stuff like that in German... are all that have been putting a lot of Chinese speakers off. But it doesn't matter! As usual, I'd just assimilate the languages one by one, day by day... after around 7 months of, at first, long, ineffective battles with German and, now, very short but effective learning sessions, I can start some small talks now...