Is the German language underestimated?
>>The only reason the Romance languages seem easier is that English speakers are more familiar with the idea of verbs changing form
More than so when you consider cognates too. German grammar is more straightforward to me as an L3 because my L2 is English, but loads of verbs and nouns, I simply can't guess. I prefer more cognates, and false friends, in French than very obscure vocab in German with no memory hooks available.
The answer is NO.
German is spoken by 100 million ONLY in Central Europe. So, It is a regional language like Vietnamese or Korean in Asia.
Germany lost the colonies in Africa and other areas. The languages also lost the status of World language. It is not official in UNO, for instance.
If we compare French, Spanish, Russian and German is the less spoken and the less spread of them.
Germanic languages and traditions are sources of Western culture, just like Greek and Latin. This makes learning German another thing than learning Vietnamese or Korean or even French.
<<Ahahahaha. Yeah right, man.>>
It is IMO, French phonology and spelling are quite hard.
>>I feel people don't pay the attention this language deserves and prefer French or another Romance language.
I feel people don't pay the attention ANY language deserves and prefer English.
Even though German is practically useless in Japan I'm glad it was
my minor in Brazil and gave me the opportunity to read Goethe, Thomas Mann, Stefan Zweig and other famous German writers in the ORIGINAL.
Besides, my first job as a translator was given due to knowing German, even though my major was Japanese. Unfortunately my only contact with German at the moment is listening to podcasts from Deutsche Welle and reading books (Still reading "Nicht alle waren Mörder" from Michael Degen)but I'm seriously thinking of applying for the KDS German certificate, even knowing that it won't be much useful while I'm still in Asia.
Bottom line is that German sounds cool, is nice for arguing and has a rich literature that inspires the student to go through all the crazy "Nebensätze" and complicated word formation rules.
Es lebe die schöne deutsche Sprache!!!
JC, how did you learn? Could you share your experiences with us? Oh, yeah, I mean: did you use some sort of textbooks, did you stay in Germany, etc?
Leaving aside the former colonies of France, Spain, Portugal, (Why has the colonial factor been often mentioned of), actually the amount of native German-speaking population exceeds 120 million, while that of France has about 65 million, Spain has about 46 million, and Portugal only has about 11 million. If you say that, population is not the key point, I could not agree more about your opinion, right, besides English, German is the most important language in European Union, the representative language of science and technology, the philosophical and literary language, also, the language of international business and economy, at least, it's still an effective engine of the whole Europe. There're a lot of multinational companies which spread all over the developing countries to boost local prosperity. And one of every ten books is just written in German......
Some people said that, Germans can almost speak English well enough to talk with foreigners, but it's absolutely not the reason that we don't need to learn German as an advantage, if you really want to "do in Rome as Rome does", German would be of great importance for you to integrate yourself with German-speaking community.
<<the representative language of science and technology, >>
No. Even German scientists do all their work and write all their papers in English.
German was, by a finger's breadth, able to be the official language of Pennsylvania. but finally English won.
Slobodan Milosevic Sat Nov 29, 2008 4:19 am GMT
<<the representative language of science and technology, >>
No. Even German scientists do all their work and write all their papers in English.
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Since scientific communities are international, Germans write papers mostly in English - but they do their work at German universities in German language.
No doubt, learning English is most useful for communication - learning German is useful in order to understand Western history, culture and tradition, not in order to speak about it.
To Chinese:
<<actually the amount of native German-speaking population exceeds 120 million>>
False. They are hardly 100 million, and decreasing fast...
Even if you don't want to add speakers of other continents, German is the less spoken of the international languages. French, Spanish, Portuguese, English, Russian, Arabic and Chinese are more spoken than German.
It has not the status of World language. Besides, it is not official in UNO or other World organizations. It lost all the colonies around the World, and German is only spoken in Central Europe. It is simply a regional language.
<<German is the most important language in European Union, the representative language of science and technology, the philosophical and literary language, also, the language of international business and economy>>
False. It is English.
<<Since scientific communities are international, Germans write papers mostly in English - but they do their work at German universities in German language. >>
Did you know that in Germany many if not most graduate courses in the sciences are given in English to 'increase competitiveness'? The same is true in most other European countries. So even if they converse with their colleagues in German, they are still doing all their work in English, even teaching their students in English even if all the students are German!
The whole Europe will end having English as their mother tongue. It will take some time, but it's a similar process like Romanization during the Roman Empire. The sooner people abandon their indigenous languages like French, the better
If Europe adopts English, in what order will it be? My guess:
The Dutch
The Scandinavians
The Belgians
The Germans (and the Austrians/Swiss)
The Spanish
The Potuguese
The Italians
The French (begrudgingly)
Finland
The former Eastern Bloc, no idea in what order.
The Icelandics are too far away and will keep their language