Daniel_Williams

Hello

I’ve been on the forums for a number of years and many of you probably know that I truly love learning languages. English and French are by far my best two languages as I use both on a daily basis for all sorts of business and social transactions. I manage simple conversations in Spanish and I follow the news reasonably well, although I’m feeling a bit rusty these days. Dutch I’ve studied full-on for about a year-and-a-half, I’m reaching a point where I follow a fair amount of a newscast, although I find shows for kids (such as one newscast for kids, Jeugdjournaal) in standard Dutch I do much better with.

I still want to improve on the languages I’ve reached a certain level of competency in; however I’m toying with the idea of adding another language for future European trips. German, Italian and Portuguese come to mind. German I took one semester of about 20 years ago; basic stuff, a fair amount of which is forgotten. One reason I chose to learn Dutch over German is because I remember people bemoaning how hard German is; German has cases, while Dutch doesn’t use them all that much anymore. German has 3 genders, Dutch has two but one of these is used much less than the other.

My question is this: for those of you who have tried German. I understand that mastering the grammar and nuances of the language probably takes a long time (heck in French & English, I’m still learning vocabulary words), but how long did you find it took you to reach a level where you could be understood by and understand German speakers in ordinary polite conversation? Even though the two languages have differences, my relative success in Dutch (even though I've got a long way to go there yet!) is giving me confidence that I might have success in German as well.

Best wishes, Daniel

Russ

The problem with German is not really case so much - that's complicated but common sense often ferrets out meaning whether you're speaking or listening.

Vowels are a problem. Front rounded vowels and short/long variants create a lot of confusion when you mispronounce them.

Word order is a big problem. Hard to follow sentences you hear until you've gotten very accustomed to sentence elements appearing like this:

"Can I tomorrow with you into the city go?"

Vocabulary tends to be fairly easy since English is Germanic and there are so many cognates. German pulls heavily from French vocabulary as well.

I don't think it's much different from learning Italian or Spanish or other European languages overall. And with your language learning experience you'll likely find it much easier than most people do.

greg

For English speakers, here is a table provided by the US Department of State Foreign language institute.
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Wikiboo...glish_Speakers
You find that French and Dutch are in category I while German is in category II.
You will find the estimated time to proficiency is extremely optimistic. The time required assumes you can spend 25hrs studying with 4hrs dedicated time -- not something you can achieve easily if you are still working.
If you are already familiar with case based languages, you already have grammatical understanding of how the article and adjective endings change depending on the role of the noun - subject, direct object, indirect object. The tough part is what role the noun plays since it is not one to one mapping with English and which ending they take depending on the existence and the type of articles used with the case. Germany can decipher what you are trying to say even though you might have mixed up cases. You will be stunned by the variations the adjectives can take. All I can say is that there are many other worse languages.
The word order does not change much in English, while in German, it changes depending on the type of the clause – subordinate or not and whether element other than subject starts the sentence. This gets quite chore to get the feeling in presence of prepositions, reflexive verbs, modal verbs, and separable prefix verbs.
Additionally, German words have significantly limited scope than comparable English words. Where in English you can use the same word in different context, the German use different words and thus require learning significantly more words to deal with different context.
e.g.
open a door, open an account, open a page of a book
memory of the visit, having a good memory, computer memory

lincasanova

What is your native language then, if not English?

"English and French are by far my best two languages as I use both on a daily basis for all sorts of business and social transactions. "

I would imagine that anyone having success with Dutch could tackle German. I find the pronunciation quite simple, in general. Word order is a challenge but its logic grows on you.

Christina

I avoid languages with cases, they drive me nuts. It's just more to learn. I am surprised a language like German hasn't modernized in that regard. I think English had cases at one time but that was hundreds of years ago.

Thus, I didn't like Greek or Czech or German.

However, in terms of usefulness, where do you think you might like to go? I would suggest Czech to you, the pronunciation isn't that difficult, if you learn the alphabet, it is pronounced pretty much like it is spelled, I like that. It does have cases, though, and some words without vowels in syllables, but you can learn that, it isn't hard. And with the growth of tourism and business in the CR, I would think that a million times more useful than Portuguese (unless you want to go to Brazil, of course). I imagine German would be useful, too.

However, Czech is similar to Polish in a lot of ways, so once you have one of those, the transition while traveling isn't difficult.

You must be pretty good with languages if you can actually understand a newscast after only 1.5 years.

tom18

I agree with Christina about your fluency in languages. I am fairly conversant in both French and German, but still have a hard time understanding both when they are spoken at a normal conversational speed.

I also agree that if you can tackle Dutch, you would probably do well with German, especially the vocabulary.

For me, where I might want to go would affect my decision.

I think Italian would be the easiest for you to pick up, since the grammar is fairly easy and the vocabulary is similar to Spanish.

If you can, you might consider attending one of the language immersion schools in the country whose language you choose to study. For example, one of my friends attends such a German school in Bamberg, and loves it.

Bon chance!

Daniel_Williams

English is my first language, but I know Strunk & White would find fault with my overuse of ellipses and parenthetical expreesions (to name two). I still learn new words here & there... I'd forgotten what "pusillanimous" meant until a recent book and "wimple" and "auto da fe" were two totally new words for me in a book on the Spanish Inquisition.

Brazil, Portugal, Italy, Switzerland, Austria, Germany, even lusophone Africa; all interest me, so where I want to go wouldn't likely be a deciding factor.

I enjoy reading about personal experiences with language study, so thank you all. This is great! Daniel

Christina

Didn't you learn that from Voltaire? (auto da fe)

quokka

I learned German at the age of two - found it easy. ;-)

Kandace_York

I started to learn it in four years of high school German and found it methodical and logical. Traveled to Germany during high school and returned for a month a few years later. Took another three semesters in college as a refresher.

I love German, even though I find myself getting slower at it as I am away from it longer.

Have had some exposure to French and Spanish, but I struggle with them ... they arrive in my head as shards, not as full concepts.

For most people, I think there's a division between romance languages and Germanic languages, like people who are good at algebra but struggle with geometry (or vice versa), or people who find math simple but literature hard.

Just my opinion, of course.

farrermog

Still struggling with my native English, but enjoy dipping into Frederick Bodmer's <i>The Loom of Language </i>, even if opinions are divided -

http://www.amazon.com/The-Loom-Langu.../dp/039330034X

http://ielanguages.com/blog/the-loom...any-languages/

http://ask.metafilter.com/124042/Loom-of-Language

With my deteriorating hearing the first word I cotton on to is often the last in a sentence - so perhaps I should have another crack at German

Gwendolynn

I just had lunch today with an old college friend...we're in our '70s (yikes!) Her parents were German who came here (US) in the '30s...and because of the political climate she never spoke German (tho her parents continued to do so at home.) She's a very intelligent person, but nonetheless , did not have an easy time studying German in college...and doesn't feel she is fluent at all. Such a sad , missed opportunity.

But we had lunch at the Cafe Sabarsky in the Neue Gallerie in NYC.... and she knew how to pronounce everything... which I did not.. so I guess something stuck. Mit schlag is the extent of my German! I really envy those of you who are facile in several languages.

lavandula

If you know Dutch the word order and much of the vocabulary will be familiar to you when you start German. I speak both and seem to store them in roughly the same place in my head - indeed much of the German I know has overwritten my Dutch and I now make a conscious effort to groom both by reading media websites in both languages in my free time (which isn't much these days). I also find it hard to switch between German and Dutch rapidly, more so than Ger >Eng or NL > Eng, until I've been with the other for a few hours, which to me speaks to how close you will find the two when learning German.

I can't compare learning them formally as Dutch is one of the languages I started life with, but Dutch, having only vestiges of case left, has to be easier than German. Except maybe the pronunciation (can you say 'Scheveningen', anyone?).

Lavandula

nytraveler

If you are facile at learning languages (some people are hopeless - either because they are afraid of making mistakes - or they just don't intuit connections) you should have no trouble with German. Although the sentence structure can take a while to sort out.

As for the multiple variations of German - that can be a whole other field of study. (I didn't get Gruss Gott the first time I heard it in a small village in Bavaria.)

I applaud your taking languages so seriously. I travel to so many different places that I have given up trying to learn more than about 10 or 12 polite phrases in each one - and just count on my high school and college language lessons to come back. (I have found that desperation makes things pop up really quickly.)

LSky

I've been in the process of learning Germany for a couple of years. Because I don't get to Germany as often as I'd like, it's a slow process and somewhat succesful.

When I go to Germany, people can understand me. This is good but they insist upon answering my questions and this is where trouble begins.

I practice with Speak German with Michael Thomas. Mr Thomas only answers the questions he wants to answer in the way he wants me to learn. Random German people don't play along.

On our last trip, we went to a region where there wasn't a lot of English speaking people and I learned quite a bit. I felt I was ready because I could use sentences with 2 verbs. That seems to make people think I know more than I really do. That's okay, a couple of my landlords were very kind to help me improve.

I took German in high school but didn't remember much by the time I went to Germany. I can carry on a small conversation in Spanish. My French is best left unspoken.

DAX

German comes so much easier once you know Dutch mostly due to the similar word order and verbs/words.  Your Dutch would serve as instant cheat notes in your brain.  
Like Lavandula, I used my childhood Dutch as a crutch to learn German but over the years I can't help getting them occasionally mixed up while talking.  Grammatically German is only a bit more complicated just like Italian is a bit more complicated than Spanish.   People in Holland however would give you a strong disapproving look if you accidentally inject a German word while talking in Dutch, very unacceptable.

swandav2000

Hi Daniel_Williams,

I think you have two huge advantages over the average learner -- you already have two or more languages under your belt (I've heard that the second foreign language is a big hurdle), and you seem to be fairly young.

I'm an American. I studied French throughout school and was fairly conversant up until my 50s, when I decided to live in Germany. I started trying to learn German, then, at 53 years old. I'm finding it really difficult.

Yes, there are so many obstacles to speaking, and I always want to get the cases right, the gender right, the verb tenses right, and the word order right . . .. by the time the sentence is all right in my head, my listener has already walked two blocks away from me! I'm slowly getting over that and making myself speak even though I'm butchering the poor German language.

I'll just add that, it's not only the cases that are confusing, but it's also the declination of the adjectives. Geeeez.

I suggest you read "The Awful German Language" by Mark Twain. Here's a link:

http://www.bergerwerbung.at/files/Po...Mark_Twain.pdf

s

StCirq

I took German for about 8 years, after studying Latin for about 8 as well, and found it logical and systematic. That said, it was always harder for me than French and Italian, especially with the variations in conversational German - I can read it OK, but depending on where I am, I may or not be able to hold a decent conversation other than basics, especially if someone is speaking at a normal rate, whereas with French and Italian I can be fairly sure I'll be able to banter on no matter what region I'm in (though haven't been to Corsica or Sicily, for example - I might fail miserably there). German is certainly easier than Russian or Arabic, though - I found them enormously difficult, especially Arabic, as I had absolutely no linguistic reference points (plus I started learning them much later in life than the other languages I studied, which is always a barrier IMO).

But since you have the facility (and yes, some just do and some just don't), I think you'll be fine with it, especially with your background in Dutch.

PatrickLondon

I too learnt German at school the old-fashioned grammar way, and it takes a good while. I wouldn't claim to be particularly fluent in active speaking (I wouldn't trust myself to negotiate a business deal beyond fairly straightforward shopping), but passive understanding is still pretty good. What's more, I found it invaluable in understanding written Dutch, once I'd understood some basic transliterations.

However, German has the complexities that Dutch has (largely but not totally) abandoned, in terms of gender, cases, conjugations and declensions, as well as fairly strict formalities in sentence order: participles at the end of the sentence (so that you can be waiting quite a while for the operative word in the verb), always time reference before place. Not to mention the mysteries of particles (those little words that are not quite adverbs but change the mood of a sentence, where in English we might slip in a whole phrase like "you know", or "I suppose", or "after all" - I think the Dutch "er" might have a similar function). But you have a head start on some of those through Dutch.

Anna_Galea

I studied German for two years in my twenties. Maybe it is because I did not study it in my younger years at school, but twenty years on, I have forgotten most of it. I test myself on this when I read reviews on Tripadvisor in German, lol!!

Italian and French are a different matter. I have been exposed to the Italian language all my life - studying it for five years at school, doing many holidays in Italy, and watching Italian TV every single day (have no choice because of my hubby lol, he watches Italian news every single day, plus films, festivals etc - his father had studied at the Accademia delle Belle Arte in Rome for quite a few year, and they even talked some Italian at home when he was young).

So when in Italy I can understand mostly everything, and can talk back (maybe not as easily as English or Maltese - but Italians that I talk to always comment that I speak good Italian. So if you had to ask my opinion, I would say it would be nice to learn some Italian, it is easy to pronounce and without many words with letters that have no sound, and the grammer is not too complex. It also has a nice romantic sound - but maybe that is my opinion because I have always been exposed to it.

I learned French during my senior school and sixth form, and after that was not exposed to it much (I even had stopped reading in French) - except for reviews on Tripadvisor or isolated holidays in France. I still manage to understand reviews when I read them, and am able to converse very lightly when on holiday, but when they start hurrying too much in talking - then I am stuck. I can say that I used to understand them much more and converse in French 20 years ago - maybe it also has to do with my ageing brain, lol. However, I can safely say that I know French much more than German for sure - maybe studying it for a much longer tim e has to do with it. French also came back to me when I was helping my kids with homeworks etc.

English, I can say, is like a first language to me as is Maltese. I attended school in a convent where at least half the nuns were English, and we were only allowed to converse in English at school - even our Maltese, Italian or French lessons were conducted in English.

Lastly, they say Maltsse is very hard to learn, but I wouldn't know since it is my mother tongue.

But I you had to ask me which, in my opinion, is the hardest of the five languages I learned, I would say German, due to its complextity in grammar - but if you studed Dutch, you would find it easier than me for sure.

But in my opinion, will never master any language well unless you are exposed (and keep on exposing yourself) to the language. There is a lot of difference between learning a language and understanding and talking it fluently - even a particular region, like say in Italy, many would have their own dialect, idioms etc. that would differ from one region to another. In some places, you would not even think it is the Italian language. For instance in Sicily, many locals do not bother to conjugate verbs, but just use the infinitive all the time. But dialects etc are talked in many other languages I guess - knowing the proper language is what matters. Again, it is very hard to master a language properly unless you are exposed to it, and making sure that you hear it like on tv and read in that language continuously. Studying it helps a lot of course.