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| 10 resons to learn German |
By Papia Mitra |
Published
11/8/2006
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About languages
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10 reasons to learn German
1. Germany is the world's largest exporter.
2. German is the most commonly spoken language in the EU.
3. 18% of the world's books are published in German.
4. Germany is home to numerous international corporations.
5. German is no harder to learn to speak and write than other languages.
6. German is the second-most commonly used scientific language.
7. German is the language of Goethe, Nietzsche and Kafka. Mozart,
Bach, Beethoven, Freud and Einstein also spoke German.
8. Speaking and understanding German will deepen your knowledge of the culture and improve your employment opportunities.
9. Learning German provides deeper insights into a region that plays a vital role in central Europe's intellectual and economic life and in its cultural history.
10. In many regions, Germans account for the largest percentage of tourists.
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Comments
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Comment #1
(Posted by papia)
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Japanese-Online.com has been providing free learning services to people who wish to study the Japanese language.
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Comment #2
(Posted by FourBear)
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I think point # 7 is most relevant to me. I'm reading works by Kafka, and I just know that so much is lost in translation! I think that great theoretical works are best read in their original language.
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Comment #3
(Posted by tater03)
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Thank you for this article. My husband started learning German years ago but said that it was just to hard to learn. I will have to show him this. I think he just gave up to soon.
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Comment #4
(Posted by felice206)
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Have to agree with fourbear - books are always best read in their original written language. Translated versions often translate into the translators views instead of what is intended
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Comment #5
(Posted by tater03)
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I would agree that reading a book in its orginal language would be the best. I just wish I knew some of the different languages. I am a reader and love to read about the Holocaust. I have found that a lot of the books that I have not read are in a different language.
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Comment #6
(Posted by Starlily)
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Thank you for this list. I thought you made some great points! I am curious what you would base your statement #5 on, that German is no harder to learn to speak and write than other languages... Wouldn't that be a personal observation and vary from person to person? Or is there a scientific way of proving if a particular language is easier or harder to learn? Or did you mean that there are other languages out there that are JUST AS HARD to learn as German? LOL, just wondering...
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Comment #7
(Posted by FourBear)
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Well, I think German is very similar to English. I'm guessing that what throws people are the "interfixes." They are additions to words (like prefixes, before the word, and suffixes, after the word) that are added in the middle of the word. My guess that German's similarity to English and a few other languages accounts for statement #5.
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Comment #8
(Posted by felice206)
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I assume it really depends on the person as well. Sometimes one language poses a threat for one, and is quite easy for another. Just depends with what you grew up with and your learning styles I suppose
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Comment #9
(Posted by sweet_mayhem)
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fourbear, i couldn't agree with you more. i never considered learning german before but after reading the point # 7, i considered it for a second. haha..then again, i still think the pronunciations alone of german words are very difficult. right now, spanish lands on the top 1 spot in my foreign-languages-to-learn list. i certainly want to read pablo neruda's and jose rizal's works in their original language, which is no other than spanish.
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Comment #10
(Posted by Starlily)
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For me, having to learn the different genders (and no definite rules as to which nouns would be which gender), as well as the different cases, and the articles changing depending on the case, was quite frustrating. It would be so much more enjoyable if I could just enjoy conversations in german without stressing so much about the technical stuff :)
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Comment #11
(Posted by sweet_mayhem)
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starlily, that is also one of my concerns in learning a foreign language's grammar! oh, it can be frustrating. i could still remember my aunt telling me about these genders for objects in italian. all you can possibly do is memorize them! aargh.
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Comment #12
(Posted by FourBear)
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Ugh, gender of words can be a pain...especially when there are exceptions! It also doesn't help when some verbs look like they could be nouns, and vice versa...then you really have to go by context.
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Comment #13
(Posted by papia)
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You should use your first language while learning the second.German and English are both Germanic languages with a lot of Latin and Greek thrown in. There are many cognates, words that are similar in both languages. Examples include: der Garten (garden), das Haus (house), schwimmen (swim), singen (sing), braun (brown) and ist (is).
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Comment #14
(Posted by papia)
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Learning a second language is similar in some ways to learning your first, but... there is one big difference! When learning a second language (German), you have interference from the first (English or whatever). Your brain wants to fall back on the English way of doing things, so you have to fight that tendency.
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Comment #15
(Posted by papia)
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Translation should only be a temporary crutch! Stop thinking in English and trying to do things the “English” way! As your vocabulary grows, get away from translating and start thinking in German and German phrases. Remember: German-speakers don't have to translate when they speak. Neither should you!
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Comment #16
(Posted by sweet_mayhem)
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that is so true, papia! this is one of the vital advices i got from a professor in college. she said that a language learner must avoid thinking in his mother tongue and translating it to the target language as he speaks. instead, he must think in the target language in order for him to have the flow of speaking it in a natural or, at least, less difficult way.
i guess a beginner can't apply this suggestion right away; but once she knows quite a lot of sentences and ideas, she can think in the target language so that speaking becomes less challenging for her.
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Comment #17
(Posted by trick-r-treat)
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I think you have brought up some very good points on why people should learn German. I don't think very many people take these things into consideration.
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Comment #18
(Posted by riskey58)
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I agree with number5. I think German is a hard language to learn. My grand mother was German and she tried to teach me.I really had a hard time picking it up.
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Comment #19
(Posted by FourBear)
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That's great advice, papia. I think people should be reminded of this repeatedly. Unless you have a job as a translator, you should never have to translate!
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Comment #20
(Posted by snowbirdfsf)
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i never realized how nice german sounded until i started hanging out with a guy who is half german. he'll talk to my animals and it sounds so cool. i really like the point about prominent intellectuals who spoke the language. i would love to read some goethe in the original.
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Comment #21
(Posted by riskey58)
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Like I was saying earlier> My grandmother spoke german.Because of this I would like to learn German.
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Comment #22
(Posted by Leonard)
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Im from Germany, but I think german is for englishman very hard.
For me, german is the easiest language in the world.
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