Is German a relatively straightforward language to learn?
October 26, 2008 by Admin - LearnGermanLanguage.org
Hi, I would like to learn German but didn't have much luck with languages at school. It sounds to me like English and German are very similar in some aspects and a lot of the worlds I hear on the TV sound virtually identical. Is this the case?
Thanks!
I think if I can do it any one can. I think I was lucky as I lived in germany for 5 years whilst with the Military in Paderborn and Sennelager. My children were quite small then so I got to meet other childrens mothers who were German and they offered to help me learn, It was great! one day we went to my house and spoke nothing but English to teach them, and the next day we would go to a German friends house and speak nothing but german so I learnt quite quickly as I wanted to know what they were saying (in case they were making a fool of me) We could also ask if we didnt know the word.
You will find if you are Scottish it is maybe easier to learn, as a lot of the word sound similiar, (like Gaelic).
Go to a library and get a talking learning disc, and this will help you. also a vorterbook ..german for dictionary/german English you can pick one up very cheap in any shop that sell books.
Can you not get on a course if you are the lad that is in the forces?
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21 Responses to “Is German a relatively straightforward language to learn?”
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easy at first, then it gets oh so complicated
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Yeah, well if I can learn it in grade 2, I'm sure u can lol
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Modern English is a culmination of Old English and Latin (hence the French and German) so it's why a lot of words are similar.
It is quite straighforward to learn
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I gave it up as soon as I could. They have about 18 words for THE ! Too confusing.
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German is a lovely language but the grammar can be hard to get used to, which is what I always tripped up over.
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Yes English & German are very similar except German is more aggressively spoken
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urrrggghhh why would you wanna learn german?
Spanish is the easiest as you mainly say it as you read it
good luck
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I think it's relatively easy to pick up athough I did learn some in primary school.
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Not all of german sounds the same and there are some really long and complicated words to get your tongue around. Why not get a CD lesson from the bookshop and give it a try. If you find it's really not for you, then you can always try another language. Just don't give up too easily. Give it at least 2 months before dropping the language.
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I am currently taking German classes and I myself have found German to be a very easy language to learn. The only problem that I and many others encounter is the grammer. You need to be able to tell what a Nominative, Accusative, Dative, Genetive case was. I find it quite difficult to know when to use, "ein" "eine" "einer" "einem" "einen" and the like. Also you will need to remember the gender of nouns. The gender of nouns won't seem important at first but it become very important to be able to speak German correctly.
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You have to learn your der and die from your das.
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It's a fairly straight forward language to learn conversationally, but if you wish to be percise and fluent, the grammar can become quite complex.
I'd recommend picking up some phrase books and perhaps Michael Thomas' German guide, very good stuff.
The beauty about conversational German is that it usually is a case of say what you see, no real weird sounds that need to be obeyed and only one or two issues with pronounciation i.e. (the umlaut, ie sounding like ei and the double s).
It's a great language to shout in though!
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German A-Levels
I don't want to discourage you, therefore I will leave that job to Mark Twain and his hilarious essay " That awful German language." I read it when I need a good laugh but you may take it as a warning about the seemingly simple, oddly familiar language.
One good thing about German: it is a phonetic language. Each letter is pronounced the same all the time.
Mit freundlichen Grüssen!
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Relatively, yes. I found it easy, but then I'm good at languages anyway. The grammar and word order are similar to Medieval English, and can take some getting used to, but that'll be the hardest part.
Vocabulary – you could say the same thing. Many of the words are similar to the modern English, but just as many are the same as older English words that have disappeared.
In short, there's only one way to find out – try it!
Ellie – not much use in Germany, though.
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I think if I can do it any one can. I think I was lucky as I lived in germany for 5 years whilst with the Military in Paderborn and Sennelager. My children were quite small then so I got to meet other childrens mothers who were German and they offered to help me learn, It was great! one day we went to my house and spoke nothing but English to teach them, and the next day we would go to a German friends house and speak nothing but german so I learnt quite quickly as I wanted to know what they were saying (in case they were making a fool of me) We could also ask if we didnt know the word.
You will find if you are Scottish it is maybe easier to learn, as a lot of the word sound similiar, (like Gaelic).
Go to a library and get a talking learning disc, and this will help you. also a vorterbook ..german for dictionary/german English you can pick one up very cheap in any shop that sell books.
Can you not get on a course if you are the lad that is in the forces?
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German is relatively easy to learn to start with but they do complicated things with their grammer, tenses and word order so it does get more complicated as you go along! Every word is either masculine (der), feminine (die), neuter (das) or plural (die) too so you'll need to learn all of that (eg. der Bahnhof – the train station, die Post – the postoffice etc)!! Then you'll take this and learn ein, eine, einen etc etc!! It is fun though and the vocab is quite straightforward to spell and pronounce so give it a whirl and see how you get on!!
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I think it depends. I lived in austria for two years when I was a child, and along with regular visits ever since, am now pretty fluent. My grammar however isnt that great, but I think austrian people are a bit more relaxed about grammer, and using the correct "the" isn't so important. If you want to learn just to be understood, you might be able to just forget about learning whether its der, die, das, dem den etc etc, and just go with the one that sounds right. Obviously if you want to sound professional this isn't a good idea.
The easiest way by far is to learn in the country itself, and go to a school there to learn it. If you arent able to do that, maybe you could find yourself a german friend or penfriend who you can practice your german with.
Once you've learned the basics, watching german tv or reading a book – even an easy childrens book – is a good way to practice it. comic books are a good start – easy to read, and lots of pictures to help you to understand the story line.
As to words that are identical, there are a few, but also some red herrings (like handy for mobile phone)
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Yes it is true that german and english are similar, fisrt of all because they both have latin background, lots of words are very close one to another, german is not very difficult, you might have some problems with the grammar, for some reason all latin languages have difficult grammar, lots of tenses, but any second, third and so on language is wonderful.If you want to make it easier for you you should start finding out about the History of Germany, see if there`s something you find exciting and that might help.Try finding a connection between you and german language.
Good luck!
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Mate don't do that.
I'm French and have been learning German for ten years and English for only three years, but unfortunately if I am not far from fluent in English I am still bad at German, think about that…
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I am a student who learns german currently. Well yes you really are right that there are words that sound pretty much the same in english and german. But in my experience the hardest bits are understanding all the vocabulary and putting that when reading for example reading comprehensions. And also german grammer gets pretty confusing because there are different forms to use for different times. so like there is passiv, dativ, akkusativ, genetiv etc. But i think you could put up with that! so go for it :]
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One of my German teachers at school said that learning German is similar to learning maths cos it keeps to its rules like maths does.
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