How hard of a language is German to learn?
October 10, 2007 by Admin - LearnGermanLanguage.org · 7 Comments
In the grand scheme of things, how hard is it to learn German? I am fluent in English and have studied 3 1/2 years of French and am wanting to take up a new language. How hard is German to learn? Is it hard to learn German when you are used to a romance language such as French? OR is German a bit easier since it is a teutonic language like English? Thanks in advance!
If you knew Latin it would be much easier to learn the German language.
But even if you knew Latin German is much harder to learn.
The adjective shows three declination-schemes depending on which accompanying word you have to choose (definite article, indefinite article or no article).
P. ex.
the great man
der groß-e Mann
a great man
ein groß-er Mann
great man
groß-er Mann
You have to differentiate and learn four cases:
Nom.: der Mann
Gen.: des Mann-es
Dat.: dem Mann
Akk.: den Mann
Linked with the definite article and an adjective you got:
Nom.: der groß-e Mann
Gen.: des groß-en Mann-es
Dat.: dem groß-en Mann
Akk.: den groß-en Mann
If you have to use the indefinite article you got:
Nom: ein groß-er Mann
Gen.: ein-es groß-en Mann-es
Dat.: ein-em groß-en Mann
Akk.: ein-en groß-en Mann
Without any article you got the same forms without the indefinite article:
Nom: groß-er Mann
Gen.: groß-en Mann-es
Dat.: groß-em Mann
Akk.: groß-en Mann
This is the masculine gender; in German you have also the feminine and the neuter gender:
the man – the woman – the child
der Mann – die Frau – das Kind
Okay, masculine and neuter gender are declinated similarily, except of the Akk. neutr. which is formally identical with the Nominative (as in Latin).
This is much harder than in French where no declination is found.
Somewhat likened these both languages are in their conjugation of the verbs – this conjugation shows a multifarious picture of forms and irregular verbs.
Take the personal endings of a regular verb in present time:
fragen (to ask)
ich frag-e
du frag-st
er/sie/es frag-t
wir frag-en
ihr frag-t
sie frag-en
German is my maternal language and I estimate it – but as we natural speakers of German say:
"Deutsche Sprach', schwere Sprach'." That means:
"German language is a hard language."
But hey, we love it – otherwise there wouldn't so much stuff to discuss and argue.
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