7 ms·

German has a difficult grammar (was a real pain when learning German as a kid) but at least when reading German you know how to pronounce it, English pronunciat

German has a difficult grammar (was a real pain when learning German as a kid) but at least when reading German you know how to pronounce it, English pronunciation like German gender must be learn by heart :)

TomAnthony 5y ago
Alas, that isn't as true as German's tell me it is, I find. "Weg" <- how do you pronounce this? "Geh weg" (go away) "Der Weg ist da drüben!" (the path is over there)
- seritools 5y ago
  Weg != weg, so it's pretty clear. You missed "Gehweg" (sidewalk) though. :^)
- usr1106 5y ago
  There are some exceptions, sure. But German pronunciation is 80% simple and regular at least whereas English is more like 80% complicated and irregular.
  - pacaro 5y ago
    Compound words do have the potential to throw this for a loop. The pronunciation is regular if you can decompose the word, but if you miss where the word boundaries are all bets are off. For example "linkshändig"
    - usr1106 5y ago
      That could be true for some words, but not in your example. "sh" does not exist in any basic German word, so the boundary must be there.
- advanced-DnD 5y ago
  Once you learnt the phonetics for the alphabet, you'll find German is pretty consistence. I don't know what you're trying convey in your examples though, because all the example have consistent pronunciation. Inconsistence pronunciation often because it is borrowed words from French (das Experiment (Ex-pe-ri-mo'n?)) or English (das Schedule, informal vocab.)
usr1106 5y ago
> German has a difficult grammar I am not sure whether this can be objectively measured. All kids learn (at least) one language the natural way. I have the strong feeling that related languages will always be easier for them. I speak English as a foreign language. I don't think articles in English are a challenge. It's the USA, but not the France. I can feel the cold or a cold and know the difference. I don't know many rules, it's mostly like I would use them in my mother tongue. I have many colleagues, whose mother tongue does not know articles at all. If they write a page of text, there are often a dozen of mistakes related to articles to correct. But it's not that I would just be smarter. I have spoken another foreign language daily for over 25 years. I speak fluently and can make myself fully understood. Still I make quite some mistakes all the time.

TomAnthony 5y ago

Alas, that isn't as true as German's tell me it is, I find. "Weg" <- how do you pronounce this? "Geh weg" (go away) "Der Weg ist da drüben!" (the path is over there)

seritools 5y ago
Weg != weg, so it's pretty clear. You missed "Gehweg" (sidewalk) though. :^)
usr1106 5y ago
There are some exceptions, sure. But German pronunciation is 80% simple and regular at least whereas English is more like 80% complicated and irregular.
- pacaro 5y ago
  Compound words do have the potential to throw this for a loop. The pronunciation is regular if you can decompose the word, but if you miss where the word boundaries are all bets are off. For example "linkshändig"
  - usr1106 5y ago
    That could be true for some words, but not in your example. "sh" does not exist in any basic German word, so the boundary must be there.
advanced-DnD 5y ago
Once you learnt the phonetics for the alphabet, you'll find German is pretty consistence. I don't know what you're trying convey in your examples though, because all the example have consistent pronunciation. Inconsistence pronunciation often because it is borrowed words from French (das Experiment (Ex-pe-ri-mo'n?)) or English (das Schedule, informal vocab.)

usr1106 5y ago

> German has a difficult grammar I am not sure whether this can be objectively measured. All kids learn (at least) one language the natural way. I have the strong feeling that related languages will always be easier for them. I speak English as a foreign language. I don't think articles in English are a challenge. It's the USA, but not the France. I can feel the cold or a cold and know the difference. I don't know many rules, it's mostly like I would use them in my mother tongue. I have many colleagues, whose mother tongue does not know articles at all. If they write a page of text, there are often a dozen of mistakes related to articles to correct. But it's not that I would just be smarter. I have spoken another foreign language daily for over 25 years. I speak fluently and can make myself fully understood. Still I make quite some mistakes all the time.