3 ms·

German is really hard to understand. I imagine the user lispm would have something to say about that.

by jwmc 13y ago

phaer 13y ago
It's easy, the trick is to learn it as your first language ;)
- lispm 13y ago
  It's also easy if you live in Germany or a German speaking surrounding. Being immersed into a German speaking surrounding helps - learning without other Germans from training material is less motivating, so it looks difficult. What actually the difficult part is, is the motivation, not the language. For somebody from an English speaking country learning German is not really difficult - English has lots of Germanic roots. It's just that many people in English-speaking countries don't learn any foreign language to a competent level, not even the easier ones, so everything looks difficult. What really would be a bit more 'difficult' is language with a different alphabet (Russian) or a language which is different on many levels (Japanese). It also depends on what level you want to be able to read German. If you want to be able to read philosophers (Kant, Schopenhauer, Hegel, Jaspers, Habermas, ...) then the subject is also difficult - it would help if you understand/know the concepts already - they are often independent of the language. English is also difficult. Parts of the language are easy, but the language is huge. I can read many english texts quite fluently, but there are novels where I am at 10% reading speed (compared to english texts from typical news sources) when I want to understand 95% of the words.
  - phaer 13y ago
    I think getting to a decent understanding of German should not be too hard, but some nuances are. Even some native speakers struggle with parts of the grammar, like dass/das, dativ/genetiv, etc. I am a native German speaker who learned English as his second language and is now learning Greek, including a different alphabet, as his third.
    - lispm 13y ago
      That's not a specialty of German. Lots of native English speakers struggle with English. http://www.theguardian.com/education/2013/oct/08/england-young-people-league-table-basic-skills-oecd http://www.theguardian.com/education/2013/oct/08/england-you... Literacy for example seems to be quite good in some countries with languages which for me would look difficult. The UK OTOH is not happy with their results.

German is really hard to understand. I imagine the user lispm would have something to say about that.

by jwmc 13y ago

German is really hard to understand. I imagine the user lispm would have something to say about that.

phaer 13y ago

It's easy, the trick is to learn it as your first language ;)

lispm 13y ago
It's also easy if you live in Germany or a German speaking surrounding. Being immersed into a German speaking surrounding helps - learning without other Germans from training material is less motivating, so it looks difficult. What actually the difficult part is, is the motivation, not the language. For somebody from an English speaking country learning German is not really difficult - English has lots of Germanic roots. It's just that many people in English-speaking countries don't learn any foreign language to a competent level, not even the easier ones, so everything looks difficult. What really would be a bit more 'difficult' is language with a different alphabet (Russian) or a language which is different on many levels (Japanese). It also depends on what level you want to be able to read German. If you want to be able to read philosophers (Kant, Schopenhauer, Hegel, Jaspers, Habermas, ...) then the subject is also difficult - it would help if you understand/know the concepts already - they are often independent of the language. English is also difficult. Parts of the language are easy, but the language is huge. I can read many english texts quite fluently, but there are novels where I am at 10% reading speed (compared to english texts from typical news sources) when I want to understand 95% of the words.
- phaer 13y ago
  I think getting to a decent understanding of German should not be too hard, but some nuances are. Even some native speakers struggle with parts of the grammar, like dass/das, dativ/genetiv, etc. I am a native German speaker who learned English as his second language and is now learning Greek, including a different alphabet, as his third.
  - lispm 13y ago
    That's not a specialty of German. Lots of native English speakers struggle with English. http://www.theguardian.com/education/2013/oct/08/england-young-people-league-table-basic-skills-oecd http://www.theguardian.com/education/2013/oct/08/england-you... Literacy for example seems to be quite good in some countries with languages which for me would look difficult. The UK OTOH is not happy with their results.