High-School German...?

Question

Has anyone taken H/S German or have a Child who has taken or IS taking it? Do you find you have used it conversationally...hopefully it is MORE useful than H/S Spanish. My Freshman Son insists on taking German, he says it will help him in International Marketing someday by helping him read Contract Law which he says wil be written mostly in German..TRUE or NOT? Your opinions Please!

Answer 1

Highschool German.. the normal Hauptschul German, which is the equivalent to common High School which everybody has to attend.. is Ok I guess but forget all about Highschool English at German schools. Germans who only go to normal High School don't manage to speak sufficient English to hold a conversation. It is a sad fact that only those who go to grammar school or college are good at speaking English or to University.. the lack of education when it comes to teaching German kids English at German schools is atrocious. I only speak it because I went for 3 years to a language school after i finished High school... I could not talk to an English speaking person with my Highschool English at a German school..

Answer 2

I didn't take it in HS because it wasn't offered, however I did take it in college. A lot of your scientific articles are written it German and you can read several Germanic languages with only a little more study if you know German, for instance, we translated some Dutch in class just to see how close they are.

Any foreign language is a help and he can take another in college if he needs to. You shouldn't try to push him into taking Spanish if he wants to take German because he might not do as well as he could.

Good luck to him and I hope he enjoys the class.

Answer 3

If you live in the US you are more likely to run into a Spanish speaking person rather than a German speaking one, that's why s lot of people take Spanish.

Knowing this, I still took German in high school for 5 years, and never spoke to someone in German outside the class. I enjoyed it, it was a challenge and I DON'T regret it at all!!

If your son is interested I say encourage him!

Answer 4

there is ALWAYS a need for German speakers..  h**l, one of the best paying translation jobs is for FAKE languages..  (such as Elvish, or Klingon which is used for some mental patients)

I loved my Deutsche classes ..  extremely difficult for me, as a dyslexic.. but while, I never had anyone to practice conversing with..  (and thought I had lost it all) I can still pick up a book in German and read it.. (I may need the help of a german dictionary sometimes.. but for the most part I can make my way through it)

Answer 5

My personal experience is that I have used german very little. Most germans speak german in their homes and english outside, BUT, if you are planning to travell Europe, work in Latin America, you may use the german language. I am in Tx - working for a few weeks - and I interacted with the german speaking managers of the place I work at. I am an engineer, so I know little about Law. Between german and spanish, I think the latter it is much more useful than german, because there is a lot of people speaking the language. On the other hand, if anybody needs a german speaking person, why not hiring a german inmigrant that speaks english? Bottom line, specialization in any language will depend on the carreer someone's taking (law, for instance) and that is NOT a short conversational course, rather something very specialized. In both cases, german and/or spanish, he bottom line is: "si no practicas no aprendes nunca / wenn du nicht ubst, lernst nicht."  If you don't practice, you never learn. Good luck.

Answer 6

I have been taking German at my high school for 3 years now. It does help at some level, but you really have to listen to they way they talk to understand and there are different ways the speak. exp. like the north and the south. The southerners here have the accent they have a  different way of saying it.