How Difficult is it to LEARN GERMAN?!!?

Question

And how long did it take you? Is there a lot of hidden things about it, like nouns, and adjectives that have to be changed around to fit the sentence. Like spanish does? Any info. on this subject would greatly help. Im 21, and I have always been in love with the country and culture. My dream/goal would be to learn the language as best I can, and take a long visit to see the concentration camps and all the ww2 history Germany has to offer! Thanks Guys!!

Answer 1

its pretty difficult...Im German and I cant understand how I had learn it when I was a kid lol but if you realy want learn it, you will get it fast...when you are deep in the German gramma, you will understand it...it is just a thing of interest.

ask me via IM or email and I explain you the complex thing about "Das" and "Dass" after a ","...just if you want ;)

btw, Germany has more than the dark pastens...visit us in few week to the Euro Cup and you will see a realy happy nation :D a whole month party...and I will be part of it...we all support our Soccer team :D http://de.youtube.com/watch?v=VLWuCW-NJl...

Answer 2

German is a different kind of language to spanish. Spanish is like french and italian. I'm learning french and german, and my mother tongue is english. I find that german is alot more similar to english, The pronunciation is pretty much as you see it, and once you get your head around the basic grammar points it all clicks really.

Good luck! It's well worth it!

Answer 3

I studied both German and French in HS, and German is definitely harder, and much more complicated.  It also depends what "type" of German you are learning.  Most schools in the US teach a very "loose" colloquial German.  This is perfectly fine to use as a tourist, but not for much else.   And the Germans can be very formal, so you may not get very far without some knowlegde of the more formal use.

In my case, my father and my mother's parents were German.  My Dad was not very happy with the German I learned in school; he would've preferred I learn HochDeutsch, or high German.  (This is what is used in business situations and the like.)  Either way, German is certainly a complicated language to learn.

Also, a word of caution.  While I appreciate your enthusiasm, you might want to learn a lot more about the country and its history.  WWII and the surrounding time period were only about 15 years out of hundreds of years of history.   Also, it's very tacky to treat the concentration camps as tourist attractions.  Yes, people visit them, but they are very, very sobering places where poeple basically went to die.  

That said, please don't lose your enthusiasm for Germany.  There is much, much to learn, and it is really Europe's "hidden gem"-- many tourists pass it over for France and Italy.  I just recommend you learn a little more.  :o)  For fun, you might start here:  http://www.bensbauernhof.com/index.html --just a fun little site.

I'd be happy to answer any questions you might have.

Answer 4

Yeah my spanisch teacher always says that is was kind of hard for him.

By the way you just want to visit the concentration camps sry but thats so dipical for a lot of americans :( We have so much more to offer so many beautiful things...come on girl and visit something peacefull :)

Answer 5

its pretty difficult. i learned it for 4 years in high school and have now taken 2 courses in Uni...... and I still don't know it all and get easily confused with the cases. its nothing like spanish.... and some of the good things are that some words are like english words.... yeah but i might be studying in Germany next year! hopefully i'll finally be fluent after i get done. i think immersion is the only true way to learn it really well...... I think you should see a lot more than then concentration camps........ otherwise you really aren't seeing Germany.... yeah....

Answer 6

I don't think that German is a difficult language to learn! I was brought up with both the German and English language, lucky me ey! My husband learned the language when we met and he picked it up really well, and didn't find it difficult! Go for it, all the best!

Answer 7

German is DIFFICULT!  The one thing that makes it a bit easier for English speakers is that many of the words are like English.  However, the grammar to German is much more difficult than English and unlike in English, if you say something grammatically incorrectly in German, you may not be understood or it may not make sense.

I lived over there for 7 years.  It took me 6 months to feel like I could even somewhat get around in restaurants, grocery stores, post office.  It took 2 years before I felt like I could pretty much handle any situaiton and any conversation.  And this was living there being totally immersed.  I would suggest you take a total immersion course.  Check into taking a 2 week course, IN GERMANY, and then you can travel after that.  You would have a blast and meet lots of interesting people.

Answer 8

I'm German, and I didn't actually want to answer this question, as you seem very enthusiastic about languages anyway. I am sure you CAN learn German; just visit http://usaerklaert.blogspot.com/ if you ever feel disencouraged. That's a blog written by an American in PERFECT GERMAN explaining us the USA.

In my opinion, ANY language can be learned, and you MUST make mistakes to learn a language, just like a child does. I know it's difficult when you're adult to make yourself ridiculous by making some silly mistake; but having said this:

German is in one sense a very logical and well-structured language. Yes, everything in a sentence gets flexed, but it follows rules, with very few exceptions (the "irregular verbs" everybody hates). Once you know the rules, you can construct new phrases very easily.

If you know Spanish (or French, or Italian) you might know that these languages have two genders, male and female. Now, German has three: male, female, and neuter. And which gender a noun has does not necessarily follow logic. "die Kuh" (the cow, female) and "der Stier" (the bull, male) and "das Kalb" (the calf, neuter) follows logic a bit; but "der Löffel" (the spoon, male), "die Gabel" (the fork, female) and "das Messer" (the knife, neuter) completely run out of it. So with every noun, you'll have to learn the gender; otherwise, the rest of the sentence will go completely wrong, as everything flexes along gender.

I know some people who really hate the German language, and some who fell in love with it. Just start learning, and see how you like it.

I feel a little bit sad that you just want to visit Germany to learn about WWII and the concentration camps. It's so long ago, and Germany has changed so much, you can have lots of fun over here, too. Yes, WWII and Hitler's crimes are part of German history, and we won't forget; but Germany is a wonderful country (and I'm not saying this out of patriotism) you should really see as it is today, not as it was in those dark days of our history. They sent my grandpa to Russia and he was shot there; and almost every German of my generation (I'm getting 41 this year) has some story like that in his family history. That's why we refuse to lead senseless wars. We won't forget WWII because we can't.

But we were talking about language, weren't we?