How hard is german to learn?

[devinemi83]

I hate foreign lang. courses. LOL I was told Penn state mckeesport only will offer Spanish, french, or german to its students. I already took an intro spanish course in high school, and I didnt care for it. I dont care much either for french, so that leaves german. Anyone know if its hard to learn?

[888888]

I hate foreign lang. courses. LOL I was told Penn state mckeesport only will offer Spanish, french, or german to its students. I already took an intro spanish course in high school, and I didnt care for it. I dont care much either for french, so that leaves german. Anyone know if its hard to learn?

No, it is not.

[northcat_8]

I don't think german is that difficult to learn, I took it in HS. It depends on how far you want to go in learning it....MASTERY or enough to pass

[tweedledee]

I had a mate who was posted to Germany in the British army, and he could speak it fluently after 2 years. He said it was easy, due to the use of many German words that have gone into the English language. ( altough I can't think of any at the moment).

[fmctm1sw]

Easy, I learned some in high school:

Hola! como esta! abra la puerta (that's "open the door"). See.. Easy.. 8)

[flaninacupboard]

i take it that's spanish, cos it ain't german!

German is ok, learning german and french at the same time i found german easier. the whole gender thing pisses me off, but that's the only challenging aspect. pronunciation is easy, sentences are formed in a logical way (unlike english) and yes, some words are similar to their english counterparts - bier=beer, tur=door (spoken as toor) etc.

[fmctm1sw]

i take it that's spanish, cos it ain't german!

That explains the "F"

[Rookie64]

i take it that's spanish, cos it ain't german!

Yea...that's Spanish


German would be - Hallo! so! öffnen Sie die Tür

French - Bonjour ! comme ceci ! ouvrez la porte


I had two years of French in High School


I picked up more on French, German and Italian from watching a lot of European movies over the years.
I think that's the easiest way to learn it.


French was the easiest for me to pick up on.

[tweedledee]

Yes, It's so easy a child could do it, and let's face it, a lot of German children do.

[hech54]

I'm a yank living in Germany and learning (or trying to) German right now. As stated....alot of the works are similar BUT the gender thing is a true pain in the ass.
Tür - door - femininum(feminine)
Teppich - carpet - maskulinum(masculine)
Fenster - window - neutrum(neutral)
ALL IN THE SAME ROOM !!!

Verbs?
trinken - drinking(sounds similar)
ich trinke
du trinkst
er trinkt
wir trinken
ihr trinkt
sie trinken

And so one and so on.
I chalk up my inabilities to that "old dog new tricks" saying...

Penn State McKeesport? - I grew up VERY close to there. My grandfather lived in White Oak.

[Capmaster]

German sounds to me like the exact opposite of French. A good thing German sounds like every word was sawed off cleanly, and precisely, while French is this incomprehensible blur between words, sounding like the speaker has a mouth full of crap And the French want the whole world to learn French because it's the only "civilized" language. :P (As you can tell, I'm no fan of the French)

[flaninacupboard]

yeah, they couldn't beat our navy so now they're conquering us in a slightly subtler way.

[Capmaster]

yeah, they couldn't beat our navy so now they're conquering us in a slightly subtler way.

I'm sure any conquering they have done or are doing was accidental. They couldn't even win their own civil war - it was a stalemate

[flaninacupboard]

both sides decided a bit more wine was more important.
The slow yet steady much of the U.S.E. has france at it's core, it's only a matter of time

[Capmaster]

I want to apologize to devinemi83 for shamelessly threadjacking and starting an anti-French rant.

[flaninacupboard]

you're a post ho, you can't help it. perhaps it should be a new section on politick - french bashing 101

[Capmaster]

you're a post ho, you can't help it. perhaps it should be a new section on politick - french bashing 101

Good idea at first blush, but when you think about it, there would never be any healthy debate

[Culley]

I've studied German, Latin, Spanish, and Swedish.

Thus far, German has been the easiest for me. It's logically laid out and the sounds aren't too difficult to pick up on. One nice thing about German as concerns pronounciation is if you encounter an unfamiliar word, you'll have a good chance getting the pronounciation correct. Unlike English, where spelling isn't always useful in regards to pronounciation. For instance, "bomb," "tomb," and "comb."

[devinemi83]

I want to apologize to devinemi83 for shamelessly threadjacking and starting an anti-French rant.

No problem dude, its one of the reasons I DONT want to take french. LOL