Hi 💕 How are you? Could you please share some a) secrets of the German language b) best ways to learn the German language c) the greatest way to keep going, not feeling sad and frustrated when you're 1. Trying to speak and can't make the words go out because your brain is -blank- 2. Looking forward more vocabulary and don't know where to find a lot of it 3. Understanding the whole grammar situation. Sorry for the long ask, I just have a lot of questions 🙎
Hi! I’m well, thank you! Let’s tackle your questions - I’ll make this ask my future reference ask for any questions I get about German, so I’ll try to be thorough. Also thanks for your outline, makes things a lot easier for me haha!
German
A.) Secrets of the German Language
Let’s start with the linguistic secrets-that-are-not-really-secrets:
German is a Germanic language (surprise!) with about 95 million native speakers, mainly in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. It’s estimated that there are around 220 million German speakers worldwide.
More specifically, German is a West-Germanic language, meaning that the languages most closely related to German are Dutch, Afrikaans, and English. (Yes, English.)
Austrian German, Swiss German, and “German” German are all referred to as German, but I think you’ll find that even though they (mostly) adhere to the same grammar rules, they sound very different and also differ slightly in vocabulary. Here’s a video in Austrian German, one in Swiss German, and the German news from yesterday, and of course each has many many different dialects in itself. We can communicate with each other if all parties make an effort towards mutual understanding. If not, then… not.
German is a fusional language, meaning that one morpheme (e.g. a case ending or a verb ending) carries several bits of information, e.g. about number, tense, case, and/or mode. For native English speakers, the inflections will be the most unknown part to learn as English hardly inflects at all (basically no cases, no verb endings, nothing. :(. )
For more secrets, see this post I wrote about what German is really like.
B.) Best Ways To Learn the German Language
There’s no single best way, but there are several approaches you can take (this goes for any foreign language tbh). Things to consider:
Is your native language or a language you’re already proficient in related to German? Native Dutch speakers will have it comparatively easy in vocabulary. If you know Latin, German grammar holds no more secrets for you.
Are you an apt foreign language learner? The more foreign languages you’ve already learnt, the easier it gets because you know how to use resources, what to look for in grammar and what your preferred learning strategies are.
Are you motivated and, to some degree, disciplined? If you just love German and really have the drive to learn it, you won’t get bored or frustrated as easily as someone who’s forced to learn it.
Things that might help, especially in the beginning:
Immersion. I made a whole post about this, but the mantra is always the same: Even if you don’t understand anything in the beginning, just being surrounded by as much German as you can will help you loads. Listen to German music or news or TV, watch German movies or shows, read German books/German translations of your favourite books, use German recipes, switch your phone and Laptop to German etc etc.
Get a Grammar Book. I found that this helped me most with my foreign languages. Having a grammar reference on hand is extremely valuable, and there are many awesome German inflection tables waiting for you!
Get a Textbook. You don’t have to do every single task and exercise in it, but it helps you to choose what to tackle next, and often provides you with texts specifically made for your level. If you’re a beginner, get one that says “A1″ on it (or, you know, “for beginners”).
Talk and Write. I know it sucks in the beginning because you don’t know the right words and everything sounds stupid, but it’s the only way to slowly become more comfortable with a new language and get out of the passive-language-learner-zone. Consuming (e.g. reading and listening) is much easier than producing (writing and speaking), and your goal is to do both equally well. I’m not saying you should write essays and prepare parliament speeches - just talk to yourself and write a couple sentences a day about whatever you like.
C.) Motivation and Resources for…
1. Trying to Speak
Don’t fear the dialects. Germans are capable of speaking in a way you’ll understand, especially if they know you’re not a native speaker. They’ll make the effort because you’re making one too!
You can mess up. We’re able to just deduce what you mean most of the time, even if your cases or sentence structure or noun genders are a bit messed up. Not even Germans are always in agreement of which gender or participle form is the correct one, and we can still talk to each other.
There are only 5 German sounds that don’t exist in English, which really isn’t that many: r, ö, ü, and two realisations of /ch/. (English also has sounds that German doesn’t have, e.g. /th/ and /w/, so it’s all fair.)
German is pronounced as it’s written. There are no weird though/through/tough and read/read situations. The only slightly inconvenient things are unmarked syllable breaks, but you won’t have to worry about those in the beginning and at some point you’ll just have a feeling for where they are.
For Resources: learn IPA, listen to news in slow German, discover some German youtubers, music, shows and movies. And talk to native speakers (or message them).
Listen to some people who can speak German: Sandra Bullock, Diane Kruger, Heidi Klum, for example, or Chris Pratt (he’s the best celebrity non-native speaker of German I’ve heard so far).
2. Trying to Find Vocabulary
As above, get a textbook with a good vocabulary section.
Look up everything you need. It’s the best way to learn words you actually use. Just write a little paragraph about your day or whatever you like regularly, and look up everything you don’t know.
German has extremely productive compounding, meaning you can just combine two or three or fifteen words to make a new one and everyone will understand it even if you’re the first person to ever come up with a combination. It’s fun and easy!
Read books. Especially one’s you already know because then you can just guess the meaning of words from the context. Every international bestseller has been translated into German, and we have some pretty good originals as well (Grimm’s fairytales, for example).
3. Trying to Understand the Grammar Situation
If you know Latin, don’t worry about German grammar. You’ll have heard it all before.
If you don’t, don’t worry either. Many people have learnt it, so you can too! Familiarise yourself with the terminology (verb, noun, declension, conjugation, numerus/genus/tempus etc) and keep your grammar book nearby. Don’t despair after two days.
Here’s a post I wrote about the case sytem, why we have it, and some basic explanations.
Some things are not as important as others for communication. As I said above, we’ll understand you even if you make mistakes. Begin with the essentials like verb tenses and person, and singular and plural. Whether or not you know how to correctly invert the sentence order in causal subordinate clauses isn’t that important. (We basically don’t use future tenses at all in spoken German.)
Sentence structure in German is very free because of all the cool inflections, so there aren’t as many rules as in English on where to put which object. There are certain rules and things that “sound weird” to native speakers, but we’ll still get it. Don’t worry.
Any more questions or on the brink of despair with a vocab/grammar problem? Send me an ask. I’ll do my best. :)
