The Awful German Language

As someone trying to learn german, I have to say that I've been surprised at how utterly illogical and complex it is. More akain to Polish than English in it's gramatical complexity, with more exceptions than rules. Learning it is like being constantly punched in the stomach until you can't take any more. But I wont go on my own rant whilst Mark Twain summed it up perfectly in "the awful German language" (see below)

Are there any German speakers who would like to comment/appologise for their language?

Anyone thinking of German, or currently learning should have a look at this first; http://www.crossmyt.com/hc/linghebr/awfgrmlg.html comments and thoughts please...

I joined this group just so I could comment on this topic.

I am from the Netherlands. Dutch is basically a mix of English, German and a bit of French.
In Holland you have to learn German at school.

German is difficult and you constantly have to guess.
The word "the" has 12 forms in German.

I think that if you want to learn German, you really have to take your time for it. It gets easier if you study some of the German culture and the history of the language.

All in all I think it still beats French.

Well I understand the history of the Germanic language and the wider family. And I will continue studying it, and am making progress on the ground. But apart from learning scripted monologues, sentences and phrases; stepping out of that strict scripping you quickly stumble and fall.

I managed to learn Spanish to a conversational level in half the time it's taken me to learn some basic German phrases.

Dude, you should be happy that you don't want to learn French^^German is as easy as peeing compared to French.

A advantage of the German language is, that it is flexible, you can place words in the middle/front/back of the sentence, without changing the meaning.

For me, german is the easiest language(reading/writing), because it's the first language I learned(after my mother language: Luxemburgish), and it's the nearest to Luxemburgish.

It's probably difficult to you, because english isn't similair to german.

Dude, you should be happy that you don't want to learn French^^German is as easy as peeing compared to French.

A advantage of the German language is, that it is flexible, you can place words in the middle/front/back of the sentence, without changing the meaning.

For me, german is the easiest language(reading/writing), because it's the first language I learned(after my mother language: Luxemburgish), and it's the nearest to Luxemburgish.

It's probably difficult to you, because english isn't similair to german.

Well I think how hard you find a language does certainly depend on your mother tongue. For example, Catalan is probably incredibly easy for Spanish speakers, not so easy for a Chinese speaker.

Luxemburgish, if im not mistaken, has the 4 cases of German, very similar grammer and vocab.

English is very different, and apparently Spanish is the most accesable language for native English speakers. French is quite difficult to pronouce and rules often break down, but I think German is harder. For example having 16 ways of saying "the", 9 ways of saying "a" and numerous other exampels of this, such as the word "zug" which means:

noun

1. train
2. move
3. tension
4. procession
5. pull
6. feature
7. trait
8. draft
9. platoon
10. course
11. expedition
12. strain
13. characteristic
14. stroke
15. touch
16. puff
17. drag
18. migration
19. gulp
20. campaign
21. streak
22. tug
23. slide
24. stop
25. flight
26. section
27. breath
28. flock
29. catch
30. swig
31. haul
32. whiff
33. shoal
34. groove
35. team
36. mouthful
37. up-draft
38. transmigration
39. draw string
40. truck and trailer

but "Zug" is mostly used for "train, move, platoon, breath"
the rest are special cases, which you don't have to know, you can find them out of the context.

It's probably the cases(nominativ, Akkusativ, Genetiv, Dativ) that bugs you, and I think the 16 possibilitys of "the" an the 9 of "a" are issued from the different cases.

I can imagine that's not easy, if you never used something like it

but "Zug" is mostly used for "train, move, platoon, breath"
the rest are special cases, which you don't have to know, you can find them out of the context.

It's probably the cases(nominativ, Akkusativ, Genetiv, Dativ) that bugs you, and I think the 16 possibilitys of "the" an the 9 of "a" are issued from the different cases.

I can imagine that's not easy, if you never used something like it

Not to mention that learning the rules to these cases is only useful when you want to make informed mistakes. Because there are more exceptions that examples. Every time you try to make a guess at how a sentence might work you find out it's wrong, and this makes you feel stupid and incredibly demoralised. Then you naturally get frustraited.

It is weird that a language with declensions has articles too. Russian language, for instance, has 3 genders plus the plural and 6 declension cases so there are 4 x 6 = 24 words for the English word "my".

LOL'd at 'Zug' ... German is one of my native languages (the other is English, but I'm getting worse at it), and I agree. It's a fucked up language. If you didn't grow up with it, I wouldn't bother about trying to figure out all the details. That's just a frustrating waste of time, and Germans will generally understand you just fine if you know your vocabulary. Use your energy to figure out the pronounciation instead of grammar. : )

Look, I'm coming to stand up for the language. German is a complicated language, but not totally illogical. I understand the frustration that come from learning it. It took me three years of study before I could finally really understand the cases. After you understand the cases, then everything else simply a matter of memorization, just as it is with any other language. I will readily admit that the genders are simply crazy.

However, in comparison to French or Dutch, it's pretty easy. In the case of Dutch, the system is so completely screwed up by their Language Union that no-one knows what the official rules of the language are.

And, really, you can't expect German, or any other language to be logical. All natural languages have evolved and built upon themselves and been changed by other languages that grammatical systems, vocabularies, and pronunciation aren't standard in any language. Even some of the most logical languages have their exceptions. So, my advice is: give German a break.

In Germany, people say that most people don't know how to speak German anyway (talking about Germans) and acknowledge its difficulty. It's probably very illogical and complex at times, but so are many other languages. It also depends on your first language, the nearer the better. E.g. Latin, French, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish are more easy to learn for someone who knows just one of those languages.

In Germany, people say that most people don't know how to speak German anyway (talking about Germans) and acknowledge its difficulty. It's probably very illogical and complex at times, but so are many other languages. It also depends on your first language, the nearer the better. E.g. Latin, French, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish are more easy to learn for someone who knows just one of those languages.

But, interestingly, Latin languages are easier for English speakers than Germanic Languages. Even though English is a West Germanic Language itself. North Germanic languages, Swedish, Norwegian, danish etc, are more similar to the Anglo-Frisian WG languages.

German just didnt develop or adapt over its 1000 years of existence. While English lost it's case, formal terms (thou, thine, thee) and even tried to clean up it's pronunciation problems Y used to be pronounced Th.

Y used to be pronounced Th.

Because of the visual similarity, the letter Y was used as a replacement in printing presses if the nordic letter Þ (Thorn) was unavailable. Thorn was forgotten, and people now wonder WTF "Ye Olde Bla" means. Just on a side note.

Talking about Dutch not knowing how their language works - similar situation in Germany with writing. Starting in the mid '90s the government passed several reforms on how words were written and seperated at line breaks, how the letter ß was to be used, which words were to be connected or not, when commata were to be used, etc etc... I learned how to write right about this time, so since I can remember not even our teachers often knew what the exact rules were due to them being changed over and over and over again. Most of the new rules definitely make sence, but some are just there to confuse us.
"Ich war gerade Schiff fahren", "Ich war gerade schifffahren" or "Ich war gerade Schifffahren"? On third thought that last one is probably wrong, but no clue about the other two.

Anyway I can't make progress with German, I've done my best and moved backward if anywhere... far too frustrating, demoralising etc. Sorry Germans!