Is Learning German Really As Hard As They Say It Is?
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- Опубліковано 2 лип 2024
- As two Americans moving to Germany, we had many goals to learn German and speak it fluently. However, with that came a lot of expectations of what learning a second language was and how it was done. After spending different amounts of time learning German, how far have we come? Did the realities of learning German match our expectations? Would we recommend others to do the same?? Find out in this video! 😊
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0:00 - Intro
1:15 - Video Theme
2:22 - Required Learning
5:08 - Learning Through Immersion
7:00 - Busuu Advertisement
7:41 - Starting From Scratch
9:16 - Do You Really Speak "German?"
11:24 - Maybe We Should Just Show You...
12:35 - Would We Recommend It?
13:26 - Bloopers
This video was sponsored by Busuu!
Filmed: Kaiserslautern / Ramstein, Germany - March 2021
#AmericansInGermany #German #MovingToGermany
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How many languages and what languages can you speak?? 😃
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In school i learned english (from 5th grade), latin (from 7th), french (form 9th). Having learned latin before french helped a lot. Later i also had 2 years of italian (agaiin latin very helpful). Based on that, i have no problem reading and speaking english, reading french also not, understanding it only when speaken slowly, speaking french is hard, as i missed practicing it over the years. Italian i mostly understand when reading.
It’s funny because France is so close it would seem there would be loads of opportunities to practice it, but then again, Mexico was so close to us and we are the same with Spanish 😅
@@PassportTwo Ja , definitiv. Im Sommer fahr ich auch oft für einen Tagesausflug ins Elsass und habe auch schon mehrere Urlaube in anderen Regionen Frankreichs verbracht, aber das genügt zum Üben einfach nicht, da müsste man schon dort leben.
As many Germans I had the English, Latin and French approach. At French I faild completly, Latin I had for three years but can't even read old tombstones. And my English is pretty ok (I think at least). So basicly I speak German and English.
German... for sure :) English as working internationally for the past 25 years. Rudimentary french, had that in school and got some time in France working along some projects. And really basic Spanish, which I had in school as well, but never made it above ordering beer and stuff. My experience over the past was really same as yours,... learning the theoretical part is only the basics. You need to pass the language barrier that lets yourself comfortably have conversations, even if they are very basic. As soon as you cross that, your start to gain real skills I personally think. And I would not be too keen to work on removing accents. Accents bring a natural Charme with it :)
Always remember: the opposite to "umfahren" (to drive over) ist "umfahren" (to drive around). It's as simple as that. :-)
Of course it depends on how you pronounce it. And don't forget also that one is "Ich fahre um" and the other is "Ich umfahre".😅
@@DramaQueenMalena Ab wie verrückt ist es eigentlich, dass das "fahren" in dem Fall anders ausgesprochen wird :D
@@bazooka420 Ich bin Schweizerin, wir sprechen das a etwas anders aus. Minim.
Congratulations. You confused a German with his own language
@@deadlineuniverse3189 It's my language too.
german - english dictionary ;-)
du - you
dich - you
Sie - you
dir - you
Ihnen - you
ihr - you
euch - you
good luck
So true 😅
This is funny 🤣
ihr - all y'all, youse, you guys
Habe- have
Hast - have
Hat - has !
Haben - have (2x)
Habt - have
on the other hand, tell what i mean when i say "pin" for example, or "set" - there are dozens of definitions.
Sounds like Mark twain was just pissed that he couldnt learn german
Which is honestly such a Mark Twain thing to do.
😂
I just started to read through the 50 or so pages of his complaints. As a native german speaker i can relate but sometimes cant stop laughing at how pissed he gets its really fun to read
@@Nightmare-xr3en haha I can imagine. Where are you from?
@@benediktdgjkll7203 I'm from Niedersachsen
And when you finally think you know German you pick up a book by Kant, Hegel or Schopenhauer only to realize that you cannot even read the font.
But mostly even Germans don't know what they've written 😂
@@lisar9800 They can read but not understand it.
Schopenhauer is MUCH easier to read that Kant and can be read without special studies, if you can read modern German. Hegel is just mumbo-jumbo.
@@investmentgammler4550 The problem here lies in the several lines of quotations in classical Greek thrown in on almost every page.
Yeah, but I assure you that the Germans also have difficulties reading the old fonts. I mean seriously half of the letters look like other letters
"The German grammar is too hard, too many rules!"
"The German language is systemless!"
Pick one, Anglos.
Merket auf: Wer deutsch sprechen möchte, muss deutsch sprechen! Unabhängig davon, ob jetzt die Grammatik und/oder Aussprache korrekt ist, wird jeder verstehen, was gemeint ist (oder sein könnte). Nur Übung macht den Meister!
Du hast recht! Danke 😊
Unser Spanischlehrer in der Schule hatte genau dieselbe Philosophie. Wir haben anfangs die Basic Grammatik gelernt und Vokabeln, Vokabeln, Vokabeln. Und ein paar Monate später konnten wir schon seitenweise auf spanisch über unsere Heimatstadt schreiben oder erzählen. Zwar nicht fehlerfrei, aber wir konnten kommunizieren. Wir waren ab einem gewissen Punkt auch frei darin, welche Vokabeln wir lernen wollten.
War für die neunte Klasse eigentlich ziemlich viel Selbstverantwortung, hat aber gut geklappt.
Leider ist er nach der zehnten Klasse leider auf eine andere Schule gegangen. Den Lehrer hätte ich gerne noch in der Oberstufe gehabt.
@@JuLiane ich bin selbst auch Fremdsprachenlehrerin (Spanisch und Englisch) und der Ansatz, den dein alter Spanischlehrer da verfolgt hat, ist der, den wir auch aus curricularer Sicht heute verfolgen sollten. Es ist erstmal wichtiger, dass die SchülerInnen ihre Hemmungen überwinden, die Sprache aktiv anzuwenden. Perfekte Grammatik ist für Verstehen und erfolgreiches Kommunizieren nicht immer nötig
Kann ich nur so unterschreiben!
Hallo. Ich bin deutsch. Deshalb verfasse ich eine Antwort auf deinen Kommentar.
As a german currently learning japanese, please allow me to give you a hearty laugh at german being hard to learn ;)
Haha, it’s all relative isn’t it? 😅
German and Japanese are quite similar for a foreigner. I study both xD and to me they are very much alike in difficulty. Japanese has Kanji but german has cases...
Then try Mandarin - that is even harder, because not only is the same sign used for quite different words, the pronunciation is very, very, and I cannot even say it enough: VERY important. The same word has different meanings, depending on the way you pronounce it.
THAT is confusing as [insert mythological hot place of choice here]
@@franhunne8929 A friend of mine from GB decided she wanted to learn German just for fun. I warned her that it is very hard. She said she learned to speak Mandarin in two years so it couldn't be any harder than that. After struggling with her lessons for a year, she gave up. She explained to me that actually the Mandarin grammar is fairly simple and if you're musically gifted, you can quickly hear the different pitches which give words their meaning. Reading of course is a different matter. She learned to read it fairly well after living in China for four years whereas even Mark Twain conceded that reading German is much easier that for example reading English.
@@franhunne8929 Tried Mandarin for a while and it is at a new whole level so I had to drop off.
I came to Germany without knowing a single word of German. I learned German while working in the kitchen and listening to what my co workers were saying and by watching a lot of old American reruns on TV. It took me almost two years to speak German and about five years to read it and able to understand what I was reading. One of the fun ways I learned to speak German was sitting with my friends in the local tavern after work playing darts and drinking a few beers. After aprox 8 years I have lost most of my accent and if a German hears me talking they ask how long was I in America because I picked up a slight American accent.
Hahah that’s hilarious you learned German by watching old American re-runs when I think about it 😂 But those are all great techniques to learn! 😃
@@PassportTwo I did it the other way around. I was lucky to receive AFN TV at my home and watched English language re-runs of shows that I already knew in German -- like Night Rider or the A-Team...
I learned english by watching English & American DVDs with (ta-daaah!) english subtitles. That helped a lot to learn and understand every-day phrases and cultural references, and what I couldn't undstand I could alway read. German subs are from hell in such a situation, as you're forced to constantly translate within your head. So I wouldn't advise to mix languages while watching a movie.
Yes, I think that is the key. You got to hang out with german people during freetime.
Good thing you didn't try that with "Hogan's Heroes" ("Ein Käfig voller Helden"). The German dub is a completely different series. :D Even more off the deep end than "The Persuaders!" ("Die 2"). Enjoy!
When I was a kid I thought I had learned Greek because I had learned the Greek alphabet. I thought by just replacing the letters you translated the words.
Funny!😂
Haha, we haven't attempted Greek yet but we would maybe have had the same expectation 😅
So funny, I was the same😁
Learning German is first tears, then laughter - learning English is first laughter, then tears.
if you learn German, this means about 1 year of cramming grammar - after that, it is only adding vocabulary.
If you learn English, it is a matter of a year or so before you can express yourself reasonably fluently. However, if you want to speak it well, it is a lifetime struggle with prepositions, phrases, phrasal verbs, cultural references etc etc.
Haha, we have definitely evaluated English more than ever since learning German and have found we are lucky it is our mother tongue for those reasons! It is definitely a silly language for a lot of reasons like those 😂
i was really bad in school when learning english (Note 3-4). The last 20 years of youtube and internet helped me a lot! I can mostly understand lots of English dialects and accents but when i hear people from northern England (around Liverpool) and Scots i'm absolutely clueless what the are saying.
@@PassportTwo I learned German grammar through Latin. And yes, learning another language makes you analyse your first language far more thoroughly than anything else - both structure and lexicon.
Jawohl
@@nfp911 This pretty much sums up my own experience with the exception I was never bad at English in school. The Scots, huh?
I happen to have family members that are Scottish and I still have no clue what they are saying even after years of hearing it.
Lifegoal is to be bilingual.
Everyone that went to elementary in germany: yeah, got that one covered
Haha, yeah xD
My english lessons started in grade 2 and now today as a PhD student, I sometimes prefer to just express certain things in English, because it's just the way I use language most of the time today.
@@midnight8341 I (German) don't speak English much in reality (more reading and listening) but sometimes I want to express something and I know the english word but have trouble finding the correct german equivalent.
I’m in the army and was stationed in Bayern (Katterbach) from 2018-2020 I am now back in America but I fell in love with Germany so much I plan to move back after my service and until then everyday I watch videos related to Germany so I appreciate your channel so much !! Und ich spreche nur ein bisschen Deutsch, ich bin A1 aber Ich studiere mit busuu und Pimsleur jeden Tag! Ich liebe Deutsch und Deutschland! Danke dir für deinen Kanal, es ist sehr gut ! 😄🙏🏾
Mach weiter! So bleibt dein Geist in Bewegung.
@@mvcube Ich werde dir danken!
haha greetings from Ansbach!
@@sophiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiie greetings! I loved Ansbach and Nürnberg by the way 🙏🏾 can’t wait to move back 😌
@@pharaohtaylor3391 I‘m happy to hear that you like Germany and our language. Wish you all the best for your future! Greetings from North Rhine - Westphalia!
I lived in Germany 30 years ago and studied German at University. I was once fluent in speech and writing German. I try and visit Germany at least once a year. (from USA) It takes a few days, for me to "re-adjust" to the language and the culture. In about 3-5 days I am back to speaking fluently. I am really proud of the "work" I put in all those years ago, so when I visit I can fully embrace the culture and speak with the locals. Yes there are regional differences and dialects, but I find the locals really appreciate when you make the effort. You both should be proud of your progress!
They absolutely do appreciate the effort! Especially considering not many tourists come to Germany and can speak it. We hope to be able to be at the level you seem to be one day! 😊
I am a native German speaker, living now 43 years in the USA. I have the same issue as you, when I visit Germany once a year. It takes me days to be fluent again in my native tongue.
Es ist doch toll, wie ihr langsam aber sicher die deutsche Sprache lernt. Und eure Erfolge sollten ein großer Ansporn sein. Weiter so!
Hallo ihr lieben, vielen Dank für das tolle Video! Euer Deutsch ist besser als ihr glaubt und ihr macht echt Fortschritte. Bleibt dran.
I came to Germany from Poland when I was 13. At that time I didn't know any Word in German. It took about 18 months for me to master the language (at least what was neccesary at school). Now, 30 years later, I still learn new words and phrases in German. I have the feeling, that it will never stop. German is a very rich language an has so many different descriptions for almost everything. Even people born in Germany learn all of them their whole life.
Thanks for the encouragement! We will keep going 😊
Tolle Erklärung! Grüße nach Breslau! ,)
"Even people born in Germany learn all of them their whole life." That is true, but ... does that mean that's not the case in other languages?
Surely native English speakers don't know every English word and sentences either, and keep learning their native language their whole life too, right?
@@herzschlagerhoht5637 Hi,are you still a russian?And where have you learned german?
Don't worry about learning new words in German. I'm a native German speaker and I can tell you I'm still learning new words. Also the word Dampfschifffahrtkapitänsmütze is an actual German word
Me, a native German speaker: I'm afraid of my own language now. 😦
already before, deutsch is bruh moments
Haha aber Kartoffel war in dem Kontext glaub ich nicht das beste Beispiel haha
Same.
hahahahha
So they did exactly the opposite of what they should be doing : instead of encouraging people to learn a foreign language, they warn them by comparing them to things as hard as climbing mount everest and giving live examples of how evilly confusing our language actually is... GREAT WORK, GUYS! 👍👏👏👏
As a native German, I'd say it's hard, but it's by no means an awful language. One thing I love about German is that pronounciation is consistent. There are a few exceptions probably, but if you know all the rules of pronounciation, you can easily read any german sentence correctly, AND even know how to write words simply by hearing them (probably why spelling bee's are pointless here)
Except that both "ch" and "v" can make two different sounds each
Except for all the words we borrowed from other languages, like French and English ^^
@@centrifugedestroyer2579 "ch" has a pretty clear rule though. Pronunciation depends on the vowel before it. See "ich", "echt" vs "Dach", "Loch", "huch" and after r it's always an ich-sound e.g. "Lurch". If there is another letter infront like ketchup, lunchbox it's not a German word and will likely be pronounced close to the original.
I am German and have learned English, French and Latin at school and the basics of Japanese and Finnish at university. The latter one has more than 15 cases (like Akkusativ, Dativ and so on), which is pretty hard to learn. XD
Today I'm only speaking English fluently, and in the past few years managed to understand native speakers like you more easily by watching English UA-cam content every day. 😄
What has helped me a lot are the English subtitles - with those you can slowly but surely get used to different accents.
Anyways, your German accents have lots of potential for improvement, but I understand every word, which is all that matters in the end, right?
I think you are right! As long as we can communicate, then we should be fine. I would just like to make it as easy as possible for the other to understand 😊
I actually found the accent really interesting, because of the stereotype that german sounds aggressive to other people. To me it seems like some struggle pronouncing "ch", "s", "k", "sch" etc. softly. I never understood this "aggressive" stereotype and I think this is one reason why it exists. Other languages either use less consonants or just pronounce half of the written word and put instead a nice sounding vowel at the end or so.
German is known for that it is most of the time actually pronounced how it is written and so we have to learn a softer pronounciation. Because srsly the way some of what you said sounded felt like it aint easy on the throat :D
But yeah, i am german and if that doesnt already mean that i am biased enough I am also more of a fan of eastern/northern languages. Learning swedish currently and russian is at least on the list :)
Junge wie hart muss den bitte Finnisch sein
@@dyno9415 Ich habe nur 2 Kurse gemacht, und wahrscheinlich gewöhnt man sich dran, aber anstelle von Begriffen wie "mit", "im", "von", "auf" usw. drücken sich diese Dinge im Finnischen über Endungen aus, woraus sich die vielen Kasus ergeben. 😄
@@MaskedBishop Hört sich etwas nach Schule an
Mark Twains little piece about the German language is one of the best things I ever read. It's so good I am angry we didn't have it in school in English. Blöde Lehrpläne!
Nobody gonna talk about Sarah on Busuu who speaks English and learns English at the same time. That's commitment!
LOL! Didn't even catch that ourselves 😂😂
I'm a boy from Germany in 8th Class in school and I must admit that learning Geramn grammar is HELL. Many, especially younger people like me learn English from the very beginning in school and because of that we don't have problems with it. It isn't that bad with the dialects. We usually don't have problems communicating with each other since everyone speaks the standart "Hochdeutsch" and the dialects are dying out because only older people still speak them frequently.
Leider sterben die Dialekte aus.😔
I can only speak high German and I must admit, that I indeed have huge troubles to understand other dialects like Bavarian or Austrian xD.
@@crischie4744 Even germans have huge troubles to understand Bavarian and Austrian especially in North Germany XD
@@l8nni can confirm, but usually i get the message anyway
That doesnt apply to all parts of germany equally. Im 20 and live in a city in saxony. With other people i exclusively speak dialect and most other people dont speak standard german at all, even though the saxon dialect isnt too different from standard vocabulary-wise. Standard speaking people are instantly exposed to be non-saxons :D
But really, only speaking the dialects, a northerner and a southerner could barely understand each other. Its basically 2 different languages.
My experience with english is, everybody learns it at school, but the degree of using it when you finished school is really low, because nobody speaks english here, so its never demanded. Like you can tell strangers the way, but thats about it. I got fluent via discord, being on a server where everyone is using english. Also talking to english speakers in a voice chat helped a lot with speaking, so i got fluent in about half a year.
Oh and i dont think too many germans have trouble understanding the dialects, personally i can understand a lot of them quite good. And there is no "austrian" dialect, its all local variants of bavarian (except in vorarlberg they speak a swiss dialect).
Mein Tipp, um motiviert zu bleiben, ist: finde UA-cam Videos zu einem Thema, dass dich interessiert - sei es ein Hobby wie Basteln oder Reisen oder ein politisch/gesellschaftliches Thema. Auch wenn das Vokabular etwas eingeschränkter ist, bekommt man vieles nebenbei mit. Man lernt dann nicht nur einzelne Wörter, sondern ganze Strukturen und auch Idiome. Beispiel: Ich interessiere mich für Elektronik. Ich sehe mir deshalb viele Videos auf englisch dazu an. Wenn dann jemand sagt: „it would be nice to have that feature, but honestly I don’t need all these bells and whistles“ - Ich habe mich gewundert, warum er da jetzt von Glocken anfängt. Das Wort „whistle“ kannte ich nicht. Ich habe es nachgeschaut und kenne jetzt das Idiom (don’t need that extra) und weiß, dass „whistle“ eine „Pfeife“ ist. Ich kann das nun auch als kompletten Satzteil einsetzen, ohne nachzudenken. Man merkt Ansätze davon schon bei Donnie, z.B. „aber wegen dem Lockdown“ hat er nicht Wort für Wort im Kopf übersetzt, sondern einfach gesagt - und das kommt dann schon fast akzentfrei. Ich glaube, das ist der ganze Trick. So wie Kinder, die lesen lernen, anfangs jeden Buchstaben lesen müssen, erfassen sie später ganze Wortgruppen oder gar Sätze...
on the dialect point: when i met my husband from a village about 10km from my hometown and i met his family for the first time, i had such a hard time understanding his grandmother. i feel like in every small villiage around here the language is different. but now that we all are so mobile and aren't stuck in our hometown like 60-70 years ago those dialects start to vanish - we young people don't speak it and the older generation is starting to die off. and i find it actually very sad we are losing this uniqueness.
also so glad german is my mother language and i don't have to learn it. i personally found french very hard and everything i learned in school is gone by now.
i studied a bit japanese, but if i could i would learn all the "big" asian languages like korean and chinese too.
Understand. Der Knabe, gestern. Heute, der Junge
That is sad! That was one of the most fun things we learned about German is all the variations and dialects. Would be sad to lose those...
@@PassportTwo Dialekte sterben aus. Ich lebe immer noch in der Stadt, in der ich aufgewachsen bin. Vor 50 Jahren haben 80 bis 90% der Kinder Dialekt gesprochen. Heute hört man kein Kind mehr, das Dialekt spricht. Zum Heulen. Die verstehen mich manchmal gar nicht, wenn ich im Dialekt spreche.
Yes so sad. I only speak standard german because I moved a couple of times and my family is from different parts of Germany so my parents only speak standard German with each other :( All of my other family members speak in their dialects though so I’m the odd one out that speaks differently. At least I can understand them most of the time ...
From a linguistical view, dialectical variation in an amount that they aren't intelligible is a new thing. If you go back in time there were also dialects, but they were mutual intelligible. The more speaker a language has the more fractured it is. That's why around year 0 West Germanic people had a hard time to understand East Germanic people but were mutual intelligible to a certain degree.
Die Deutschen sind gekommen
Kommentarsektion eingenommen!
Eure Aussprache ist einfach nice xD
Grüße aus dem Osten
Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Kommentarbereich 🧐
I really appreciate your german skills as a native speaker and have to admit that the "standard taught german" might be rather confusing and strange...
But if you were to say "I would like to go walking today" translated in the exact same order -> "Ich (I) möchte (would like to) laufen gehen (go walking) heute (today)" i think it's safe to say that every german native will understand you and might aswell speak like this themselves :D
It's pretty much how we learn english in germany
It's nothing like day to day conversation and odd phrases or sayings that technically make not so much sense but they have a totally different meaning
Consuming as much german media as possible should be very helpful with this especially more comedic stuff that tends to rely on jokes and day to day conversation
Viele Grüße und viel Erfolg :D
I’m from Germany and here we actually started learning English at the age of about eight; I later chose French as my third language, that was when I was twelve. My level in French after about six years of learning it is at B2 now, so it’s really impressive you learned so much of the language in such a short amount of time. I honestly think if I were to start learning a fourth language now I would give up.
My experience in learning English was very effortless because it was more passive than active (eg through social media or just in school). I think I would be too lazy to put as much effort into it as you did.
If I’d ever learn a fourth language though it would be Spanish, Russian, Japanese or Chinese I think.
I believe you will be doing just great. Watching channels for kids helped me a lot at the beginning because most of the time you get a pictorial explanation over the things they are talking about. Keep going👍
Pfälzer here: Pretty good, really! You are on a good way, and both of you will make it finally. Keep it up!
I love your german pronounciation, keep on going and you will totally rock our language! Thanks for the great video
Props for the video quality and the edits good job 💯
Thanks so much for that! 😊
Very cool video!
I'm lebanese, so my first language is arabic and my 2nd language is french (in school all scientific subjects were in french), my 3rd language is english. I'm now learning german since i want to move to germany. I also briefly studied spanish and italian but i forgot all of my italian and most of my spanish
Aren't that a bit to many languages? Are you not confused which word is correct in one specific language?
I only speak two languaes (almost) fluently: german and english and learned latin, french, spain, chinese, japanese, italian. But I can remember only a few words in all of these languages, so communication is nearly impossible.
"Putting your thoughts into words is very difficult in German."
Good luck learning any language that's not native to Europe as an European or North American.
japanese for example? it's a mess. But what about finnish? it's spoken in europe, but it's so foreign that finnish grammar is more similar to japanese than to english, french or german 🤔
@@Nico97frNicht zu vergessen Baskisch und Ungarisch.
Das ist interessant, you guys are a beautiful team on the race, speak so well, and that clarity with B1? you're´ really good.... Mann.
Ihr seid TOLL!!! Schön das es euch gibt! Ihr macht das mit dem Deutsch super!!!!
10 years ago I was working as a car mechanic and the customer (a British soldier) was trying to speak german. He was talking about "Nüühse" and I had no idea what that means. When he switched to English I found out that he wanted to say "Nüsse" and he was referring to the Wheel nuts but he didn't know that the screw nuts are not called Nüsse in German, they are called Muttern...
In case of tools, a kind of tool for screws or nuts is called ,Nuss".
Denke nie gedacht zu haben, denn das denken der Gedanken ist gedankeloses denken und wenn du denkst du denkst, damn denkst du nur du denkst, aber denken tust du nicht...
Rindfleischettiketierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz
You are doing really fine - the both of you!
Well done, keep going
Hi, I'm German, living next to you in Bingen am Rhein. I hitch hiked through Oklahoma 47 years ago. I'm 68. I learned at school: English for 9 years, French for 5 years, Latin for 3 years, Russian for 2 years. For me English ( and later Afrikaans ) were the easiest languages to learn, Russian the most difficult, because of the 6 cases, many declensions and konjugations. I always struggled with the thrilling R, same problem in Spanish.. Due to journeys and labour, I had to learn some Spanish in Spain, Mexico and Middle America, some Italian, some Serbo-Croatian, some Turkish, some Farsi, Pashtu, Kisuaheli, Tswana, Afrikaans and Zulu. But this is about 40 years ago. I know german isn't easy, but try Russian, Czech or another slavic language, this will be Your challenge. Btw as far as I know, Mark Twain succeeded in mastering German in the end. You make nice videos.
You sound like you have had one of the most interesting lives possible! 😃 Really interesting to hear your life experienced and needs for different languages 😊
@@PassportTwo I fully understand that such a life did sound extremely interesting to you but keep in mind that Germany is a huge global supplier of manufacturing systems engineering items, in fact, we are the world champions in this segment and therefore you could find a lot of folks like him in Germany. If a company produces consumer goods it will ship them and then it's mostly done. But if they produce manufacturing systems they have to advise the staff how to run and maintain this machine. So it is a common job for German engineers to work as an instructor and that your company will send you around the globe to fulfill your job. If it is a very expensive machine or a long-term process you will end up to life months or years in different places. Personally, I know a bunch of Germans who have worked this way, they studied engineering and expected a life doing construction work in an office but then find themself in some totally unknown place somewhere around the globe. Another group has had worked for the Government (in this case the GIZ jobs.giz.de/? we did not spend that much on our defense budget but we spend a lot on developing poorer nations) and last but not least we run a huge network of commercial exchange chambers around the globe www.ahk.de/ and with that, I have skipped all of the cultural or political (diplomacy) reasons that any other nation in the world will although offer.
Gruß aus stromberg
Ja, Mark Twain hat sogar ganz gut Deutsch gesprochen. Ich hab das Stück von ihm gelesen und er übertreibt etwas im Interesse des Humors, aber wirft auch mehrere grundsätzliche Dinge auf, die wirklich etwas lustig sind.
@@PassportTwo Not really. Typically German. Half of my family lived in East Germany, the other half in West Germany. Travelling around Europe and USSR. Abitur with 18, Officer in the army with 20, than studying law with longer periods of time living in Africa, Asia und North and Middle America. Finishing studies. Working in the German administration ( Rheinland-Pfalz) in the end of the 70ies, working in South Africa in the 80ies ( during the time of apartheid), again 4 years in the German army ( Bundeswehr). Then working in the administration of a small town on the Rhine and living a more or less boring life. :-)
Crossover with the Easy German channel! I'm sure you'll get along with them
I think you both do very personal as much as lively videos on your experiences in Germany. I‘m German and have lived in the Ruhr Valley for the greater part of my life. However, when you mentioned your plan to experience language emersion, I had to think back to the year 1982 and my first days of the five years that I lived just North of Niagara Falls, NY. Nobody spoke even the slightest word of German. I had to very quickly adapt to, and acquire English for unthinkable situations at an incredible speed. I guess it must be lot easier for you as I would assume that even in the remotest place in Germany, English will be understood in one way or another. Brilliant video! Chapeau!
Ich hab alles verstanden was ihr gesagt habt, ihr seid sooo gut Good luck with learning this crazy language. Love your videos 💕
Literally "deutsche Sprache schwere Sprache" means "german language, heavy language". You see what we did there ?
Schwer vs schwierig ;)
Blödsinn
@@rock_it9771 warum blödsinn? schwer vs schwierig
Stimmt😂
Using "schwer" in the sense of hard is absolutely correct. I don't know where this notion that it's wrong suddenly came from.
schwer is also used as schwierig.
Your accents are so cute!
Personally, I don't think people have to speak a 2nd or 3rd language perfectly. Accents and intonation make us unique and show a connection to our culture. Sincerely, a future language teacher :)
Und ja! Deutsch ist sehr schwer.
Hi mach Dir keine Sorgen wegen deinem Akzent, man versteht Dich absolut gut und Ich finde es Klasse das Ihr es auf euch nehmt und diese selbst für uns schwierige Sprache zu lernen..................... Weiter so.
Don't give up please! You will be the proudest Americans in Oklahoma ( Rheinland Pfalz). What I hear from you let me hope it will be better and better. It takes some time but keep going👍👍👍
I like how you have to learn a specific amount of the language yet we have more than enough people living here for like 20 years without them being able to speak the most simple german
The big thing is, everybody, (younger than 50) understands English, to some extent, but people are afraid of making mistakes while speaking, so they self report they can't speak the language. (At least I don't know of anyone that doesn't at least understand English)
Und was ist mit den Analphabeten? Die sind auch irgendwie durch die Schule gekommen und dennoch gibt es sie. Nicht jeder unter 50 Jährige kann Englisch, aber die Wahrscheinlichkeit, dass jemand Englisch kann ist deutlich höher als bei vielen anderne Sprachen, da es an sehr vielen Schulen gelehrt wird. Russisch wurde früher in den DDR gelehrt, daher ist es im Osten Deutschlands bei älteren Menschen verbreiteter als Englisch.
Thanks for showing what B1 german looks like! I currently have B2 Englisch and didnt realize that it still isnt too fluid.
You still did very good!
Das "Tschüss" war perfekt! In der Sprachmelodie und Betonung!👍
Gut das ich jetzt weiß wie schwer es ist meine Sprache zu lernen. :)
10:05 that’s not really true. Germans also speak standard German with people of the same region. We use the standard German much more often then the dialectst
The younger generation 😎
But the 40/50+ still have their dialect and when they are from the town and countryside, they have a hard time even speak high German
@@fridadanke9076 ich glaube kaum dass die Übersetzung von Hochdeutsch high German ist
Hallo aus Texas! Eure Videos gefällt mir viel. Wie Donnie, habe ich Latin in Gymnasium gelernt. Am Anfang der Coronazeit, habe ich für mein Universitätklasse über "Human Learning" Deutsch lernen angefangen. Als Musiklehrer, habe jetzt ich besseres Verständnis von meinen Schüler, weil ich ähnliche Dinge erfahre, wenn ich mein Detusch übe. Bitte Weitermacht eure Videos da ihr uns veil Glück gebt. Tchüssi und frohes Oster aus den USA!!! Sander
Again, high quality content! Herzlichen Glückwunsch zu diesem tollen Video :-) Als ich 1981 mit ausschließlichem Schulenglisch mein Austauschjahr in den USA (ID) begann, gab es bekanntlich weder Internet noch mobile Telefonie. Mir wurde geraten, auf die Mitnahme eines Deutsch-Englisch Lexikons zu verzichten, und diesen Rat hatte ich zum Glück befolgt. So war ich von Anfang an gezwungen, ausschließlich Englisch zu sprechen - und wenn ich Vokabeln nicht kannte, musste ich sie umschreiben, sodass meine Gasteltern sie mir beibringen konnten. All' das hatte dazu geführt, dass ich nach drei Monaten Aufenthalt ein amerikanisches mindset bekam und mein Englisch nach Ablauf des Schuljahres vollkommen ohne deutschem Akzent war. Ihr Beide seid noch viel zu viel mit Englisch beschäftigt, obwohl ich sowohl Aubrey als auch Dich, lieber Donnie, auf deutsch zu 100% verstehe!
Wenn Ihr Kehllaute üben wollt: "rostrote Runkelrübenrupfapparaturen rattern ruckelnd rückwärts den Berg herab". Give your tongue a rest!
Wieder einmal ein gutes Video.
Ihr solltet auf jeden Fall nachsichtig mit euch sein, denn die heutige Zeit ist wahrscheinlich die schlechteste Zeit, um in einem neuen Land eine neue Sprache zu lernen, da es ja kaum Veranstaltungen oder Feste gibt, auf denen man Einheimische kennenlernen oder mit ihnen ins Gespräch kommen kann. Hoffentlich wird es im Sommer besser. Auch mit uns Einheimischen solltet ihr nachsichtig sein. Meistens möchten wir höflich sein, wenn wir mit "Deutsch-Lernern" englisch sprechen, denn es ist uns ja bewusst, wie schwer Deutsch ist. Sicher reicht ein kleiner Hinweis, dass ihr euer Deutsch üben möchtet, und das Gespräch wird in Deutsch weitergeführt.
Vielen Dank! 😊 Wir hoffen auch, dass Sommer besser ist!
When practicing French I found out that a good way to focus on your pronunciation is reading books to children. You don’t have to worry about vocabulary and can just focus on sounds and rhythm. And if you’re totally off children will just correct you. 😂
let's hope the children to whom these people will read a story with a bad german accent are grown up kids who already know how to speak. Else, they will end up speaking with a bad foreign accent all their lives 😂
I 'm late today, great Video guys!
So cute when you spoke German. Don't give up, you're on it!
Once you have reached a certain level: just let it flow... without thinking too much...watch TV, watch German movies with subtitles, talk to people.... and never think too much.. you'll catch phrases, expressions and improve your pronunciation just like that.
Ich bin Deutscher und verstehe das es schwer ist Deutsch zu lernen. Ich meine nicht Schulenglisch sondern wie die Leute sich wirklich unterhalten.
Und da faengt das Problem schon an. Wir alle lernen unsere Sprache wenn wir 1 oder mehr Jahre alt sind. Und dann ist es nicht schwer.
Ich lebe seid 17 Jahren in Asien und muss sagen das Englisch und Deutsch sich sehr aehnlich sind. Hier eine Sprache zu lernen ist wirklich eine Herausforderung. Das leiche Wort mit unterschiedlichen Betonungen hat eine ganz andere Bedeutung. Dagegen ist das lernen als Deutscher Englisch zu lernen ein Kinderspiel.
Aber auch ich habe als Norddeutscher Probleme die Bayern zu verstehen.
Aber in vielen Laendern ist das genau so.
Ich bin nur froh das die Staatengemeinschaft beschlossen hat Englisch zum Standard zu erklaeren, weil ich meine das Englisch relativ leicht ist.
Ich wuensche Euch ielbErfolg beim Eintauchen in die Deutsche Sprache.
Eure Videos gefallen mir. Macht weiter so.
Generell sind einige europäische Sprachen ähnlich. Niederländisch, französisch, spanisch und Englisch sind mir super leicht gefallen. Koreanisch habe ich Grade angefangen und fällt mir extrem schwerm Grade wegen der Aussprache was du schreibst 😔
Hi. Ich kann euch beide sehr gut verstehen. Und wenn man sieht wie viel Mühe ihr euch gebt, dann seid ihr gleich sehr sympathisch. Und: üben, üben, üben 😉😉👍
Respekt! Stay with it, you'll get there :-)
My teacher told me that you are fluent in a language if it's easier to think in that language than to translate a sentence.
It took me over 17 years of school and internet to get fluent in English. :-)
Thinking and dreaming in the language, yes that's it.
I can do that with German, English and dutch
I went from broken (school-) English to (somewhat) near-native English in a year, my husband went from zero Japanese to advanced in a year, and also speaks 3 other languages, and we both arrived independantly from one another at the same conclusion (our no1 language learning tipp coming up)...
Dont spend too much time and nerves on grammar, syntax, and all the complicated stuff that comes with it. It's tedious work to memorize all the different endings and rules, it can become very frustrating very quickly and it does in fact, in our experience, very little to the overall learning process (because you have to practice all this theoretical knowledge afterwards anyway, and this practice/immersion teaches the rules itself just as well even without prior excessive memorizing work). Learn the very basic grammar/syntax, just enough to have a rough understanding of it (ie don't memorize every single word ending in every tense etc but focus on the very basic word order and the few really important grammar rules), BUT instead put your time and energy into vocabulary! Learn as many words as you can, by all means you can think of (i put up postits all over the house, haha) and then, or rather parallel to this process, expose yourself as much as possible to German books, German movies, conversations with native speakers etc.
With very basic grammar but a good vocabulary you can already understand people and express yourself well enough to have a feeling of accomplishment, and well enough to have a basis for immersion. If you don't understand or don't know the right adjective ending or where exactly to put the adverb in a sentence, you will still understand people and people will still understand you if you do it wrong. What really limits your understanding is NOT not to know every grammar rule but not to know more than half of the words used. Same for expressing yourself.
Grammar and syntax, the most difficult parts, will come automatically if you just read and listen and speak a lot, the more the better. And this immersion and practice part you can't skip anyway, even if you do memorize every rule in the book. And, in our experience, they will come from immersion just as fast as from memorizing, maybe faster, and with much less stress involved.
(basic grammar and then) vocabulary vocabulary vocabulary, immersion immersion immersion!
Of course there is no one size fits all solution, everybody is a different learning type and must find the best way for themselves individually. That's just what helped us.
Donnie & Aubrey, I think your German is great for this short time! 👍👏 and your commitment and holistic approach (~learning /speaking a language is so much more than grammar rules and memorizing words, but it's a new way of thinking and closely connected to culture) is awesome. I hope you're both very proud of yourselves 🌸
Edit: Now i spoke English with you myself, sorry 😅 Hier nochmal das Wichtigste auf Deutsch: Euer Deutsch ist super für die relativ kurze Zeit, die ihr hier seid! Ich hoffe, ihr seid beide sehr stolz auf euch und ich bin mir sicher, wenn ihr so weiter macht, werdet ihr ganz schnell fließend Deutsch sprechen 🌸 Alles Gute
(Eine kleine Kritik: 4 Mal Werbung, plus Sponsorship mention, in einem 14 Minuten Video stört doch sehr ): das ist zuviel, mMn)
Thank you both for your entertaining and informative videos about your experience living in Germany. I did however feel quite discouraged after watching this episode and wondered whether my desire to move to Germany and learn the language was something I can do. I could use some words of encouragement.
Besser als gedacht. Sehr gut. Beide von euch. Willkommen in Deutschland.
Hi Donnie, Dein Deutsch hat sich schon verbessert ;) Beim Barbeque-Video warst Du noch viel schwerer zu verstehen, weiter so! :) Und Aubrey, es wird!
Vielen vielen Dank! 😊
@@PassportTwo gerne, macht weiter so :)
Wow, Donnie. One can tell you really worked hard on your german. Your grammar is really good, and as you said, the problem is just your pronounciation. You can be understood with no difficulty, but I can tell, that you have to put effort in the pronounciation to sound that way. Anyway, I heard much worse german after longer times of learning.
Really appreciate that! It has been a very slow process during these times while everything is shutdown, but I’m slowly trying to improve! 😊
@@PassportTwo Das glaube ich dir. Und ich denke, Online Unterricht ist zwar besser als kein Unterricht, aber lange nicht so effektiv, wie wenn du es mit Mitschülern in der VHS üben kannst.
First I must say, I love your UA-cam channel and always looking forward to the next one. Don't worry you'll get there with your German, it just takes time and patience. I know it isn't easy to learn a different language, I'm German but live in the UK/England. I would say I'm fluent now, but when I lived in Germany I wasn't really good in English at all. I usually had a 4 or 5 in English, I knew some words, but that's about it. I moved to Ireland and Northern Ireland first and needed to push myself. Watching lots of local TV, reading English books and magazines, socialising with colleagues and locals in general. I got there at the end and I'm proud of myself to be able to speak another language I've never thought I would and to live in an English speaking country that long now. Keep going guys you'll get there, all the best 👍
Das war gar nicht schlecht, Donnie. Weiter so! 👍
My best advice would be that learning should be fun, so do your favorite language related hobbies in German.
You could take advantage of the fact that all the tv shows are dubbed in German on your favorite streaming platforms 🙂 (As long as they are available in Germany, there are no subtitles on regular tv.)
That's how I'm greatly improving my English for years now. I always have English subtitles activated because many actors or streamers just don't speak clearly. I'm doing it for several years now and I'm still sometimes confused by what I hear 🤦🏼♂️. So it's not a miracle work because it's still not your mother tongue. Still, reading and hearing at the same time is very very helpful. Don't be frustrated, you'll learn to do it simultaneously or just pause the show from time to time. (That's what I'm doing.)
Reading is also helpful, if you're into it. I learned important words by buying my favorite books (Harry Potter) again in English, words like canary cream or cauldron cupcakes or polyjuice potion. Just kidding 😀 But also that English sentence structure is just as weird as German ist for you, just look at the first sentence in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's/Sorcerer's Stone.
In my point of view, it's most important to learn Hochdeutsch, because everybody can speak and understand it. I do not feel the need to and cannot speak dialects (at least I'm not aware of it) but I'm good at understanding and guessing based on the context. I'm trying the same with English.
Hope that is helpful and that you will find your best solution. 🙂👋🏼
I'm from German and I laugh so much
Achja und ich hoffe ihr behalted das gefundene wissen
Erst einmal Respekt für eure Arbeit.
Ich finde es witzig, wie ihr sprecht, weil das hört sich an, als ob ihr aus der Schweiz kommt.
Aber echt gut. So kommt ihr doch gut überall durch. 👌🏼
Donnie deine Aussprache ist sehr gut und deutlich! Besonders die ü, ö und ä, sehr gut! Es ist wirklich schwer so viele Konjugationen, Reflexionen und Artikel zu lernen wenn die Muttersprache das nicht hat. Respekt, dass ihr das so toll macht. Ich bin deutsch, habe aber in der Schule Englisch in der 5.-12. Klasse, Latein in der 7.-12. Klasse und französisch in 10. Klasse gelernt. Ging gut, aber man muss es ständig üben und sprechen, sonst vergisst man es wieder.
If you can't pronounce the ch in "ich", you can say "ick", which makes you sound like someone from Berlin or northern Germany.
berliner sagen aber "icke" oder nicht?
No pls Berlin has the ugliest dialect in all of Germany.
I’m from Switzerland and I’m learning German since first grade, I still have problems with some words😅😂
Macht weiter so, ihr werdet immer besser. :) Mit dem Lockdown ist es natürlich viel schwieriger geworden, Deutsch zu üben, aber ihr werdet es schaffen. Ich kann mir vorstellen, dass es total schwierig ist, Deutsch zu lernen und würde glaube ich daran verzweifeln 🙈 umso mehr Respekt für euch, dass ihr dran bleibt und schon so weit gekommen seid. :)
Glückwunsch, ich finde prima, wie gut ihr schon deutsch sprecht!👏🏼
When I was in the US for the first time and only had my ‚school english‘ every evening I would have a headache, because of concentrating sooo much. 😄 ... and even now I‘m not statisfied with me speaking english, ’cause there is always room for improvement. 🤪
Vielen Dank! 😃
I know that exact same feeling. I used to come home from my German classes and tell Aubrey I didn't want to talk anymore for the night because my head hurt 😅
Just have a look to other youtubers you've been in contact with. Jenna from Life in Germany was forced to speak (and understand) german at home with her husband and while beeing around with a bunch of german friends. Learning on an informal basis brings you closer to daily spoken geman. Otherwise Deana from Deana & Phil speaks always english at home and never gets a chance to practise her german day by day.
If you stay in your english bubble you'll struggle for a very long time... Maybe Mark Twain hadn't any german friends to practice with either... 😊😁
Right. Look at Montana Showalter. She stayed only for 9 month in Germany but speaks really decently. She had no prior exposure to German. And she and her fellow exchange students got a few weeks of training at their start to set them up. Then they were realesed to their host families and attended school.
The biggest drawback for learning is the use of English inbetween. Living as a couple does not really help. I noticed that it took me longer to get fluent when I reverted to German speaking even occasionally. My first 8 weeks in the US brought me to quite a level. Even though my vocabulary was smaller than today. But my next extended stay of one year seemed not to get me to the same degree of immersion. Despite being asked to write papers and do presentations.
Mark Twain actually liked the German language quite a lot. The essay isn't meant to be taken completely serious.
Don't worry, we Germans are just as shy about speaking English because we think that people laugh at it, my nephew's wife is from California and at the beginning we were shy about speaking English with her, but it worked with hands and feet 😊 that is 3 years ago and now she speaks German very well
Great perspective for us to hear y'all feel the same sometimes talking to us native English-speakers 😅 Makes me feel better! 😊
I remember when I was 15 it was my first time in England so, although i was not bad.. I wasn't good either. Just living with my host family and hearing it everyday and also being forced to speak it to communicate helps alot. And by now I usually only speak English and rarely german (and sometimes other languages I learned)
I think your pronunciation is great, I can understand you easily and that’s all that counts. I have worked immersed in English for 13 years now and people still ask me where I’m from the moment I open my mouth. But an accent is not a deficiency in my eyes (or ears;-)), it’s a sign of bravery.
So i got your video recommended and as a german myself i found it quiet intresting to see and to hear how people are struggeling with this language, i for my part speak 3 languages and i can understand the struggle really well, since my portugues is terrible in terms of grammar and timeforms. Anyway, keep on going, your german is good.
Glad you found us and enjoyed the video 😊
6:16 min In Scandinavian countries 86 % of the population speak English very well, because they automatically learn it by watching English films in TV. They have no "voice over" (Synchronsprecher) as we have in Germany, they watch films in English with Scandinavian subtitle.
Very interesting! That is definitely a great way to learn and get used to lots of different accents or pronunciations as well.
@@PassportTwo In the USA the accents in Southern states (Florida, Virginia, Georgia) are difficult to understand for foreigners. The Northern states (New York, Maine) and Canada are easier.
@@janpracht6662 Yeah, but US dialects are pretty ok in general. Britain has a lot of dialects that can compete with German ones though.
The same is true in the Netherlands. Moreover the majority of films are british or american.
@@oldebarneveldt5326 In Germany the film-industry drives a big effort with voice-overs in foreign films. The German voices (Synchronsprecher) for Hollywood usually are trained actors who are specialized in voice-over, radio-commercials or radioplays. The most famous Synchronsprecher in Germany are for example Thomas Danneberg (Arnold Schwarzenegger, Silvester Stallone, Dan Aykroyd etc) and Marianne Groß (Whoopi Goldberg, Cher, Angelica Huston).
About modern English: speakers be aware of the fact that they speak a language that has been raped and violated throughout the centuries by Vikings, Normans and Frenchmen so often that it rid itself of most conjugations and declinations. It is a substrate language with hardly any grammar left which is why any idiot on earth learns it so quickly only to despair later on when they have to tell elaborated from poor speech.
Standard German is quite a mouthful in the beginning but once you're past that structural phase (declination of nouns, conjugation of verbs, congruency of adjectives, phrasal word order), it doesn't really get any harder. Only more beautiful.
Oh mein Gott wie niedlich, ich hoffe ihr sprecht in Zukunft öfter deutsch während des Videodrehs
Und immer schön weiter üben, ich drück euch die Daumen
i want to say, for this short of time, an impressive take both of you have archieved in German.
Euer Deutsch ist schon wahnsinnig gut! Die Betonung kommt leider nur, wenn man wirklich sehr oft Deutsch spricht 🙈
Danke schön! 😃
Man versteht euch gut, das ist doch schon mal das Wichtigste. Ihr kämpft mit den Umlauten und den ch-s so wie unsere ins mit dem TH und diversen anderen Lauten. Ich finde es charmant, wenn man hört, wo jemand herkommt. Keep going! 👍
I wish people would stop lying like that. Their German is fair and workable, but it sounds horrible. Both in regards to pronounciation and grammar. Obviously most of us understand that German is hard, and speaking a workable German is worthy of praise. But it doesn't help them at all to lie and say their German was insanely good. At least in this case it doesn't hurt, they know that their german still needs a lot of work.
An addendum: I feel the "workable but sounds horrible" thing is not specific to German, I know it exists for Germans speaking English, too. I took a few C2 English courses. I think my command of grammar and my vocabulary is good, but my pronounciation is far from it. But I was so much better than some of the other students, all of us being at C2 level.
And another addendum: an example of a non native speaker who is insanely good is Sandra Bullock. Apart from a few literally-but-not-strictly-correctly translated words, she's bafflingly good. She's speaking Fränkisch! ua-cam.com/video/pCet_8LuCb4/v-deo.html&ab_channel=TheLaraTesaShow
@@beageler ich, als Deutscher, finde einfach, dass es für die beiden als erst relativ kurz hier lebende ein guter Fortschritt ist.
@@MusicStopsTimeMST Das ist ja auch ok, und ich seh das ähnlich. Aber zu sagen das ihr Deutsch wahnsinnig gut ist kommt mir wie einer dieser blödsinnigen Amerikanismen vor, und dazu noch einer der gut möglich nachteilig ist.
Danke übrigens das du nicht gleich ausgetickt bist. In den letzten Jahren ist es leider immer häufiger geworden das selbst leichte Kritik äußerst heftige Reaktionen hervorruft, was ich auch wieder für nen doofen Amerikanismus halte. Nicht das mein erster Post besonders leicht war :-)
no one:
Germans when there's a video about germany: INFILTRIEREN, EINMASCHIEREN, AUSRADIEREN
Wie immer, sehr sympathisch! ;)
I moved to Germany 7 months ago and I totally get you both what you're saying in tye video. I'm B1 now and not easy to practise due to corona ☹
As a professional German teacher who speaks several foreign languages I can assure you: Learning German is not that hard. Some aspects of German grammar can be tricky, but overall German is not harder to learn than French or Spanish.
Also, German pronunciation is pretty straightforward and actually much more regular than English. Once you know how to pronounce a letter or certain groups of letters it will be correct for virtually all words (the big exception being loanwords from other languages, mostly French). Also those much-feared Umlauts are actually not that hard, as they are literally just in between two clean vowels (e.g. for "ü" is the tongue in the position of 'i' - or 'ee' for our American friends *g* - but the lips in the position for 'u').
Hey, im a natative German teenager and i really understand your problems. German grammar is really hard, it almost entirely consists of exeptions and we learned about it till 6th grade but quickly forgotten about it afterwards. Most people in Germany just speak the language intuitively, because its REALLY hard to remember all the rules. This of course is quiet difficult to foreigners, which is why I think, that the best way to learn it is to live in Germany and ask people to speak German with you, even when they understand english(which most German do). Here learning languages is a bit different. We are required to start learning English in year 1 all through at least year 10, which is why sonmany germans speak the language. (Although I only really became bilingual with German and English when I spent half a year in Australia with an Australien family, and not a single person I met spoke german) Additionally we are also required to learn a third language in school for at least 4 years, so we are much more used to learning different languages. And what also interested me was what you said about dialect, yes we learn standart German in school, but we are also taught part of the German dialects and their origins, similarity, and differences in year 11
What I also wanted to say is that your German is really good. Of course you have a strong accent but that will improve over time.
Lol at which school do u learn about differences in dialect?
I'm from Bavaria and finished the Gymnasium last year, we never had anything remotely that close!
What we did was reading some poems *literary works from different parts, in High German, but with visible dialectal influences (like "Herr Ribbe von Ribbe auf Ribbentropp" for example), but apart from that we just talked once or twice about dialects- in German class, where we had to write an essay about whether they're a good thing & should be envouraged or in the contrary should die out sooner than later cause it makes communication more difficult.
@@johanneskiefer6912 Im from NRW (Ruhrgebiet). Im also at a Gymnasium and in 11th grade now. This Semester Dialekts were our main theme in German class. We spent the last 2 months learning about them, where they come from and what different kinds there are. We also wrote an exam about it and spent at least another month with this
Keep going! You guys are doing great! When I first moved from the US to CH I put a lot of effort into learning German (approx an hour of practice per day on my commutes to and from work). I took me about a year to be able to have conversations and after three years I could speak mostly fluidly and understand pretty much everything. That being said, I moved to Germany after 2.5 years and could only understand southerners because I was so used to the Swiss dialect (Swiss German is practically a different language). My advice is to talk to as many people as you can! If people try to switch to English (which they will) just ignore them and continue speaking German. They will eventually get the hint and switch back. Accent work also helps on this front. If they hear you speaking with a thick American/UK accent they will most likely switch. If you have a good accent though they will mostly not switch. A language exchange with a friend helped me immensely on this side.
I am born in Germany and you both speak it very well 👏
Yes german is not the most easy language but everyone from poland or russia told me that there language is more challenging !
I can definitely believe it! We have Polish friends here and it sounds like a very challenging language!
Whenever I hear "this or that language is the hardest" I recall an old joke: what's the language spoken in Heaven? Polish. Because it takes an eternity to learn. ;-)
German has got its up and downsides. Like the gender isn't always logical and gets mixed up often (but even if you use the wrong one, people will still understand you), but on the other hand one letter means one sound, so once you know how they have to sound you can pronounce all words correctly. English for example is far more difficult in that area (just look at live and life, two completely different pronounciations for i).
Also the different cases aren't really difficult and even if you forget a verb is irregular people will still understand. So it is an easy language to learn the basics of but it is difficult to fully master.
Often the level of difficulty comes from the fact, how foreign your native tongue is from the language you want to learn. For Germans to learn Russian is not as bad, because Germans already are used to the fact that you have to conjugate or deklinate almost everything. But for english speakers it is another beast to master.
What annoys me way more is that in the English vocabulary a lot of words are missing 😜
It's just not complex enough to be able to describe things precisely😄
Really? The English language is said to have near to 1 million words while the estimate for German is around 300.000 to 500.000 words, not counting all the compound words of which you can form arbitrarily many.
@@martinstubs6203 I can't really believe your numbers, but anyways, you definitely need to count the compound words as well if they are official words. You can't just put words together as you like, I mean you can if it makes sense, but a new word needs to be officially accepted to be a "real" word. But often times when I want to write texts in english, I need to simplify or over complicate what I want to say, so I need to rewrite? Write around?(umschreiben) what I want to say. See what I mean, where is the english word for "umschreiben"?😄
@@Der_Kleine_Mann I simply Googled those numbers but I always knew that English had more words than German, owing to the greater influence of the French, Latin, and (classical) Greek languages. It is also a well-known fact among translators that German copy tends to have more words than the equivalent English text. And I didn't mean to leave out all the German compound words, only those arbitrarily constructed like "Rheinmaindonaudampfschiffartskapitänswitwe". Oh, and one English word for "umschreiben" in the given sense is to paraphrase (of Greek origin, btw).
@@martinstubs6203 the fact that tbe texts are longer are partly (or mostly?) caused by German grammar
Ich hab euch und euer Deutsch schon sehr gut verstanden. Gut gemacht, weiter so!
Ich hatte in der Grundschule in der 3. und 4. Klasse Englischunterricht, ich konnte aber das meiste tatsächlich schon. Aus diesem Grund hab ich mich dazu entschieden, ab der 5. Klasse im Gymnasium dann Französisch als erste Fremdsprache zu nehmen statt englisch, und zwar mit bilingualem Zusatzunterricht, das waren dann später Geschichte und Erdkunde, die 2 Stunden pro Woche auf Französisch, eine auf Deutsch unterrichtet wurden.
Ab der siebten Klasse, da war ich 13, kam dann automatisch Englisch dazu, in der 9. Spanisch. Ich hätte da noch Latein zusätzlich lernen können, war mir aber zu viel. Nach der 10. hab ich Französisch dann abgewählt, weil ich mein Abitur nicht teilweise auf Französisch schreiben wollte, was ich wegen dem bilingualen Zweig gemusst hätte, wenn ich es behalten hätte. Hatte dann bis zum Abitur nur noch spanisch und Englisch, war in Schulenglisch aber nicht besonders gut. Wirklich gut in Englisch wurde ich, weil ich angefangen habe, Doctor Who auf Englisch zu schauen und Fanfiction und Bücher auf Englisch zu lesen.
Französisch bessere ich mir gerade wieder auf. Vieles ist in meinem Kopf eigentlich noch drin, ich muss mich nur wieder dran erinnern. Spanisch auffrischen möchte ich auch bald.
Neue Sprachen die ich noch lernen will sind schwedisch und Gebärdensprache.
Ich finde ihr sprecht sehr gut deutsch! Keep the good Work Up! 👍🏼