<p>So will two years of college level french be enough to read philosophers like Sarte or Camus?</p>
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<p>I had the same choice last year. I only chose German because it was easier due to fluency in English and Dutch.
I would also much rather be fluent in french, but it's harder for me. French is however the better language to learn overal imo.</p>
<p>btw Nietzsche is a d o u c h e</p>
<p>Despite Germany's greater economic presence, French is still a much more significant language internationally. </p>
<p>*33 countries have French as one of their official languages surpassed only by English with 54. (This does not include oversease territories such as Guadeloupe. German has 5.
*If you include countries where French is a language of culture the total doubles to 66. For German it is 9.
*There are many countries outside of Africa where French has strong cultural traditions and many speakers: Spain, Romania, Bulgaria, Moldova, Macedonia, Albania, Israel, Lebanon, Syria, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Mexico.
*There are about 200 million francophones around the world according to the OIF excluding secondary speakers. </p>
<p>*French is the only language besides english taught in every country in the world. There are over 1,000 offices of the Alliance Francaise in 136 countries and 450 high schools and colleges educating mostly non-French citizens. The Madrid French high school has over 4,000 students, the vast majority Spaniards. </p>
<p>*After Spanish, French it has the largest foreign-language enrollment in US colleges and universities at over 200,000 compared to 90,000 for German.
*Over 110,000 high school students in the US annually take the French Grand Concours as compared to 24,000 in the German Exam. </p>
<p>In "The World's Ten Most Influential Languages" in Language Today (December 1997), George Weber developed a ranking system taking account a language's influence according to performance in six categories: number of speakers, number of secondary speakers, number of countries where the language is used; number of major areas of human activity where the language is used, economic power of countries where the language is used and socio-literary prestige of these countries. The ranking results were:
1. English 37 points
2. French 23 points
3. Spanish 20 points
4. Russian 16 points
5. Arabic 14 points
6. Chinese 13 points
7. German 12 points
8. Japanese 10 points</p>
<p>I have personally no ax to grind. I speak fluently both languages. German was very close to my native language (Swedish) and I grew up in France. I live in the US and run a business in France. Even though I also travel frequently to Germany, I hardly ever use the language except on social occasions. In business, Germans are accustomed to use English and speak it very well, much better than any foreigners speak German. It is not always the case in France, where the command of spoken English is relatively poor even in business circles. You also have a huge social advantage and be much more readily accepted if you can interact in French on a daily basis, even if not fluently. Command of French is also very much of a necessity to efficient transaction of business in France. This is not true in Germany where foreigners are generally not expected to learn let alone master the language. In Switzerland, far more Swiss-germans speak French than the other way around. Same thing in Belgium between the French speaking Walloons and the Flemish speakers. </p>
<p>As far as learning the languages both have very complex grammars although the German grammar is not riddled with exceptions like the French. On the other hand, the structure of French sentences is fairly straightforward and as long as you don't expect to fully master the language (which even native speakers can't do) you can fairly quickly achieve reasonable reading and writing skills. You also quickly find out that all these nasty words on the SAT were nothing but French. </p>
<p>German is much more challenging and less intuitive: first you have to learn to speak like Yoda with all the verbs at the end, create compound words of 50+ characters and learn declinations of words and complex verb conjugations. Unless you have studied something like Latin or even Russian, it won't make sense for a while. As far as reading philosophy in the original german language, you might as well forget it. Kant is obtuse enough to understand in English, let alone trying to get the meaning in German.</p>
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<p>Yes, but you can read Kant in English and read with the German text open as well to consult certain passages....</p>
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<p>Unless you are at the level where you aced AP German (and then some), this is going to be a very tough proposition. Early translations of the German philosophers were pretty lousy but the more recent versions (from Cambridge U.) are excellent. It is interesting to note that much of Kant's earlier work was in Latin and that it may actually be more useful in some respects to understand his philosophy than German!.</p>
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<p>I'd do French.</p>
<p>"So will two years of college level french be enough to read philosophers like Sarte or Camus?"</p>
<p>I just finished sophomore year in high school and in my Pre-IB French III class, we read "Huis Clos" by Sarte.</p>
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<p>is pre-IB french III equal to about 2 years of college french</p>
<p>"For philosophy, Ancient Greek might be the most useful!"
this claim is undisputed. PERIOD.</p>
<p>second great philosophy contributer (in the west) is france, then england, than spain.</p>
<p>germany is NOT the richest country. if u divide italy in half, the northern half is the richest in europe, nay the world.</p>
<p>french is almost practically given. many just assume that u know it (at least in some parts of old world) because it so traditionally bound to the upper tier of society (even though english is more so). when u say u're taking a foreign language, i assume that u're taking something MUCH more deeper, richer and DIFFICULT languagese than german or french. what do i mean by this? i mean arabic, greek, chinese, etc. </p>
<p>what's the use of taking german?????? i see no reason. germany is almost invisible in world history.</p>
<p>most germans already speak english (actually most people in europe, asia, africa), so there is no communication difficulty there.</p>
<p>people won't be impressed with u knowing german because they esteem greek and other mega-difficult languages much higher.</p>
<p>german itself is a very tiresome to hear. it's so frustratingly ugly.</p>
<p>if u cower away from the languages of gravity:
u should take french, if u don't know it. but also consider spanish and italian. spain used to be the "greatest power on earth" for some decades during 1500's and must offer vast array of invaluable imperial documents, literature, etc. not to mention it is spoken all over the new world.
italian, i need not mention the rich renaissance culture.</p>
<p>now, if u're taking a foreign language, why take something that is so weak? take something that has exerted influence on world history. most of northern european languages, in my opinion, are useless in this respect (save english, which i consider latin) for the bearers of these languages never exerted or displayed power as the ex-roman provinces have done.</p>
<p>At my school, the equivalent to Pre-IB French III is College French I.</p>
<p>Actually, sauronvoldemort, I have hear from a few of my philosophy professors that ancient greek is almost useless in philosophy. The reason is not that much philosophy was written in ancient greek, it is that it is EXTREMELY hard to read Plato or Aristotle in ancient greek. They tell me that even after taking the language for four years in college that it can still take them up to 5 minutes to translate a single sentence.</p>
<p>Also, I am not sure about your claims that germany is not the richest country in europe. According to this ranking, germany has the third largest economy in the world behind USA and Japan.</p>
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<p>I can clarify a bit, but I absolutely can't, can't, can't substantiate or defend...it's only word of mouth. Just a disclaimer. Worth asking around about if you really feel that it matters.</p>
<p>In general, I've heard many more complaints (from professors) re: translations of German works than French (although this can't in all cases be credited to the translations as much as to the oh-so-accessible writings of, say, Kant :p). For one thing, there are a fair number of philosophical concepts that are just untranslatable, and I'm sure that this fact holds true in any language, although it's really only ever been 'problematic' for me (quotes because it hasn't created major issues) in ancient texts and in modern German texts. So if a closer understanding of original philosophical texts is your ultimate goal, I'd say that if this is reliable information, German would be more useful. But in truth, I think that you'd have to reach (or grow up with) a level of fluency far greater than what you'll get if you only take the language as a college elective, and I don't think that a one semester or year headstart will make much of a difference either way.</p>
<p>I heard before enrolling that German 'made sense' for philosophy. I thought that was cool, but I didn't take it for that reason. I was interested in learning the language for personal, not practical reasons, and I ended up having a blast in my courses. I'd actually hated the three years of languages--Spanish and Latin--that I had had before college, so this was a big deal for me. Part of what caused the change was that I was finally motivated by true interest, rather than practicality. I maintain that you should start with whichever language you find most interesting. This way, even if you find that you can't translate a word of philosophy, you won't have wasted your time. And since such a huge part of language study is memorization (vocab expansion), I think it really helps to have a personal interest in what you're learning. Just my two cents, but it held very, very (unexpectedly) true for me.</p>
<p>Good luck :)</p>
<p>ETA: I should make one clarification. After the two years of German that I had, I'm sure I could read and translate some German philosophy. But I'm also quite sure that even under the best of circumstances, I would still rely on English translations for my actual understanding of the arguments. So when I say that a few semesters of a language probably won't let you read philosophy, I don't mean 'read' in a literal sense. You'll get a fair number of the words and sentences, but philosophy texts tend to be dense and complex, so it seems doubtful that you'd be so proficient as to actually obtain more/better understanding from the original text than from a translation. I was easily reading through short stories and screenplays, but that's about as heavy as it got. But again...just me and my own situation. I still think your goals are excellent, so this advice is merely cautionary :)</p>
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<p>
[quote]
germany is almost invisible in world history.
[/quote]
LOL</p>
<p>Why do most of you guys assume that it is best to learn the most widely spoken language? Ever considered that some companies may be actively recruiting employees who speak a language that is not as commonly learned in the US as Spanish or French?</p>
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<p>
[quote]
germany is NOT the richest country. if u divide italy in half, the northern half is the richest in europe, nay the world.
[/quote]
sauronvoldemort, that argument does not hold. I am sure every developed country has a region that looked at by itself has a higher per capita gross domestic product than most other countries.
Btw, when you divide Germany in half, the Western part has a much much much healthier economy than the Eastern part.</p>
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<p>Take German...its badass I am semi-fluent in it and I love to speak it when I can.</p>
<p>Spanish don't take I am sick of hearing it.
French is cool i guess.</p>
<p>How hard is french pronunciation? Since I've taken Latin, I think I can handle the grammar in french but I have never really had to worry about speaking, except for a breif stint in Spanish.</p>
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<p>Not unlike English, French is pronounced in many different ways even inside France. Most Americans have a tough time pronouncing the "u" sound and sometimes mix the "en" , "in", "eu" and "oin" sounds. The main difference with English is that no particular syllable is emphasized in a word, which makes French somewhat easier to pronounce. Unlike Italian, Spanish or Japanese, but similar to English, French is not particuarly phonetic: there are a lot of silent letters and the spelling of a word does not necessarily tell you how to pronounce it. Conversely, the same sound can be spelled many different ways. Once you memorize the main rules, you find it is not very hard to achieve decent conversational skills.</p>
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<p>
[quote]
germany is almost invisible in world history.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>wow - we've started two world wars (and lost) - vietnam and iraq aren't even close ;) (THAT WAS IRONY/SARCASM/CYNICISM - just to make it sure).</p>
<p>now b2t: I'm a native German as you might have guessed already. I've learned Latin, English and French (in this order) and to me, French was the hardest. Of course I was never able to speak Latin but I neither was in French after 5 years. Ok, I had a really bad teacher and my talent might be limited but French is hard to learn (though I learned to push all the grammar into my head within 3 hours). I never even tried to learn the exceptions.</p>
<p>To become a master of French (or kind of), you have to stay there for a couple of months...</p>
<p>Now advantages / disadvantages:
No language will provide you with more swear words than German and in no country it will be used that constantly. It indeed is a lot of fun. The language itself, I was told, sounds like constant swearing. Germany indeed is an economic powerhouse and exported far more goods than china, japan or (YES) the USA. Thus, if employed in a company, you might very well come in contact with German businessmen - it's rather unlikely that you will ever meet one of the 33 countries which are francophon from Africa.</p>
<p>On the other hand side, a philosophy major might not be that focused on business and every German you talk to will manage to communicate in better or worse English. In France, you will have a tough time to find someone who does and you will be excluded immediately if you don't speak French. This is due to our history. While France is still proud on its ancient success when it never had to adapt but could force other countries to learn their language, Germany was the loser of the past century and with its focus on export has to schmooze its clients.</p>
<p>Just to be realistic - reading Kant will be troublesome... I don't understand it ;) </p>
<p>You have to decide - you can't go wrong with either language, starting them straight behind each other sounds difficult because you might very well throw them together - this is what happend with my French: It contains more English words than French. </p>
<p>PS: Nothing is so funny like an American trying to speak French. It just sounds wrong. Americans speaking German works out much better...</p>