<p>I have been posting about the "Modern Language and Literature" major at Kenyon College where one person can take two foreign languages. This is pretty cool because you can study two languages in one major while still having room to double major with something else. For the major, you must take a primary language (one you probably already took in highschool, in my case Spanish) and since its your primary, you shouldnt take an intro course, but if you do it doesnt count towards credits in the major. While the secondary language chosen for the major can be any language you want, specifically one you never took before and the intro class does count towards the major. I would prefer to speak Dutch/Danish etc. but no college offers that. I figured the next closest thing would be German. </p>
<p>Could all the German speakers/studiers out there tell me how difficult they think it is to learn from an English speaker standpoint? What is hard about it? </p>
<p>If you speak Spanish and German, could you give me a comparison on what you think?</p>
<p>How hard is it to pick up the accent and the grammar rules? (I am so used to Spanish so German would be so different)</p>
<p>Also, if you love German, can you tell me what you love about the language so much and if your majoring/going to major in it, can you tell me what your experience has been at the university level?</p>
<p>Anyone study there abroad? Let me know anything and everything about experiences with studying German. What is it most useful for in the job world?</p>
<p>I would rather learn to speak a language that isn't so "main stream" for the lack of a better way of putting it. I think that the languages are really cool and I just had a friend who went to Holland as an exchange student and is studying Dutch. He absolutely loves it and showed me some stuff on the language. It just seems really interesting. Of course, what college is going to offer a major in that? Atleast if I speak German, its like a dialect of Dutch. Plus staying in Denmark and speaking there language sounds interesting too. I just like the idea of Dutch/Danish. I guess I shouldnt say I "prefer" it over German, I just really wish I could study it somehow</p>
<p>I don't think German is a particularly difficult language to pick up. Contrary to what some think, I really don't think German is a harsh or guttural language at all. Learning to speak German is, in my opinion, easier than learning to write/read it. There are a few nasty language rules (prepositions, articles, etc.) which often don't make sense; "boy" is masculine, but "girl" is neutral, for example. You should be able to speak fairly well (able to carry on a simple conversation) at the end of two/three years (or less). Germany is a wonderful country. I went on a two week school trip to Krefeld and absolutely loved it. The accent is a little difficult to pick up (unless you learn at an early age). I think Spanish is harder; I don't know very much Spanish, though, so I can't really judge. Grammar rules are similar to Spanish, I think. My chemistry teacher used to work with German companies, and he says German is very useful in computer companies, chemistry/industry, and related fields. </p>
<p>You mentioned Dutch and Danish. UC Berkeley offers these languages and many, many other languages as well, so you might want to consider it. Middlebury College is also considered very strong in foreign languages (not Dutch/Danish, though). Good luck! :)</p>
<p>I learned French and German, and I found German to be much easier. German just seems like a very logical language with relatively few exceptions. Also, German is close to English on the "family tree of languages", ie, English is a Germanic language. Maybe you could take a German class at a community college or local language school, or sometimes even community recreation departments will have language courses alongside golf, accounting and needlepoint! I think that if you have the aptitude to learn languages, and each new one that you learn will be easier that the previous ones.</p>
<p>i appreciate all the posts. i just was looking up some posts on German in the older Archives of CC and I found a debatable post that French is better than German because most German business people have impeccable English and there are less countries that speak German so it makes it not as useful versus French where you can speak it in Europe, the Carribbean, Africa etc. I was just wondering what people thought on that. I was under the impression that knowing German would be great for business and that companies would want more German speakers, but if the majority of German professionals speak English etc. then what would it be good for? By the way I am not a engineering type person so using German for technology reasons probably wouldn't apply to me.</p>
<p>In my opinion:
German= more grammatically complex and strict. pronunciation is a bit different
Spanish= much closer to English (odd since German and English have the same roots)
German= Much more practical and useful in the real world than Danish and quite possibly French and Spanish even though you are not interested in things like technology.
Germany= A wonderful place to go to. Great food too =p</p>
<p>"but if the majority of German professionals speak English etc. then what would it be good for?"
Almost all Europeans in business can surely speak English well, but most likely not all...Fluency in another language is definitely an advantage.</p>
<p>Btw, I speak fluent German, I've studied Spanish for 5 years, and I've spent over a month living in Germany.
If you still want to learn something like Danish, I say follow your dreams and gl. I'm sure it'll pay off and be a lot of fun.</p>
<p>I live in So. Cal. so maybe Spanish just seems a little easier and familiar?</p>
<p>First off, being able to speak German will not help in being able to speak Dutch/Danish. You will be able to piece together written things and perhaps be able to understand some spoken stuff, but speaking it yourself is a whole different can of worms.</p>
<p>I'm a big fan of German for a bunch of different reasons. First, it's sounds nice, it's not anywhere near as guttural as people make it out to be. French has a weirder overtone than German IMO. Also, the Lit is awesome. Unfortunately German authors are known for extremely complex and wordy sentences, but they do have a lot of good authors: Goethe, Grass, Mann, Kafka, Hesse, and several others. In the philosophy realm they are equally prolific, Nietzsche and Kant alone are enough to fill anyone's time, then of course there's Heidigger, Hegel, and Wittgenstein (that's probably spelled very very wrong). If you have any interest at all in Christian Theology it's a good language too (Luther, Barth, Tillich).</p>
<p>One qualm that most people are going to have about German is that a large number of those who speak it also speak fluent/near-fluent English. My answer to this is twofold: first, speaking to a person in their own language is a rewarding experience all its own; and two, they generally can get their point across better in German than in English.</p>
<p>Umm... that's all I can think of off the top, hope that helps,</p>
<p>It may depend on why you want to speak the new language. If it is for travel/pleasure, I would go with my heart. If it is for business/employment, I would take the language that would most likely be helpful. I know someone who worked for Bayer in some computer capacity, and had to learn German quickly for his job, because Bayer is a German company. If you are going to be in California, I would think that Spanish would be better. I seem to remember hearing somewhere that French is the international language of banking (although I can't document this). But, hopefully you get my point!</p>
<p>I have taken German for four years in high school and I love it. I think it's fun and interesting - even though I think that the pronunciation of words can be difficult to pick up at first and the words are ridiculously long in some cases. One of my best friends lived in Holland for almost five years and I think that Dutch and German are similar. Speaking Dutch would be different, but if you wanted the closest thing to Dutch, I do think it would be German. Are you planning on going to Kenyon? I am and I have also thought about majoring in German and doing the Modern Language major, but I'm just not sure what I would do with it.</p>
<p>Kenyon is my number one choice, since I got deferred from Scripps. I am actually staying over night this week feb23-24. I am flying out from NJ. I am not accepted yet, but I have some very strong connections in the admissions office and board of trustees, so I am assuming I will be accepted (Of course you never know! :( ). I still qualify as an applicant but of course having those people to help me out doesnt hurt any. I think that the MLL major at Kenyon is awesome considering I would love to translate for a company and travel. I plan to try and learn as many languages as possible in life, so this major can help set me on my way. I am really interested in German because of all the travel opportunities etc. but I also seem to have a strong inclination for Japanese. Who knows what I will study. I know Spanish is a must on my college agenda and I plan to become fluent in that since I am a fairly good speaker now. I think there is a lot you can do with speaking languages, esp. if you double major which I hope to do. Maybe Classics <em>because of the latin/greek for languages</em> or English. It just seems like knowing languages is the key to everything! :) You can expose yourself to so much in life if you can communicate with other cultures.</p>
<p>Oh sure here are my stats:
3.8 weighted GPA
1250 SAT and 29 ACT
rank 96/813 (I think, it might have changed but that was it when I applied to Kenyon)
Um, this is the first time I've ever posted my stats...I think I remembered everything :)</p>