this post was submitted on 25 Jun 2025
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[–] ikidd@lemmy.world 7 points 15 hours ago

I never tried to learn German but if you spend some time in Germany, you just start to make sense of the words after a bit because it's so close to English. If it weren't for all the damn Germans trying to practice their English on me, I'd probably have gotten reasonably fluent in a couple months.

[–] gusgalarnyk@lemmy.world 20 points 1 day ago (4 children)

As someone learning German right now, I guess it's hard to argue with relative terms but I find the German language to be built with a ton of traps and abnormalities for seemingly no explicable reason.

For instance we conjugate every verb but we maintain the subject, unlike in Spanish where we would conjugate and drop the subject. I don't see any reason why we would do that except to make the language less efficient and more obtuse.

That being said, it hasn't been too hard and I agree with the general sentiment that learning any language is a good hobby to have so I don't want to discourage anyone.

[–] Venus_Ziegenfalle@feddit.org 4 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

From my German perspective I often think the same about time forms in other languages. For conversations you can for the most part get by knowing the present tense and the "Perfekt" past tense. The other forms are important to know down the line but in day to day German those are the one's you'll hear the most. And then there's English. Simple Present, Present Progressive, Simple Past, Past Progressive, Present Perfect, Present Perfect Progressive, Past Perfect, Past Perfect Progressive, Will-Future, Going to-Future, Future Progressive, Future Perfect, Future Perfect Progressive. And apart from maybe 3 or 4 they're all in daily use.

[–] gusgalarnyk@lemmy.world 2 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

This is definitely something that has left me confused. My past comments have been replied to with the explanation that written German is so precise but verbal German, because of the lack of precise tenses, often leaves me having to make assumptions. I chalk it up to my elementary understanding of German, but you explaining the difference a bit helped me pin point what I mean.

[–] Venus_Ziegenfalle@feddit.org 3 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

German isn't overly precise to be honest. It's kind of a "primal" language. We use a tiny active vocabulary and juggle it around to mean completely different things (that's probably a thing a beginner will struggle with, every word in a sentence could potentially be a context clue that changes the entire meaning). English for example has way more unique words. Often texts become noticeably shorter if translated from German to English. I think that rules out precision 😅

[–] gusgalarnyk@lemmy.world 4 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

That's how I felt/feel, but couldn't/can't refute a native speaker because I just don't know enough. Thanks for the comments!

[–] Venus_Ziegenfalle@feddit.org 2 points 12 hours ago

Sure. Feel free to ask if there's anything else. I could chat about languages all day 😄

[–] trollercoaster@sh.itjust.works 15 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (3 children)

Don't worry about the formalities too much. Read lots of German, listen to lots of German, try to find people to speak German with, and it'll come to you naturally. Especially don't try to be too perfect. Spoken German is way more lax than the rules for written German. High German, as it is written and taught, barely exists out there as a spoken language in its pure form. The German language area has a plethora of different regional dialects, which will sneak into the spoken German of even the most fervent formal high German speaker.

[–] Fafa@lemmy.world 9 points 1 day ago (2 children)

I recommend Sachgeschichten from "Sendung mit der Maus". It's a kids show that explanes the world and how stuff is made. The advantage here is that you can see what is happening while it's being explaned in simple vocabulary. Also it's really interesting.

[–] pseudo@jlai.lu 2 points 14 hours ago

Oh! Vielen Dank! This is exactly the kind of content I'm looking for.

[–] trollercoaster@sh.itjust.works 4 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Oh yes, definitely. Die Sendung mit der Maus is a national treasure.

[–] gusgalarnyk@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago

Much appreciated. I'll do my best! I want to be here for life, so I need to learn.

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[–] rumschlumpel@feddit.org 38 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

I did it as a toddler, how hard could it be for adults?

[–] Lazycog@sopuli.xyz 46 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Knowing German can give you a competitive edge with employers and even boost your salary prospects.

Wo mein geld?

This article seems to be targeted at brits but nevertheless, learning languages is good for many reasons. It's also fun as long as it's not something that happens under pressure.

[–] trollercoaster@sh.itjust.works 15 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Wo mein geld?

Was letzte Preis?

[–] Lazycog@sopuli.xyz 7 points 1 day ago (1 children)
[–] trollercoaster@sh.itjust.works 11 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Ich schick mein Kuseng der holt das ab der ist dumm.

[–] Lazycog@sopuli.xyz 7 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Super, heute abend möglich meierstraße 123

doesn't pick up and never answers again

[–] cows_are_underrated@feddit.org 6 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Sorry, die Oma der Tante meines Kusengs ist beim Angeln auf einem Aal ausgerutscht und er musste Sie ins Krankenhaus fahren.

[–] Lazycog@sopuli.xyz 2 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Edit: honestly I don't know how to answer this in german, haven't learned how to express my condolences.

[–] b_tr3e@feddit.org 36 points 2 days ago (5 children)

Wo mein geld?

Well, missing pronoun, ignoring capitalization.... actually you owe us 10€. Haha! Nobody expects the German inquisition!

[–] Lazycog@sopuli.xyz 17 points 2 days ago

Scheiße :(

[–] zaphod@sopuli.xyz 5 points 1 day ago (1 children)

missing pronoun

It's missing the verb and I'm not sure which pronoun you're missing.

[–] cows_are_underrated@feddit.org 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Grammatically correct would be "Wo ist mein Geld?" The "mein" is The missing pronoun.

[–] zaphod@sopuli.xyz 2 points 1 day ago (2 children)

But the "mein" is there and I wouldn't call it a pronoun in this case. If it's used before a noun like in "mein Geld" then it's just a possessive determiner.

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[–] some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org 4 points 1 day ago (2 children)

German has the cool feature of just cramming a bunch of words together to make a new word. That's about the only thing I know about it as someone who's just interested in language as a concept.

For people interested in language who speak English, I will recommend this book, which kinda blew my mind explaining why my native tongue is so stupid for good reasons:

Highly Irregular: Why Tough, Through, and Dough Don't Rhyme and Other Oddities of the English Language

[–] rumschlumpel@feddit.org 7 points 1 day ago (1 children)

It's really not that different.

German: Dampfschiffkapitän

English: steam boat captain

German, if compound words worked like in English: Dampf Schiff Kapitän

English, if compound words worked like in German: steamboatcaptain

[–] Hupf@feddit.org 3 points 1 day ago

Sadly, for some Germans it does

[–] blarghly@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

English isn't stupid. It's organic. Just like any other language. Two native English speakers can communicate with each other clearly and easily, which is the point of language. Saying a language is stupid because it is difficult to learn by non-native speakers, or because it is easy to get your wrist slapped by a hard-nosed grammarian is just hand-wringing.

[–] some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Learn about the Great Vowel Shift and how the timing for it, as well as the timing of the printing press, created a mess of a language with few consistent rules. It's a stupid (written) language because history made it that way.

[–] blarghly@lemmy.world 1 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

I mean, you are kind of missing my point. Native English speakers (or writers) can communicate easily with each other. That is literally the only thing that matters in a language. The consistency of grammatical rules is irrelevant.

[–] some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org 1 points 15 hours ago

I didn't miss your point. You missed mine, which I clarified by adding (written) to make it clear that I wasn't talking about spoken language. We can speak. That's fine. The book that I initially referenced is about the written language and I made an effort to clarify that. You didn't pick up that I was only calling the written language stupid. But I also talked about the introduction of the printing press relative to the Great Vowel Shift, and you missed that too. It was always about writing, spelling, pronunciation, and grammatical rules: things that don't matter in spoken language.

[–] tal@lemmy.today 21 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (2 children)

German and English both belong to the Germanic language family and have a shared history. This means that there are many “cognates” (words that are historically related and therefore similar). These are often easy to guess for English speakers, particularly once you are familiar with some of the patterns.

However, my experience of teaching German at British universities has shown me that German is much more accessible to English speakers than some might think.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frisian_languages

The Frisian languages are the closest living language group to the Anglic languages; the two groups make up the Anglo-Frisian languages group and together with the Low German dialects these form the North Sea Germanic languages.

I bet West Frisian's easier!

EDIT:

https://old.reddit.com/r/languagelearning/comments/6k4a5k/has_anyone_really_learned_frisian_because_it_was/djj8q0o/

Has anyone really learned Frisian because it was the closest to english?

Not exactly what you're asking for, but actor/comedian Eddie Izzard, who had studied Old English, decided to find out whether Old English and Frisian were as close as linguists said they were. He went to an area where Frisian was spoken and tried to negotiate the purchase of a brown cow, speaking Old English to a farmer who spoke only Frisian. Here's the video; it's pretty entertaining if you're into languages.

as someone who only speaks German and English, this is fucking hilarious.

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[–] otter@lemmy.dbzer0.com 13 points 2 days ago

The irony is not lost on me, in this current timeline...

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