German is not an easy language to learn but it’s worth it. It’s also not as hard as many people claim it to be. You will realise that with discipline and endurance the progress will come quickly. Soon, you will be able to read simple texts and understand light conversations. This is when it starts getting interesting. Below you can find some information about the different sections of the German language and what is typically being said about them.
Grammar
The most difficult part when learning German is the grammar. It is true that the German grammar can be quite confusing and complex, however, most of it has precise rules. Other grammar rules, often less important, take a long time to learn even for people who have been living in Germany for many years. But don’t let that discourage you, with the right tutor you can learn the grammar quickly and efficiently.
Vocabulary
The German language is very precise. For several English words, there are multiple options to translate them to describe the object or action in detail. Probably you have heard that in the case of “why”, which can be translated with “warum”, “weshalb”, or “weswegen”, all of which means the same. While this can feel intimidating, it is important to note that there are actually multiple vocabulary that are similar in German and English. Also, while there are some words that can be translated in multiple ways, there is no need to know them all immediately, thus can be learned at a later stage.
Speaking
You might think that German sounds harsh and rude. While this is true for people who don’t understand the language, you might realise that once you start understanding German that this is actually not true. Often times, once you start understanding what is being said, you won’t agree with the statement anymore. The pronunciation overall is really straight forward and most of the times foreigners learning the language don’t report problems as often as they do about the grammar rules.
Reading
Reading is an important aspect when learning a language as you will be able to learn new grammatical structures and new vocabularies. You should read as much as possible to learn new words and remember certain grammar rules more easily. Reading German articles might be challenging in the beginning but once you learn the most important vocabularies and familiarise yourself with the grammar, specifically the sentence structure, reading German will become interesting.
Listening
Germany has around 100 million native speakers. Just like in any other languages, there are multiple dialects in different countries as well as within Germany. Luckily, most people, especially the younger ones, do not have a very strong dialect anymore. Especially in schools, universities, or at work, people tend to speak with less dialect making it easier for foreigners or non-native speakers to follow. Nevertheless, once you have a good level of German, it might be worth it to try out listening to different dialects and see how much you can understand. Don’t worry if you don’t understand everything, even some Germans won’t be able to grasp everything. Additionally, by listening to normal German conversations on YouTube or in real life, you will be able to tell the difference between written and spoken German. While there are no major differences, certain aspects do differ as people tend to speak informal. To get used to German listening, you can try our podcasts or YouTube channels such as easyGerman.
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