German is a foreign language growing in popularity. The ability to speak and write this language proficiently is a valued skill in the business world, and is also useful for chatting with the numerous German speaking tourists around the world. Whilst many people’s experience of learning German evokes sitting in a classroom at school having to learn verb declinations, many adults are choosing to study German in their free time. Here we meet two individuals who are learning German in their home countries for various personal reasons. I asked them a series of questions, including their motivation for learning German, the difficulties that arise, aspects of the language that they enjoy and differences between the German culture and their own.
Andrei Marius, a 30 year old Software Developer from Bucharest in Romania
has been learning German for four months. He did an intensive month-long
language course in Berlin and besides a weekly private session with a native speaking teacher, studies by himself. His goal is to eventually live and work in Germany, whilst his motivation is primarily one of meeting the challenges that German grammar presents. “ I like German because it’s so difficult. The grammar is really hard, especially the word order in a sentence”. German does indeed have a complicated sentence structure compared to English, with the verb frequently appearing at the end of a sentence, or in the middle of a clause.
Andrei finds the German people very friendly and pleasant to talk to, and
admires their penchant for punctuality. Andrei’s favorite German word is ‘genau’ which means ‘ok’ or ‘right’ and is used abundantly in conversation as a reply or a positive affirmation. It also acts as an adjective and adverb to mean ‘exactly’ or ‘exact’.
On the other hand, James Bowen, aged 24 from Minneapolis, USA does not find German a particularly hard language to learn. “A lot of the words are similar to their English counterpart”, he says. James has been learning German for about 3 months, and practices mainly online, in chat rooms and forums. James finds the process of learning a language interesting, especially building up vocabulary and memorizing words.
James works in the alcoholic beverage industry and has had the chance to
spend some time in Berlin, where he managed to put some of his German skills into practice. “The biggest difference that I learned firsthand when I was in Germany was that if you don't speak German, most people will ignore you.” Another interesting observation of his, is the proliferation of football pitches in ‘every other street’ in Germany, which he compares to the numerous basketball courts in his home country. His favorite word is an interesting choice: ‘mundgeruch’ which means ‘bad breath’. He also likes confusing his work colleagues now and again by slipping German words such as “Danke’ into the conversation.
What stands out in both cases, is both individuals’ determination and
self-motivation to learn a foreign language of their own accord. It just goes to show that you don’t need a conventional classroom environment to learn a language, which can also be a fun hobby.
Isabel Trevor is a freelance writer for cultural writing.
