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Trying to learn German. Please save me.

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The most important thing is that the only appropriate answer to "Mahlzeit!" is "Mahlzeit!" and none of this "Gleichfalls!" nonsense people are doing.

That's because they do not want to put that filthy word into their mouth. Mahlzeit is the epitome of Spießigkeit.
 
Yeah, but I go "Mahlzeit!" when people greet me with it as well, lol.

I'm living in Saarland currently and that "Mahlzeit!" "Mahlzeit!" rule is one of the first things people taught me when I moved here. People here go bloody mental with the lingo too:

Oh God, I feel so sorry for you. So, so sorry. No one should have to go through this. My deepest condolences.
 
Don't expect an easy time. While most European languages often has common words that stem from Latin or Greek, Germans decided to make up their own words instead. Examples:
English - French - Polish - German
Distribution - distribution - dystrybucja - Distribution
Representation - représentation - reprezentacja - Repräsentation
You can see the pattern. :p And yes, there are many similar words across English and German (eg. bread and das Brot), but I don't think it's easy to just guess when similar words have the same meaning, at least in the early days of learning a language.

FTFY

All depending on context and the level of language you use.
 
To learn German you gotta live in Germany. By doing this you will learn that it's a language way harder in theory than practical (it's still pretty hard though!)

And stay away from southern accents, as long as you don't plan on living there, it'll be like a whole different language :p
 
Articles in German is perhaps the most annoying thing in the language because they are very necessary. You can learn the declination rules in some lessons but if you don't know the articles it's all useless, everything is as wrong as if you hadn't learn a thing.

however, every language has its shitty areas.

from what germans told me about spanish, (my language) the hardest stuff to learn is the different modi of the verbs.The complains go like:

"dude, what the fuck is that with the verbs?? why do you need all those "hubiera, habria, hubiese, haya" I have no idea what to use" and I lol, cause it's true, it's hard to grasp.

THISSS. I'm German and have been learning Spanish for fun for 3 semesters now. So much irregularity and all these special usages of the Subjuntivo - it almost rivals German :D

I'd really love to reach a level of fluency similar to my English or at least like my Farsi. Basically being able to understand most everyday conversations and movies (with English or Spanish subtitles as a help).
 
Because you get thrown out of the room if you say that in Austria.
That's like ordering a "Brötchen" here. People would just spit in your face (rightfully so, if I may add)

When I went to Austria I said "Moin" and ordered Brötchen. I didn't give a fuuuuuuuuuuuck. I'm the North American of German speaking countries.

#learnHochdeutsch!
 
FTFY

All depending on context and the level of language you use.

Haha that may be true that I've never payed attention to those Latin words where I saw them in German but simply when I encountered Verteilung and Darstellung in places where I would have expected distribution and representation to be used it really surprised me and made me remember them (when studying quantum mechanics from German textbooks,"die Ortsdarstellung" is used for "the position representation", "die Poisson-Verteilung" is used for "the Poisson distribution").

It wasn't my intention to spread misinformation by any means. Just checked the word frequencies on Duden, it lists Darstellung as more frequent than Repräsentation and Verteilung as frequent as Distribution.
 
Talking about quantum mechanics.

German is maybe the best language for science and engineering in the world, it isn't even funny how often English lacks terms and you are forced to describe things while German has for everything a term which describes what you mean exactly.
 
I'd rather lose my right arm than having to learn German.
Artikel, Konjugationen, Deklinationen my ass.
Der Tisch, des Tisches, dem Tisch, der Tisch, haha. Ich werde das Nutella gegessen haben. Fuck off.

Thank god, I'm a native speaker.
 
Talking about quantum mechanics.

German is maybe the best language for science and engineering in the world, it isn't even funny how often English lacks terms and you are forced to describe things while German has for everything a term which describes what you mean exactly.

Doesn't help when you still have all publications in english for maximum exposure.
 
Talking about quantum mechanics.

German is maybe the best language for science and engineering in the world, it isn't even funny how often English lacks terms and you are forced to describe things while German has for everything a term which describes what you mean exactly.

Except for safety and security.
 
To be honest, there's not a whole lot of German quality content around but some good ones include:

Movies:
Victoria
Das Leben der Anderen
Der Untergang
Die Welle
Good Bye Lenin
Der Baader-Meinhof Komplex

TV series:
Deutschland 83
Der Tatortreiniger
Stromberg (the German version of The Office)
Pastewka
Morgen hör' ich auf

No idea about YouTube.

How could you forget Das Boot?

Yeah I can imagine learning German to be a pain in the ass. Especially der/die/das. And I can imagine that being even more confusing for an English speaker if you have learned French before.

You can always join us at DeutschGAF and chat or ask questions if you want
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1123653
 
Yeah, but I go "Mahlzeit!" when people greet me with it as well, lol.

I'm living in Saarland currently and that "Mahlzeit!" "Mahlzeit!" rule is one of the first things people taught me when I moved here. People here go bloody mental with the lingo too:

Shittiest place in Germany I think
 
No one can reach me the water

1344449529_spiderman_throwing_up_in_slowmotion.gif
 
GunslingerVit for chancellor.

But I already am.
Schattenparlament *tinfoil*

Idioms, idioms everywhere!
I understand just train-station - Ich versteh nur Bahnhof
sorry, my englisch is under all pig - Entschuldige, mein Englisch ist unter aller Sau
I think I spider - Ich glaub ich spinne
the devil will i do - Den Teufel werd ich tun
my lovely mister singing club - Mein lieber Herr Gesangsverein
http://ithinkispider.com/
 
I just had two weeks of Deutsch A1 intensive, so I understand the frustration. I had my exam yesterday and I think I did well but I messed up a couple of the gender questions. I was dreaming about der, die oder das all last week. I only have a little over a month left in Germany though. Then I will move to Sweden and have to start learning Swedish, my A1 Swedish course starts in April.
 
Thanks for all the German TV / movie recommendations, hadn't even thought of that. I wouldn't mind music recommendations either. I think I have some Kraftwerk, Rammstein, and Schandmaul lying around already. Too bad cheesy eighties power metal bands all sing in English.

Regarding German, I have no idea. We could chat over Skype or something if you want to though.

OP, if you want we could add each other on a messenger and write in german >> or come and meet everyone in DeutschGAF.

Thanks for the offers, but I'd make for really boring conversation right now. I might lurk DeutschGAF until I feel some confidence about my vocabulary though.

I presume you're using the duolingo mobile app, since you mention a commute. If you're unaware, login on a desktop and many of the levels will have additional 'notes' which go into more detail on grammar and stuff. For some bizarre reason it's not possible to find these on the app.

I actually didn't realize that the website was different. I'll check it out.

Just go for something easier and much more beautiful.

Like, French.

I'm not biased at all.

The Ontario school system couldn't convince me to learn French, I'll be damned if the actual French can.

Just out of curiosity, is there a language that is considered the 'easiest' to learn for native English speakers?

Probably Scots. I'm pretty sure that it's the closest living relative to English; it just sounds like an outrageous accent have the time. Though I guess the resources for learning it would be pretty bad.
 
Thanks for all the German TV / movie recommendations, hadn't even thought of that. I wouldn't mind music recommendations either. I think I have some Kraftwerk, Rammstein, and Schandmaul lying around already. Too bad cheesy eighties power metal bands all sing in English.
I don't listen to a lot of German music, but here's some bands/songs I like

Die Ärzte - Junge, Schrei nach Liebe, Unrockbar, Deine Schuld
Die Fantastischen Vier - MFG, Troy
Deichkind - Bück dich hoch
Casper - Hinterland
K.I.Z - Hurra die Welt geht unter
AnnenMayKantereit - Oft Gefragt
Bilderbuch - Maschin
Tocotronic - Die Erwachsenen
Wanda - Bologna

...

nah I'm just kidding, you only really need to know one song. Sing with me! "Atemlos durch die Nacht ..."
 
I don't listen to a lot of German music, but here's some bands/songs I like

Die Ärzte - Junge, Schrei nach Liebe, Unrockbar, Deine Schuld
Die Fantastischen Vier - MFG, Troy
Deichkind - Bück dich hoch
Casper - Hinterland
K.I.Z - Hurra die Welt geht unter
AnnenMayKantereit - Oft Gefragt
Bilderbuch - Maschin
Tocotronic - Die Erwachsenen
Wanda - Bologna

...

nah I'm just kidding, you only really need to know one song. Sing with me! "Atemlos durch die Nacht ..."

Man... I always loved your posts, but now you're my favorite poster!
Abseits von "Atemlos", wenn das ernst war finde ich deine Adresse raus!
 
I moved to Germany and also tried to use Duolingo to learn the language, lured by the promise of the gamification. However, it is no fun at all, I don't care that after some very boring exercises I have a little bar that grows. I want the exercises to be fun themselves, or just some fun puzzles that just have German around.

Still, I pushed on because it is kinda useful to know the language of the country you live in, and found the app did almost nothing to help me learn the language. It has almost no grammar, no prepositions, no pronouns so I can't really structure any sentences. I've been surviving of google translate, which is also really bad by the way.

My new strategy is to drink beer with Germans and hope the language will eventually rub off on me. But I'm open for a more useful app/site that teaches the language, preferable something fun as I hate studying.
 
I've been speaking german for 25 years now and even I have no idea what I'm doing. This language is a huge asshole, trying to actively fuck you up around every single corner.

Don't even engage in its bullshit. Just speak however you want, chances are the germans you talk to have no idea how their grammar works neither.
This is a joke but not really

Holy shit, this is depressing. :( I've always wanted to tackle German and I recently started working for a company that has their HQ in Germany (and will have me traveling there a couple times per year.) I recently discovered duolingo and was going to add it to my list of usual suspects: Living Language, Pimsleur, etc. But the way everyone makes it sound, seems I'd be better off not even bothering and just stick to the other languages I already know fairly well. (55% French fluency rating in duolingo after taking the initial eval test, sweet!)
 
French hard? German hard?

Try learning Japanese or Arabic and then compare.

Though I guess almost all languages are hard when you only know English. Such an easy language.
 
Holy shit, this is depressing. :( I've always wanted to tackle German and I recently started working for a company that has their HQ in Germany (and will have me traveling there a couple times per year.) I recently discovered duolingo and was going to add it to my list of usual suspects: Living Language, Pimsleur, etc. But the way everyone makes it sound, seems I'd be better off not even bothering and just stick to the other languages I already know fairly well. (55% French fluency rating in duolingo after taking the initial eval test, sweet!)

German is eminently learnable for a native English speaker; it just takes some work. Focus on functional and conversational German, learn as you go, ask lots of questions, and keep at it. Learning a language isn't something you can do in a weekend.

If you have heavy experience in another language, even French/Spanish, that will help tremendously as you already have experience dealing with different functions of language.

German is tougher for a native English speaker than something like Norwegian or Dutch would be, but it's not Korean or Amharic or Hungarian (with its 18 cases). There are plenty of similarities and even idioms that are 1:1. The languages are related, after all.
 
I'd like to do German someday but it's not a priority for me right now. I use a flash card app called memrise for languages and I sometimes do a little German. It's literally just flash cards but words do have their pronoun from what I've seen so far. Haven't used duolingo for German but I don't like duolingo much either. I used it for about a minute with Danish and said screw this and went to memrise.
 
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