Is German Hard to Learn?

🇩🇪 According to Mark Twain, "once the German language gets hold of a cat, it's goodbye cat!" But is German really so bad? Is it difficult for English speakers? And most importantly, does the cat survive?! 🙀
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⏱ TIMESTAMPS:
0:00 - Is German Hard?
0:19 - The Easy Parts
1:16 - The Harder Parts
1:19 - Pronunciation
2:20 - Building Words
3:13 - Building Sentences
4:27 - Gender and Articles
5:42 - Cases
6.22 - Pronouns
7:15 - Separable Verbs
8:35 - Prepositions
9:22 - The Silver Lining
9:52 - So… What’s the Verdict?
📜 SOURCES & ATTRIBUTIONS:
Special thanks to Holger Krueger for reviewing the German in this video.
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[@storylearning]

🇩🇪 Watch German's fascinating origin story 👉🏼 kzbin.info/www/bejne/paaYgaaLlJKMrMk

[@vinduesmelonjensen4689]

Can you plz do a video about icelandic.

[@vomm]

It makes no sense to use flags of nations for languages. German is not only speaken in Germany.

[@WOLFGANG-BOZKURT]

(greek+stavrOS)(german+kreUZ)(latin+crOCe)(english+crOSs)(french+crOIX)++OZ+rune is100% türkisch...slaw ethnic called haplogroup R1b=is5000yo indogerman language origin=haplogroup R=40k yo central asian türk..türks are dad of putin/german. 1*ben-2*men-3*menim-4*senin=1*bin-1*ME-2*MY-3*MINE-3*MEIN-4*SEIN... tittrer=zitter..kel=kahl..=ochse=öküz..bar-var=war...kert/ket/kes=cut..KERT=KERT-schneiden..KIRT/SIRT/ŞIRT/ŞORT=SHORT..TO MAK"e=MAK..cakMAK=to slap..yapMAK=to MAK"e=english german and many more are 100% türkisch. türkish languages and their ethnic belongs to central asian people who are türkish, türk is a culture, not ethnic++WOLFGANG MEANS;THE ROAD OF THE WOLVE... benim onur= my honour O.o kaç=much..tepe=top..bil-bilen-bilan=plan--bil=know..john=çan who?hu-MEN=MENsch Mannheim ist die hauptstadt der deutschen sprache; vATA=ata=father=vater=atatürk^^..native american languages türkish; KENTUCKY=KANTOK=BLUT-SATT=FULL OF BLOOD :^(-european genocid to native american..

[@videomailYT]

^^ there exist 5 different ways to pronounce the letter R so what is the problem when not all 5 forms were used... 🤷

[@ROWWOT]

Try Georgian language bro :)

[@TomWaldgeist]

We Germans dont hate Cases. We just speak or write and know what to use. And to the seperatable verbs: the context usually makes us understand immediately what someone says without even getting to the end.

[@iwanttolearngerman]

So it's about intuition?🤔🤔🤔

[@crooniegrumpkin4415]

@Tom Waldgeist That’s the part I’ve yet to figure out.

[@TomWaldgeist]

@@iwanttolearngerman yes. It's like speaking your Mother tongue. You only think about the content you want to transmit and not the form. You learn your Mother tongue differently than a foreign language. Most Germans dont even know about the conplex grammar of german. They Cant even explain the rules. Im sure that many Germans for example dont know that we seperate words. It's just so naturel abd you dont reflect it. But I think using the right cases and endings can also come intuitively to foreigners with enough practice. At some point you speak what feels right without having to think about it.

[@vizzyb8400]

No it is about listening to a lot of German nouns, use of prepositions, etc and then using the same for your sentences consciously first till you can speak the nouns without thinking that much. After 4 years, even you wouldn't know why it is die Woche and das Mädchen

[@Schwachsinnn]

„Der Dativ ist dem Genitiv sein Tod“😂

[@geordiegeorge9041]

As an Englishman who has lived in Germany all of his adult life, I still have a very strong English accent when speaking German. But don't be afraid to try speaking German. They find it very flattering, and will help you.

[@MaskedBishop]

I have never lived in an English speaking country, but am kind of a perfectionist. However, it just isn't necessary to lose every single hint of an accent imo. Language serves communication, and if people understand each other, there's no point in getting stressed out anymore. 😄 Just one thing maybe: I watch many expat videos about Germany to improve my listening skills, and the one thing that makes me lose a little bit of respect isn't accent, but when someone pronounces things wrong, again, and again, and again over months and years. The r is difficult, I know that, but English has "sch", "ch" (one version afaik) and "k" sounds for example in its words, and it would only take a few minutes of research to improve significantly. But some people obviously aren't interested at all and keep making mistakes on purpose. That's both sad and frustrating. 🙈 If someone forgets a word or a gender, that's something else and way more understandable imo.

[@barbarusbloodshed6347]

German with a British or American or even better an Australian or Kiwi accent sounds amazing. We just love hearing that :D It's German but with a fun twist. Italian accent, also nice. French... depends on your view on the French, I guess :D

[@Liraelbard]

I think the problem is that in English you have your teeth on your tongue, which you don't do in German

[@emircanakdemir2123]

Thanks for advice

[@CabinFever52]

@@MaskedBishop , try not to take it personally. I have worked long and hard with my Austrian husband to try to say certain words and my mouth just won't form properly to say the words to his satisfaction. If the mouth can't do it, it won't ever happen.

[@spanishforkidswithmissjuanita]

I have a soft spot in my heart for the German language. I love how precise it is.

[@asaris_]

Hm yes, painfully precise to the point even we're overwhelmed by it. 😁 All I say is INTERPUNKTIOOOON. How's that for encouragement?

[@RagingGoblin]

@@asaris_ Don't pander to stereotypes. As if English punctuation were any better. Ask any British or American person; they're as clueless about it as the next German.

[@asaris_]

@@RagingGoblin The difference is: if we do it wrong it can change the entire meaning. If you do it wrong, it's just odd. One of our English teachers once told us "yeah sure, there's rules for interpunction in English and they can be quite as confusing, but don't worry about it. If you're doing it wrong it (meaning) usually doesn't make that much of a difference."

[@RagingGoblin]

@@asaris_ Let's eat mum. Let's eat, mum. Seems like a change in meaning if you ask me.

[@klauskruger6187]

@@RagingGoblin Lass uns Mama essen. Lass uns essen, Mama.

[@Caine61]

I just started learning it as I will be traveling to Berlin next summer and want to have a solid grasp of the language. The biggest challenges for me so far are the case system, word order, and remembering genders of nouns. But I've found so far the best way to learn it is naturally through comprehensible input. Listening to the same story told multiple times and picking up the grammar rules naturally is far more effective than trying to sit down, study, and memorize the rules.

[@deutschmitpurple2918]

I am so happy to hear that

[@sebe2255]

I feel you, the adjective declination system is so much more complex when compared to Dutch or English

[@eldahkrab]

Me too.

[@Alex_Eh]

So happy to read this, I hope you will enjoy your trip! Greetings from Berlin :) Und viel Erfolg beim Lernen!

[@undeadwerewolves9463]

I watch lots of German KZbin videos (gaming mostly) and listen to how things are said in context and that makes things way easier for my brain to link together.

[@promilk]

I have been studying German since the pandemic started. This also helped me understand English better and improve it. It's a feeling like I am learning the grandpa of English.

[@chanceraphael328]

English is a Germanic language, fun fact, that may be why you understand English better while learning German.

[@Daantophobia]

Thank god that I don't have to learn all this. It is always fascinating though to see what German looks like/feels like/hears like to non-natives. To every German learner: I wish you best of luck and success :)

[@vizzyb8400]

Thanks 😿

[@OHana-mo5xw]

Ich find es tatsächlich faszinierend, wie schwer meine Sprache für Lernende sein muss, bei mir bilden sich die richtigen Fälle ganz automatisch, ohne, dass ich darüber nachdenken muss. Allerdings würde ich es wahrscheinlich aber auch schon äußerst schwer finden, überhaupt erst einmal die Artikel zu lernen...

[@TheDombaumeister]

@@OHana-mo5xw Ja da hast du vollkommen recht....bin froh Deutsch von meinen Eltern gelernt zu haben! Was mich verwundert dass verniedlichungen wie das Kätzchen und das Messerchen wie das Mädchen von Magt abgeleitet...für anders Sprecher so schwer ist zu verstehen wie auch Marc Tvayn?

[@FetterFish]

@@TheDombaumeister magd oder nicht?

[@ant-mf6kl]

Thank you kind German person

[@paholainen100]

As a student of German for many years, I’d say The difficulty of German is greatly exaggerated and those really long words are hardly used in my opinion. Not easy but not super difficult , good video

[@watermelon3679]

Yes people says life is too short to learn German or deutsch sprache , schwere sprache . I was very afraid of german because of it .yes it is hard but not so much

[@paholainen100]

@@watermelon3679 nicht so schwer wie viele Leuten glauben

[@stephanweinberger]

Also, the long words are quite easy to decipher once you realize that it's literally just a concatenation of shorter words, each narrowing down the meaning of the next part. The tricky part is having enough vocabulary to identify the different words - and yes, sometimes it can be ambiguous even for native speakers, especially when the compound contains foreign words. A classic example is "Altbaucharme". The untrained eye might see "Alt-Bauch-Arme" ("old belly arms"), which makes no sense. But it's actually "Alt-Bau-Charme" ("old building charm", using the French 'charme').

[@barbarusbloodshed6347]

@@watermelon3679 that's actually more meant as an idiom aimed at those Germans who make dumb mistakes. It's quite shocking how many Germans don't know how to speak proper German. So I guess it's true that German is a hard language to learn if even those who grew up speaking it make a bunch of mistakes on a daily basis.

[@watermelon3679]

@@barbarusbloodshed6347 yes I am myself learning German and I can frankly say German is difficult language but not the one of the hardest of course when there are languages like Chinese Arabic Russian etc.

[@frigginjerk]

Ich lerne jetzt Deutsch, seit ein paar Jahre. Manchmal ist es schwer, aber Olly hat recht. Die Regeln sind schwierig, aber sie machen Sinn, wenn man sie versteht. Ich mich sage immer, Deutsch ist nicht Englisch... Es funktioniert anders (I'm sure there's a couple of mistakes or awkward phrasings in there.)

[@tobiasabt8398]

Not at all, quite good actually! The first sentence seems a bit odd - but not really wrong - for a native speaker. I would rather write it as "Ich lerne (jetzt schon) seit ein paar Jahren Deutsch". The bracketed "jetzt schon" as a kind of emphasis to this point in time, which seems optional in the context.

[@frigginjerk]

@@tobiasabt8398 Ah-ha, I knew something was a little off there. Thank you!

[@watchnocatch171]

@@frigginjerk And it's "Ich sage MIR immer,..." WEM sagst du etwas? - Mir. Dativ. I think I have never heard sagen in combination with Akkusativ (in the sense of telling someone (something)). Saying something of course needs the Akkusativ.

[@wisi4044]

For you to learn: Ich lerne seit ein paar Jahren Deutsch. Manchmal ist es schwierig, aber Olly hat recht, den die Regeln sind schwierig doch sie machen Sinn, wenn man sie versteht. Ich "denke" (think) mir immer Deutsch ist nicht wie Englisch, es ist anders aufgebaut. (is built diffrently) I Hope i could help you:) regards from Swizzerlan

[@frigginjerk]

@@wisi4044 Vielen dank, das ist besser. Deutsch ist so interessant.

[@zikoraifenneli]

For me personally, German isn't hard to learn.Its actually fun if you are motivated enough.German to me is just like English spoken with a Norwegian accent.As for the case system and grammar,I studied Latin and I can confidently say that German grammar is a walk in the park compared with the complications of Latin.In the end,it boils down to the Languages you already know and the passion you have for the language.

[@DENVEROUTDOORMAN]

And you can say hello and sound like the Gestapo

[@watermelon3679]

Not hard to learn are u joking articles long words word order cases are crazy

[@zikoraifenneli]

@@watermelon3679 I think I said it in my comment.If you think German is hard,try Latin ! Seriously, German is quite easy in my own opinion.If you find it hard then, you can always learn another language

[@watermelon3679]

@@zikoraifenneli bro you re right Latin is harder it has 7 cases compared to German (4 cases) but german is also super hard .the long words and the word order drive me crazy but I like german despite its difficulty

[@rvdzst]

The hardest thing about German is understanding people from Switzerland, Austria and Bavaria.

[@timseguine2]

I've never found German very difficult. The "difficult parts"(Case and Gender) don't actually matter that much in practice. You can largely pick them up just by exposure to them, and getting them wrong is generally not a big deal (It usually just sounds weird). You should definitely try to learn them, but language teachers usually make it out to be way more important than it is. Pronunciation is the more important part, but I speak from experience when I say that people actually seem to be disappointed if you are from a foreign country and don't speak with an accent. People always seem disappointed that I don't use an American R sound except occasionally by mistake when there is a foreign English word in the same sentence.

[@wolfzmusic9706]

Eh idk. Cases have rules to them and what case you use can affect what you are saying (some words are spelt the same but different genders), and I don't know how your brain could naturally pick up on all the rules for the cases. Even with the rules, I swear there are some exceptions that don't really make sense and natives don't know either

[@timseguine2]

@@wolfzmusic9706 Just my experience. Kids learn to speak the language before anyone shows them a declension table. Also English has plenty of homonyms, and they aren't a source of confusion very often. The brain is very good at filling in blanks and correcting mistakes without even noticing it. If I said for example out loud: "Er ist ein Apfel." I can pretty much guarantee that nobody would think I actually said that. They will hear "Er isst einen Apfel." even though it technically has a completely different meaning. And most of the words that differ only in gender are fairly clear from context. If you were to say: "Ich steige auf einen Leiter", while it may be a source of amusement, I don't think anyone would actually think you weren't talking about a ladder. In my experience people understand with mistakes well enough, that it is impossible to make jokes or puns if your German sounds too foreign or if you make too many mistakes, because people will "helpfully" correct the joke out of the sentence for you.

[@wolfzmusic9706]

@@timseguine2 kids learn to speak the language before anyone shows them a declension table, but they also get years of input with their family members helping them, not to mention the fact that young children's brains can absorb information more easily. As adults it is much harder to do that, which is why many opt for a mixture of traditional study & immersion.

[@timseguine2]

@@wolfzmusic9706 That's just folk wisdom you are repeating.

[@wolfzmusic9706]

@@timseguine2 wdym folk wisdom? Kids' brains being more spongy than adult ones is a scientific fact

[@SuperPJVideo]

i’m living in germany for my second year now and to be honest the language isn’t as bad as it’s made out to be. the rules can feel complicated or weird (from an english perspective) but everything is very logical and there aren’t too many exceptions. the only real issue is the genders, everything else is super manageable 👍🏻

[@watermelon3679]

Long words , cases , word orders ,adjective declension you forgot them

[@Mortablunt]

Just wait until you get to complex constructions and subordinate clauses.

[@ArminMuslim]

As a German I call cap

[@orenges]

The language doesn't get any flak or criticism at all, I don't know why people need to have seizures over it and defend it

[@tali6552]

Hey happy to hear this. Are you teaching yourself daily or taking a course?

[@ernestrodgers789]

Olly, you hit it out of the park! You included clips of my favorite German KZbinrs; Trixie, Anja, and Easy German! Vielen Dank und Frohes Neues Jahr 🙂

[@mattylamb658]

It is essential to know the genders of the nouns in German, as you can only use the cases and adjectives properly if you know the genders!

[@Wazkaty]

Thank you A LOT for presenting Deutsch with all this kindness! It pleases me a lot, German is a beautiful language underestimated! Thank for all your work, from France 🇫🇷 👋

[@ThanhTran-ks8rd]

And am learning your fking complex languange with a hell f conjugaison systems, the grammar is killing me.Even tho is much easier than the allemand

[@laraik1198]

@@ThanhTran-ks8rd Ne t’inquiète pas la conjugaison traumatise chaque génération d'enfants français.

[@Caerda]

​@@ThanhTran-ks8rdI’m learning French rn too since I moved to France

[@Enigma1612]

you dont hear that often about the german language. especially from a french guy 😀 greetings to my neighbor country france 🇫🇷🇩🇪

[@owenbreward4974]

One thing I love about this channel is your free to give credit where credit is due. When you use clips from others channels you always give their channel a shout out. Kudos to you for doing so. It's the right thing to do both for the creator AND for us who may want to look up those channels for future reference. Please keep doing this. Very much appreciated all 'round.

[@graham5799]

Thanks Olly. As a struggling German learner who finds grammar very difficult your talks are great at giving an overview.

[@ehrenmannkatharinerblum594]

I know it was just the headline for your VPN-ad, but language-immersion is not as common in Germany as you might think. Germany has a very strong voice acting industry and every US or British movie/drama gets dubbed when it's licensed by a German media publisher. Even though the internet and especially KZbin opened up some new possibilities, watching OVs is still reserved for the cool kids here.

[@MrFuchus]

Yep, had the same thought. Funny that he brought that up, because, well Germany is one of the very few countries that dub every other movie or series. The dubbing culture is insane. Immersion is still something that only few people, or people who are interested in foreign language get to enjoy. It surely isn't something you'd get exposed to naturally in Germany. On the other hand, a country like Sweden for example will always have the media in English or whatever the original language is. I guess this is with most other countries except Germany.

[@emilyhorch]

Thank you for saying this. As soon as he mentioned Germans learning English from American television, I thought, "Well, only if they are really good at reading lips, because all the shows are dubbed!"

[@asaris_]

Well, let's say you can learn German in a fairly short amount of time to an extent that allows you to communicate basics... But oh boy, it can get so much more complex than that. 😅 Oh and another very basic thing about German grammar that many language learners struggle with is understanding that German sentence structure is a bit like those Russian dolls with a doll inside of a doll inside of a doll. To be honest, as a native speaker I only realized that when I tried to help Japanese with learning German. I remember one specifically who struggled with gender attachment of specific articles when there was an adjective in-between. For example "das Haus" and "das alte Haus". He obviously had learned that "Haus" is "das", but was confused because it wasn't directly next to Haus in the second example and wanted to know which gender "alt" has. Really made me think and realize that we use articles of any kind, detachable verbs and interpunction like... brackets in math. Or in the case of the old house... Here's a fun little thing we can do: Das seit Jahren verlassene, dem durch Wind und Wetter verursachten Verfall preisgegebene, im Vergleich mit den anderen Häusern der unmittelbaren Umgebung verhältnismäßig große, ziemlich alte, sich am Ende der letzten, sich zur Linken befindenden Seitenstraße befindliche Haus steht seit Langem zum Verkauf. Subjects and their articles and compound verbs are grammatical units we can drag apart almost limitlessly to stick inside whatever belongs to it in a descriptive way. Like "(" and ")" brackets. And if, for whatever reason there's one of those missing, commas are a way to replace them. (Pro tip: NEVER skip out on your commas in German. There's cases where placing a comma in front or after a word or not at all can change the entire meaning of a sentence.) Oh and don't get me started on the fun of capitalization in German. Endless torture, even for us. 🤣 EDIT: oh and don't forget the joy of dialects, which not only often include entirely different words but also right wrong grammar! What I mean by that? Grammar that would be horribly wrong by High German standard but is totally legit in dialect. You're struggling with cases and genders? Try dealing with different dialects using them in "incorrect" ways... 🤣 EDIT EDIT: as someone pointed out, there was a faulty comma. Changed it. 😉

[@BlaBla-hq1bu]

There should be no comma between "Haus" and "steht" in your example. Otherwise amazing comment.

[@asaris_]

@@BlaBla-hq1bu Yeah sorry, it was late last night... 😅

[@wolfzmusic9706]

Why is capitalisation torture? You only need to capitalise the nouns.

[@asaris_]

@@wolfzmusic9706 Sometimes knowing what's a noun and what not can be harder than you think. Ah the joy of compound verbs and not knowing if you have to write them together or apart and if one part is or is used as a noun or not. Like: "Ich geh ne Runde radfahren" or "Ich geh ne Runde Rad fahren" If you grew up with Alte Rechtschreibung and didn't spend any or a lot of time learning Neue Rechtschreibung or the latest Revision, it's a f*cking pain in the ARSE. EDIT: and did you notice in my example that there's cases where adjectives, which are clearly not nouns are written capitalized? Happens in cases when you omit the noun they're attached to and they take up their spot in the sentence. And of course something similar can happen to verbs. 🤷‍♀️ Or to use an example: "Die anderen Personen (... whatever)" "Die Anderen (...)" Might be straightforward for native speakers, but I'm pretty sure mighty confusing for non-native speakers.

[@wolfzmusic9706]

@@asaris_ I guess so but personally I find it very easy to know what a noun and what isn't. We got taught all about nouns at school when I was younger, so it's not really a challenge I face. And I've come across plenty of compound verbs but I haven't faced that yet.

[@giom1501]

I'm a German teacher and I very much enjoyed this video, it brought up a lot of the things that my students struggle with while learning German. One thing that I would have liked to see being pointed out, is that there is another aspect of German that is very easy (besides vocabulary): the tenses. Basically, you only need two tenses to be able to communicate in German: Präsens (present tense) and Perfekt (present perfect). So for example: I learned German = ich habe Deutsch gelernt I have learned German = ich habe Deutsch gelernt I was learning German = ich habe Deutsch gelernt I learn German = ich lerne Deutsch I am learning German = ich lerne Deutsch I have been learning German = ich lerne Deutsch I will learn German tomorrow = ich lerne morgen Deutsch I’m going to learn German tomorrow = ich lerne morgen Deutsch Admittedly, I cheated a bit on the last two, because if you want to use the present tense to describe the future, you have to add when it’s happening - it’s like saying "I’m learning German tomorrow" in English. If you do not have that information, you do have to use the future tense - but that one isn’t hard either. Of course, there are some more tenses, but you don’t actually have to know how to use them to be able to converse in German. For example the Präteritum, which corresponds to the simple past (in structure, not necessarily in meaning), is almost only used in written form and its meaning is no different from the perfect. So if you wanted to say "I sang while I was showering" you could translate it either to "ich sang während ich duschte" (which you would write rather than say) or "ich habe gesungen während ich geduscht habe" (say rather than write). Both translations mean the same thing. So see? German is not that hard! :)

[@bandigarden]

Your command gave me hope haha it's so true now that I compard the sentences in English and German.

[@Onkel_Wuschel]

You are kidding, aren't you? It might be, that there are many people in Germany, that use only these two tenses, but usually most of them will use the right tenses in formal speech and writing. I try to (Yes, the emphasis is on trying) do it right.

[@MichaelBrueckner]

That's the A1/A2 level. After that, you'll need "trinken, trank" "schwimmen, schwamm".

[@massmanute]

When I was learning German, way back when, we discussed the tenses, and one interesting thing we were taught is that the future perfect tense (or at least what we would call the future perfect tense in English) exists in German only as a formality, but that it is never used in practice. Is that correct?

[@ghenulo]

My problem when I took German as a teenager was remembering which case went with which preposition (I just got too behind and ended up failing). I learned Esperanto in my early twenties and then went back to German in my 30s, and was surprised about how much more of German (including the cases used with prepositions) just clicked.

[@LaLeLu12209]

Thank you for this video. There were some interesting aspects about my first language. 😊

[@cOcOmOo92]

3:50 I would also highly advise you to do the following: Often times subtitles from movies or series with English as their original language would highly differ from the dubbing itself. I figured out that when they translate the movie into another language, they would have to be more flexible with the dubbing for it to match the mouth movements better, while the subtitles are often very close to the original. This was very frustrating for me for years. In the past few year speech-to-text softwares have become very good and I tried the one for adobe premiere pro. You just drag any movie into the software, let it do a speech-to-text transcription and render the movie again with 100% exact matching subtitles. Well, maybe not 100% but let's say 90% of the time, the software recognizes the correct words. Since then I made a massive acceleration learning French. Hopefully they will support more language packs in the future.

[@schattensand]

Mark Twain said as well, "Best German word is damit, but even that one they emphasize wrongly."

[@cyyan]

7:18 a girl(mädchen) is neuter in german, because of the "verniedlichungsform". if you put a "-chen" at the end of objects, they will be neuter(die Katze => das Kätzchen)

[@uminoojosamanincenneti]

It actually took me one and half year to learn German -B2-. I also stay at vienna about one month and had lots of friends, they also help. So i think it is all about the study and how you study.

[@peterkesseler9898]

Hallo Olly. Viele Grüße aus Deutschland. Deine Videos sind immer sehr interessant! Danke und frohe Weihnachten 🙂

[@Teri_Berk]

Immer wann ein Englischmuttersprachlicher über die Deutschesprache geredet, oder darüber ein Video macht, wird es fast immer interessant.

[@cedriczwiebel4873]

@@Teri_Berk I believe you meant to write: 'redet'; 'geredet' is perfect past. Also, your choice of words is a little funky to me 😅

[@deutschmitpurple2918]

Thank you for this video

[@addisoncwt]

Each rule individually is not complicated, but once combined, there are just too many to consider before I can actually say something. For me, using past tense in a subordinate clause is the real challenge. Glad that I've gradually got used to it.

[@klaramell]

The part about prepositions is exactly what i as a german always struggled with while learning english haha. It's just confusing that sometimes the literal translation of the german preposition is the right one to use in english too and sometimes it would be a totally different word.

[@jorian_meeuse]

I'm Dutch and sentence structure is basically the same in German, but it's really funny that although I'm so used to that structure, it just sounds so weird in English. Like, 'The book has the old man me today given', who even says that??? Oh, we Dutch people do...

[@wingedhussar1117]

Professional German teacher here... Personally, I think that German grammar has a moderate degree of complexity. The noun cases, the adjective declensions and the syntax may be a little bit tricky, but German has far less tenses than French or Spanish for example and less irregularities in its verbal morphology, so all in all I would say that German plays in the same leauge as French for example, a little bit trickier than English, but by far not as hard as Russian or Polish.

[@guerreromendieta]

As a German student, I consider its grammar to be fair simple despite having a complex morfology. German is the only language in which 'man' reads a text, finds new words and can discern what words are nouns, adjectives, adverbs, verbs 'und so wieder'.

[@bigscarysteve]

My biggest objections to how foreign languages are taught in the USA is that the approach to them is stupid. (I'm not attacking you personally--I'm attacking the system at large.) First, we wait too long to start foreign language pedagogy--it should start in the early grades, not in high school. Second, we don't teach English grammar very well (if at all) in the earlier grades. When kids get to foreign language class, it's assumed they know English grammar, when they usually don't. I almost flunked out of my first foreign language because I didn't know what a direct object is. Oh, my English teachers in earlier grades had introduced the concept--and confused me so badly that I said, "Screw this--I don't need to know it anyhow"--and then I did need to know it after all! You better believe I learned after that experience! Third, there is blind obedience to some set of rules that some educational theorist laid down a long time ago--rules that don't work. For example, I had great difficulty pronouncing the rounded front vowels because I couldn't figure out what is being done with the mouth in order to produce them. Then I ran across two books from the first decade of the 20th century--one a basic German textbook and the other for basic French. Both explained how to do it correctly. I presented this idea to both my German and my French teachers, both of whom rejected it. "But why?" I asked them. "We just don't do it that way," was the response from both of them. Talk about programming! The introduction of a little basic linguistics in the foreign language classroom could go a long way to facilitating language learning.

[@julian.16]

Yeah, it's not so hard

[@meropale]

It's interesting you put French on the same level as German. Even though the German verb tenses are a walk in the park compared to those in French, the cases in German put it just a notch above.

[@wingedhussar1117]

​@@meropale As for the nominal morphology and the syntax, German is more complex than French. As for the verbal morphology, spelling and pronunciation, French is definitely more complex than German. All in all, I would say we have a draw when it comes to comparing the level of difficulty of both languages.

[@abyouda167]

As an Arab person, I speak English with fluency and I've been learning German for a month and i don't think it's hard, it's like many other languages and you need to study the sounds properly and repeat as much as you can, that's the strategy I've followed with English and it helped me a lot to have a very professional American accent ...

[@gozulumii4439]

professional accent? like for dubbing?

[@Mortablunt]

German starts out very easy it’s pretty much plug and play at first if you know English but overtime you’re going to get increasingly weirder grammatical instructions that will completely rearrange sentences and sometimes even seem to be the opposite of what they actually are. So starting German is very easy because of how simple the basic stuff is but mastering German is very difficult. This is contrary to language is like Russian which have a very high initial learning curve before you can actually say anything meaningful but then the rules stay very consistent so by the time you have reached the intermediate level all you really need to do is just continue to expand your vocabulary and polish your grammatical skills.

[@kiboma4209]

@@Mortablunt I found English easy in the beginning but advanced English was tough while german was vice versa for me. Once youre done with the cases and word order, everything else becomes easy

[@manloeste5555]

@@Mortablunt and don't forget to polish your Polish! 🙂

[@KrisxMoon]

gl bro you have no idea about german language yet then. after 1 month you propably didnt pass through " Ich bin Aby und ich komme aus Dubai" thats why you find german " not hard".

[@MarySilva94]

As a German native speaker who studies German as a foreign language: one challenging part for learners can imo also be the accents and dialect! It's mind-boggling to me how little this is addressed in language courses, like hardly anybody in Germany speaks proper "textbook German" especially if you go to the south, accents can be very thick with their own sets of pronounciation, vocab, grammar etc. ^^ so before coming to Germany, if you have a proper base in standard German, I'd certainly get familiar with the potential dialect spoken in the area you want to go (in order to improve your receptive skills and immerse yourself better). Even if it's a bit like greetings in Bavaria for instance. (Also don't get discouraged by this. I think, the variety of dialects in German is one of the most beautiful parts about this language) 😍.

[@stephanweinberger]

@3:32 I'd just like to add that, while the literal meaning (i.e. the bland description of what's happening) of the two sentences is the same, the word order changes the emphasis or the context and thereby also slightly changes the meaning of what is being conveyed by the sentence. In German the important bit of information is usually on the beginning of a sentence. "Den Mann kratzt die Katze." = It is specifically the man (out of several other people) that is being scratched by the cat. This works similarly in English in some cases, whereas in other cases you'd have to put emphasis on certain words (which you can also do in German if you like): "Ich werde dich morgen besuchen." - "I will visit you tomorrow." "Morgen werde ich dich besuchen." - "Tomorrow I will visit you." (same pattern!) or "I will visit you _tomorrow_." "Dich werde ich morgen besuchen." - "Tomorrow I will visit _you_." or "It's you whom I will be visiting tomorrow." Confusingly you can also mix or thwart the emphasis implied by the word order with the emphasis you put on the words while speaking: "Morgen werde ich dich besuchen." = "Ich werde dich _morgen_ besuchen." or "Morgen werde _ich_ dich besuchen." = "_I_ will visit you to tomorow." TLDR: Word order is just an additional tool to move the emphasis in sentences. Which is especially handy in written language, where English typically requires more complicated constructs to convey the intended meaning. (Which is to be expected when there is less grammatical variation to work with.)

[@marcustulliuscicero5443]

Yeah, an OVS sentence structure is the linguistic equivalent of pointing your finger at something.

[@rhalleballe]

I think, the main problem for many people is NOT the language German itself, but the fact, that the people start learning it very lately in their life and probably havent learned ever any foreign language before. Germans mostly have to learn English in school, what makes it much easier later on to get fluent into it. Another problem that often occurs, even if english speakers are living in Germany, they cannot speak German to Germans, as many Germans can speak quite good English and choose to speak English with English speakers.

[@manloeste5555]

unless they meet a labertasche 🙂

[@nicholasthorn1539]

I've been to Germany and Austria quite a few times and on the whole have had no problem speaking German. Most people respected my attempts to speak their language, and only spoke English when I failed to understand their German. I remain convinced that if you speak with reasonable grammatical accuracy and without too much of an English accent they'll respond positively

[@ChrisKuni]

As a native German (speaker), I'd totaly agree on when f.ex. Americans start learning 'German' to the time - or better age - compared to when/since Germans start learning 'English'. Me, born in '88, has started back in the 5th grade (at 11 years) of elementary school (it was/is just a regular lesson in the schooling system) until I'd finished the 13th class on high school - so 8 years straigth. Today they begin even earlier by starting to bring it to the students (very mildly of cause^^) right from the 1st grade. For sure that's a major difference compared to the U.S., were they don't start until 9th grade and than only for one year. (mostly I think) At the age in 9th grade you've far more other things in your head to think off, than learning a (difficult) foreign language like German.😅😆 I'd saw that by myself, when we have had to take our 2nd foreign language that started in 7th grade...🤣🤣 I can speak English, fully fluently and completely negotiable on C2 level BUT on my "2nd foreign language" - or French - I'm not more as a stumbling, one legged blind man, who can't act to advices, because he's deaf...😂😂😁 That's because it was introduced to late, too - not because of the language itself - I swear.😊😋😇

[@enavoid6285]

Wow that has a very good way of including the sponsor in the video

[@ukrdima]

You can see the remnants of separable verbs in English too - separable phrasal verbs like "hear me out" ;)

[@kon_radar]

The ghrhghrhghr sound for R is more used in northern and central parts of Germany. Bavaria, Austria, Switzerland, and the northern part of Italy are using the rolling R instead of the ghrghrghr sound (the same pronunciation as in Portuguese, Spanish, Italian, Romanian, Slavic languages, etc.)

[@julian.16]

Fact

[@Rosi_in_space]

Rolling your Rs also makes you sound more like Rammstein.

[@Fabii2000]

@@Rosi_in_space which is the reason why most people learn German right?

[@1Cr0w]

Portuguese uses various R sounds. Depending on the dialect, and position in the word, written r in portugues can be any of [ʁ], [r], [ɾ], [ɹ~ɻ], [χ], [x], [h], [ɦ] or silent

[@user-qh4dr1vy9d]

Are you talking about glutural r?

[@Komet212]

Everything that a lot of people find weird with German comes together in one thing: brackets. The German language does a lot of bracketing in sentences where there is a word marking the beginning and another one ending the bracket. 1. Sentence Bracket with verbs: Sie HAT [das Spiel nach nur 44 Minuten und drei Sätzen] VERLOREN. In English: She HAS [the game in only 44 minutes and three sets] LOST. 2. Nominal Bracket (using grammatical gender and cases). An article or preposition opens the brackets which is closed by the right noun. The article or preposition gives you the information for which kind of noun you have to wait. The other words in the middle don't match either in gender, case or number so you know what belongs together. DIE [Fleisch fressende, aufwendig gezüchtete und aus Frankreich importierte] PFLANZE ... In Englisch: THE (feminine nominative case) [flesh (neuter) eating, costly cultured and from France (neuter) imported] PLANT (feminine nominative case) ... 3. Relative Clause Bracket: a relative clause is opened by a conjugation or relative pronoun and closed by the verb. It helps to distinguish main and relative clause. ..., OBWOHL [sie das Buch nie] BEKAM, ... In Englisch: ..., ALTHOUGH [she the book never] GOT, ... These brackets often come together, especially 1 and 2. You can use those structures to put a lot of information into a sentence. Although it seems to be complicated and is hard for learners but those brackets are actually helpful for understanding. They are useful for listeners and readers because they have to make estimates about the sentence/situation which are correct or not. Tests have shown that Germans often can anticipate the second bracket part correctly before even hearing it.

[@derpauleglot9772]

"Tests have shown that Germans often can anticipate the second bracket part correctly before even hearing it." Could you post the link(s)? I´m German so it´s not surprising but yeah, that´d be an interesting read :)

[@Komet212]

@@derpauleglot9772 Sorry, I don't have a link. I have this information from the book "Historische Sprachwissenschaft des Deutschen" by Nübling et al. Unfortunately there isn't even a name mentioned about these tests.

[@Komet212]

@@htsppme7526 What do you mean by this? Text you personally or just discuss in this thread?

[@BlaBla-hq1bu]

@@Komet212 That's a scammer. They want you to answer them on WhatsApp and will then try to either pish you or just use your phone number for further scams. A real account would never have a name like "whatsappme ...".

[@addisoncwt]

@@BlaBla-hq1bu Exactly. Just checked that guy's profile, and he's not the actual uploader. It's a scam. Be careful

[@JohnSmith-gi2oy]

I love this language. It’s becoming my second language at a rapid rate; almost 5 months in!

[@rustythoughts]

"prefix" and "prefix". When I use it as a verb, "let me prefix that with something", it's always a short sound the same as "set, bet, get". When I use it as a noun, "separable prefixes in German verbs are not so different from English phrasal verbs", I have actually changed. In past years I definitely would have said "prefix" is a noun that rhymes with sea and tea, (I'm an Australian with a precise way of speaking that regularly gets confused for an English accent). But I tend to echo the accents of people around me, always adjusting to be understood because I've lived so many years in non-English speaking countries, and I'm finding that now I regularly but not always pronounce "prefix" the noun the same ways I would the verb, with the short e. As I read back over this, aloud, and listen to myself. I tend toward the long "e" for "prefix" the noun. The short "e" feels like echoing or adapting to an audience even if the audience is an imagined conversation.

[@endanglestari5415]

I think any language can be easy or hard to learn, it depends on one's interest and expectation. The easiest language to learn is the one that you are most interested in, and what benefit this new language grants you upon learning it. I agree that immersion plays a role in pursuing a new language. But that's not always the case. At least for me and of course it can be subjective. As for my experience, I've worked with 3 greek colleagues in the same room for almost 8 years until now. I've heard them chatted in their mother tongue every day. But honestly until now I only note 4 greek words in my head, which are : Kalimera, Kali Oreksi, trianda and ella. In fact I am exposed a lot to this language continuously but I never have any attempt to learn it, maybe because I don't have the reason why I should learn it since I am able to communicate with my colleagues in german unproblematicaly. I will share another real example to support my opinion. When I was learning german as a part of the Integration course program , I met a lot of immigrant workers who've resided in germany for 20 - 30 years but barely speak basic decent german. On the contrary, I myself, who came with zero knowledge of the language, I've managed to pass the B1 exam at the end of 6 months course because my future life depends on it. My husband is a german and I wanted to be able to work here. 😜 For the future german learner. Yes german is not an easy language but it is pragmatic & direct! For example BH. It stands for Brust ( breast) and Halter ( holder). It is very logical, isn't it? 😉. Even though the grammar & gender a bit tricky but at least the spelling pronunciation is easier compared to French. You read as it's written! So go ahead. Du schaffst es !!! Last but not least... Olly I see your table of time-consuming category to learn a new language and I note that Indonesian is in cat. 3 above French, Italian, Spanish even German. Whattt??? Are you kidding?? I guess someone must've been drunk to come up with that list :-😀

[@Jun-fg1zm]

The indoneian thing is like this cause it is quite easy in the beginning but getting it up to an advanced level should be hard (he said that somewhere in another video)

[@77dreimaldie0]

Auslaufverhärtung means final devoicing only, not that sounds are hard in general :)

[@massmanute]

I once heard it said that German is hard at first and then gets easier as you get more deeply into it. French seems easy at first (not for me though) but then gets harder as you get more deeply into it.

[@soewenue]

Best Article Change is the "korn,weizen" change between day and night. On Day it is 'das korn und der weizen' (the corn and the wheat) on evening or night it is 'der korn und das weizen' (the korn liquor and the wheat beer).

[@pierreabbat6157]

Das Messer = the knife. Der Messer = the measurer. See is a body of water, but how big depends on the gender. "Wachstube" has two pronunciations. "Wachs-tube" is "wax-tube"; "Wach-stube" is "watching-room", and the changes. "In"+acc. means "into". "In"+dat. means "in". This holds in Old English, Latin, Ancient Greek, Russian, Slovenian, and other Slavic languages, except that they (except Greek) use a different case instead of the dative.

[@juliuscasar7202]

I feel stupid to ask since im born in Germany but der Artikel is all that Matters ? Cant i say "Die Messer messen jetzt gemeinsam "?

[@corinna007]

The other language I'm trying to learn. It has a familiar feeling to me since there are a lot of German and Swiss immigrants in my area, and most of my own family speaks Mennonite Low German. (I would like to actually speak that, too; I understand it fairly well but I can't really speak it.) That R is definitely the biggest challenge for me pronunciation -wise.

[@1Cr0w]

Switzerland largely uses the alveolar trill [r] for r in all positions, if you find that easier to pronounce. Similar for multiple other dialects [or [r] syllable initially, and vocalized syllable-finally].

[@corinna007]

@@1Cr0w It took me forever to learn how to properly trill the R, but I can finally do it consistently for the most part, so maybe for now I'll just go with that. I'll probably still practice the other sound, though. 😅

[@stefanwendl5969]

A interesting case of a separable verb is "umfahren" because it can have two meanings and one is separable and one isn't. Also they mean exactly the opposite of each other: "Ich umfahre Harald/ I drive around Harold" and "Ich fahre Harald um. /I run over Harold." so depending on context the verb changes from separable to inseparable and means the exact opposite.

[@Ana_Al-Akbar]

6:55 "Die Band" in German is pronounced different than "Der Band" and "Das Band". "Die Band" is an english loan word, so we pronounce the a different, more like the english a.

[@kacperwasilewski2616]

I have been learning german as an english and a polish speaker. A lot of these words are similiar in english and universal in other european languages. It is not as hard as you think!

[@IXI--xWolfx--IXI]

🇵🇱🇵🇱🇵🇱 I'm half Polish, half Turkish but i was born in Germany, i speak fluently German but no Polish sadly '-' Polskaa Powerr

[@AhmedFathy-lt6wl]

I'm an Arabic speaker taking the C1 Test soon ( wish me luck 😅!) I wouldn't say it's a hard language, I think it depends on some factors, like your native tongue, the sounds and the grammar you're used to before and so forth. Also if you've had experience learning another language you pretty much know what to expect. Someone learning their 3rd or 4th language will have it easier than someone learning their first foreign language: they often know what to look for. I learnt English by exposure for many years and took the TOEFL test a few years ago, that helped get a better understanding of English as a language, which helped me in German as well. But you need to be realistic which professioncy level you're aiming to, like if you want communication go for B1 and some of B2, then you'll be fairly comfortable speaking and understanding people. After that ( as in C1 in my case) you learn obscure grammar rules used only for official documents and scientific reports and texts. At finishing this level I can say I can understand nearly 80% of what I read and can guess the meaning of the rest. I'm also expected to discuss complex topics and present convincing arguments for them. It's a hard road, but it's worth it. Commitment is the key. 30 minutes a day can make a big difference!

[@iamnonso_]

What resources did you learn German with? And how long did it take you to get to the level you're in now?

[@AhmedFathy-lt6wl]

@@iamnonso_ I took German as a second foreign language in high school, so that gave me a headstart; which was A1 and a bit of A2. I then studied by myself the book Menschen- the book used by Goethe- for A1,A2 and B1. I watched a series of videos by an Arabic teacher explaining each lesson all the way till the end of B1. After listening to a lesson, I would solve the practice questions in the workbook. For B2 and C1, I studied from Aspekte neu-also used by Goethe- but when I had trouble understanding a concept or a grammar rule, I would watch KZbin videos both in Arabic and German, and fortunately there's no shortage of videos explaining German rules. Naturally studying independently had its downsides; no one graded my writing, and I wasn't used to speaking until B2. What did I do? For conversation, I attended a Sprachcafé; a language cafe where people speak foreign languages on an agreed topic. I couldn't speak at first, but bit by bit I started to get better, be more confident and use more complex grammar. I also recorded my self daily speaking German. I would speak for at least 5 minutes on a certain topic after I had laid the bullet points and necessary vocab. I wouldn't stop until I talked about all the points, even if I wasn't 100% correct. Then, I would listen again, and this time I'm able to recognise my mistakes: a bit of pronunciation errors here, vocab not suitable, grammar mistakes, etc. Recording again with those in mind will help you get better. As for writing, I prepared with a private tutor for the exam, and she helped me improve my writing, which was important, as writing will get you the most points should you do bad in the other parts. Time: I steamrolled through A1 and A2, seeing I already knew most of it before. Maybe 2 months. B1 took 2 months. B2 6 months. C1 took me 8 months, but to be honest I wasn't very consistent and was busy with work, so it took much longer than needed. Preparing for the C1 Goethe exam took two months and half. I used the books Station and Projekt.. very very important books, you're in a grave disadvantage should you enter the enter without solving these two books. I also used Mit Erfolg, but its questions are very challenging. But on the bright side, all answers are explained in detail. There were also two other books; fit für Goethe and Prüfungstraining: very weak and easy exercises, and I wouldn't recommend them if you don't have time, as they will give you a false impression of your readiness for the exam. That was all, wheew! If you have any other questions, I'm happy to help.

[@iamnonso_]

Thanks a lot for the info.. I appreciate it 🙏🏼

[@sanjanaakter9914]

Lots of hard work

[@leiocera2433]

As a German, I can nothing but agree with you on all of 'em. Also, I never can remember the name of the cases like "dative" and "nominative". I liked and subscribed btw

[@Teri_Berk]

German's got the advantage of being the superset (Übermenge) of the English, which makes it easy (and usually fun) for a German to learn English :) English on the other hand, however popular and massive it is, is basically the subset (Untermenge) of the German, that's why many English natives have hard time trying to learn German.

[@juppderwal918]

Thank you, I learned a lot about my own language!

[@d2dMiles]

Native speaker here: If you speak German and get the gender of a word wrong, it's not a big deal, people will still understand you. Well, they might correct you, but that's a German thing and is considered neither rude or unfriendly. And to get the cases wrong - many Germans fail in this discipline as well, and usually the context will make your statement clear enough.

[@onionbubs386]

I honestly would prefer Germans correct me when I get an article wrong. I cant learn the correct way otherwise. Tho I can see why other german learners might not like it.

[@manui7519]

Well the fact that the german Word "das Mädchen" (the girl) is a neuter word is right but it still makes sense with the backstory. Actually in old times of germany girls were called "die Magd" and "das Mädchen" what we use today is the "verniedlichung" like in italian with piccolo and piccolino for example. Today nobody uses the word magd anymore and it actually is very stereotypical for how people have spoken in medieval germany back then

[@iZeb0x]

Diminutive is the word you‘re looking for.

[@Kref3]

@@iZeb0x Which is the first important clue to make sense of Manu‘s otherwise correct explanation. The other thing one has to know is that diminuitives are always neuter, no matter the gender of the original word.

[@ulzzangloverxD]

The word 'Magd' that we used in earlier times did not have the same meaning as the word 'Mädchen' has today. The 'Magd' was more like a job, like a housemaid. The only thing Magd and Mädchen have in common is that the word root for Mädchen stems from Magd.

[@birgittnlilli9726]

Könnte auch vom Wort Maid kommen das Maidchen - Mädchen. Eventuell eine Lautverschiebung.

[@ulzzangloverxD]

@@birgittnlilli9726 Beide Wörter stammen definitiv vom Wort "Magd" ab. Die "Maid" wie z.B. im Ausdruck "holde Maid" hat folgende Herkunft: "mittelhochdeutsch meit, zu: maget, Magd" Sind aber beides veraltete Wörter, selbst die Engländer benutzen "maiden" fast nur noch im poetischen Sinne.

[@lordwolfgangjosephuskaiser6778]

Thank you for this great video as usual 🌹🌹🌹. I must say that I've saw Mark Twain's Book "The horrible German language" in my native language in german language itself 😂, that was such a crazy funny moment. I hear many things like that about the German language and I must say as a native German that I agree with that you said about the German language.

[@JacobSprenger]

You can safely "roll" your 'R' - most southern accents and dialects do that. Fun fact: There have been dialects in the past that featured an 'R' quite similar to the English one. But they only survive among some elderly people that originally stemmed from Eastern Prussia or Silesia.

[@marcelkamps7103]

German is like Lego that you can puzzle together. That analogy is very nice.

[@ancientromewithamy]

There are many terrible and wrong ideas about this. "It sound awful," "it's impossible to learn," etc. I think I majored in German in uni because it seemed like the underdog compared to Spanish and French. Some English speakers struggle at first with the articles and such but in the end, I think it's much easier to do things like guess the meaning of a compound word (rather than be terrified at its length!).

[@watchnocatch171]

Yes, I just wrote it in a comment. I think German probably gets the most maybe hateful? prejudices in western media. Even if they want to be just funny there is never a positive way in which German is displayed especially in American talk shows. It's always how beautiful French is or Italian and with German it's always how hard and ugly it sounds or how long the words are or how obscure like in there is a German word for everything type of "quizzes". I think the only way I have ever seen a big number of foreigners talk positive about German is that it's the best language for metal music. But that's a joke compared to all the rest.

[@zacherelmackerel5832]

that slide into the sponsor was smooth 👏👏👏

[@Silvi-a]

I'm German and this video was HILARIOUS and super fun to watch (actually, I came for Spanish but got curious 😉) Thank you so much for this summary😂

[@user-mrfrog]

I am learning Icelandic. You should see their definite articles! German ones are a walk in the park. Gleðileg jól og farsælt komandi ár! (Merry Christmas and Happy New Year)! 🇮🇸

[@Caine61]

What resources are you using to learn it? It's such an incredible language but its complexity and low amount of learning material makes it a challenge.

[@Rosi_in_space]

@@Caine61 From a German-speaking perspective, the number of useful ressources is very limited. The BUSKE Verlag offers "Isländisch. Ein Lehrbuch für Anfänger und Fortgeschrittene." From the Schmetterling Verlag is the book "Isländisch für absolute Anfänger". The Kauderwelsch series of languages exists too; also some dated online ressources (The 20 videos from _Viltu læra íslensku ?_ ) For english speakers: Maybe visit (Dr.) Jackson Crawford's youtube channel, and his videos about the icelandic language; I am very sure that he gave some recommendations for modern icelandic learning material.

[@Caine61]

@@Rosi_in_space Thank you!

[@birgittnlilli9726]

Isländische ist faszinierend aber vermutlich gibts nur wenige Ressourcen.. ich bräuchte vor allem Hör- und Lesematerial, gibts da viel (wenn man nicht nach Island fahren will um sich Bücher zu kaufen x.x). Ich lerne grad Italienisch, da gibts massig Material

[@rtwilho]

From my experience so far, I'd say yes. The word order is brutal and a completely different way of thinking. I see myself improving, but in no way is it easy.

[@watermelon3679]

Yes German is difficult language but with practice it is manageable

[@ehrenmannkatharinerblum594]

Learning a language is never easy but it is less time consuming compared to other languages. When I entered a German university I had to learn a second foreign language. So I picked Japanese and suddenly German and English appeared to me as something like dialects of the same Germanic language. I know it's hard to believe at first glance, but both languages share similar tenses, syntax and vocabulary. There are even proverbs and expressions that can be translated literally from one language into the other.

[@rtwilho]

Thanks for the words of encouragement. I'll keep at it.

[@frigginjerk]

One thing that often helps me is to think of "old-timey" English phrasings, like something you might hear in a fairy tale or a fantasy story or an old King James version of the Bible. As a really simple example, it's not "I don't know," but rather "I know not." A lot of those sort of phrasings that currently sound archaic in English stuck around in German and are the normal way that people talk.

[@Labroidas]

We really don't hate cases. Old English used to have cases too! The best way to learn cases properly is to read a lot. In my experience, foreigners who read books in German learn how to use cases like a native speaker, whereas those who don't read always use broken grammar to varying degrees.

[@pierreabbat6157]

The trickiest (or at least one of the trickiest) (in)separable verb is "umfahren". Separable, it means "run over"; inseparable, it means "drive around". You can always tell which it is when spoken, because "um" is stressed iff separable, but when written, the form "umfahren" can be ambiguous.

[@philippbosnjak4183]

For all who are interested the german word 'girl' is neuter because its a diminutive form you recognize that form at the ending -chen and 'girl' is Mädchen in german. It probably derives from the word Die Maid similar to english maiden. But its normal for words that they become neuter if you use the diminutive form like Die Katze but Das Kätzchen. 2. Remember that it is important to write nouns with a capital letter it can change the meaning. E. g. Die Spinnen means the spiders but Die spinnen can mean they are crazy. Alles Gute

[@asaris_]

And don't forget to capitalize nounified verbs! 😅 "Die auf dem Parkett Tanzenden waren elegant gekleidet." Complete sentence. "Die auf dem Parkett tanzenden waren elegant gekleidet." Uh, the dancing what or who? It's missing something!

[@MarsOhr]

Sehr richtig! "Ich habe liebe Genossen " vs. "Ich habe Liebe genossen".

[@pierreabbat6157]

The same thing happens in Greek. Η κορη is the girl, but it's usually used in the diminutive, το κορασιον (ancient) / κοριτσι (modern), which is neuter because it's diminutive. In Latin and its descendants, though, diminutives keep the gender of the big noun.

[@ioannishoeft1272]

Great video! As a native speaker I can tell that genders aren't always as important as many people think. Sure, it can lead to confusion if you use the wrong gender sometimes. But in most cases people will understand you and just ignore your mistake.

[@mirathy5836]

Sometimes even Germans can't agree on the gender of some words Der, die or das Nutella can start language wars among native speakers

[@stephanweinberger]

@@mirathy5836 Being a proper name, Nutella actually doesn't require an article at all. ;-) But I guess the "gender wars" surrounding Nutella mostly originate in how the product is perceived in a region. When it's mainly seen as a cream/mousse then it would be feminine ("die Nutella-Creme"), if it is seen as a fantasy product name then it would be neuter, but when you think of it as a spread it would bei masculine ("der Nutella-Aufstrich").

[@berndgreis816]

A great Video. Compliments, very entertaining. Greetings vom South Tyrol.

[@1Cr0w]

Another feature that might be tricky, and is especially common in colloquial german (though increasingly(?) also in written) are the *modal particles.* "Wohl" in particular has given a russian colleague of mine headaches, as switching the word-order can result in (stilted/elevated/dated) constructions that mean something entirely different [e.g. "Die Katze fühlt sich zu Hause wohl" = The cat feels comfortable at home vs. "Die Katze fühlt sich wohl zu Hause" = The cat apparently feels at home]. It is also quite baffling to the foreigners i've talked to about this that we put "ja"/"doch" everywhere, and do not mean "yeah"/"yes" by it. I figure using those particles might be simpler for people coming from languages where *evidentiality is grammatically marked* (like it is in german with Konjunktiv I, modal verbs and esp. modal particles).

[@stevencarr4002]

Yes, those little words were really hard for me to use so that they sounded natural. Usually I mess them up.

[@the_real_glabnurb]

As a native German speaker I find "Die Katze fühlt sich wohl zu Hause" still ambiguous. To make it unambiguous I would have to add a location marker, i.e. "Die Katze fühlt sich hier wohl zu Hause".

[@johanronnung1665]

You have to put in the hours, I can tel you that.

[@veryincognito6776]

German here: In my old school days, I had to laugh the most in my English classes. There were the "fake friends" and of course the classics: "I become a beafsteak!" But we laughed the most when our teacher tried to explain the "th": his third teeth always fell out! Also: pidgin english, indian english and of course: 'MURICAN

[@thorstenjaspert9394]

Bekommen in German means to get. People who are not proof in English use this word wrong. Become and Bekomm das sound very Simulation

[@PattisKarriereKarten]

Well, I'm german and that video was fun 😂😁 By the way I sometimes struggle with english prepositions also, although there are not as many as in german. As for the different cases, there was a book a few years ago from an author that wrote about german and pointed out that there is a rising amount of germans that use the case "Genitiv" wrong. The book was titled "Der Dativ ist DEM Genetiv SEIN Tod" ("the dativ is the genitiv's death") - this is funny because if you want to say it correctly it is "der Dativ ist des Genitivs Tod" but people don't use that case and instead use the Dativ, which is factually wrong. And since that book came out, the title is kind of an idiom here. 😀

[@my_graphics]

Thank You So Much Sir .

[@timcheater6336]

this helped me realize why people(I live in a Russian speaking country) called German the in-between of Russian and English

[@jupamoers]

The biggest problem is: native english speakers want to use their own sounds in different languages. That doesn't work. Every language has its own sounds and pronounciations. It is easier for us Germans to learn a foreign language, because we can use these diffent sounds easier. A friend from China is currently learning German and he is struggeling with the pronounciation, especially the pronounciation of the different "ch" sounds

[@Kref3]

I disagree. Ze Germans have ze säm problem lörning sounds from ozer languijes zat are not part of ze German language. Seriously: I know so many people, who are not able to pronounce th properly. or who would always prononce water like vater, because they actually cannot make sense of the English letter w. The actual name double-U gives the hint, it is much closer to a u than to a v. And ask a German to pronounce the French nasal vowels. There are four of them and they are all in this sentence: „un bon vin blanc“ (a good white wine). And let us not even start to talk about plosive stop sounds. We have a few in German, e.g. T, K, P. Look for a video spoken in isiXhosa from South Africa, the native language of Nelson Mandela, and you will hear so many plosive stops. Stops we cannot even hear properly, so we only call them Clicks. It certainly is not easier for us to learn the pronunciation of other languages, because we, just like every other language, use only a reduced section of the sounds the human vocal system is capable of producing. Those that are not part of our language must be learned and this is really difficult for many. Zats vai Comicbook-Supervillän ahr so offen Jörmans. Vee Jörmäns rili sound funny venn vee speek Englisch, unläss vee häff lörnt to pronaunz ze sounds properly. By ze wai: Ze vezer vos very nice today.

[@verdecillo9940]

You explained it briefly about halfway through the video that a difficult aspect for learners is the case-marking system, but something that wasn't mentioned is that, in addition to the articles, attributive adjectives are likewise marked for case (and it's also quite complicated- with both "weak" and "strong" sets of endings). My students groan when we cover these in class and have to practice them. z.B. groß (adj.) Der groß𝐞 Mann Ein groß𝐞𝐫 Mann Den groß𝐞𝐧 Mann Das groß𝐞 Buch Ein groß𝐞𝐬 Buch etc. Also, the word "Auslautverhärtung" doesn't really mean "harsh sounds," instead it typically refers to final obstruent devoicing- i.e. pronouncing the consonants at the ends of words like their voiceless counterparts- e.g. Bad= /bat/; Lob= /lop/; Tag= /tak/

[@geraldwagner8739]

The Australian historian Christopher Clark who’s living and teaching in Cambridge (UK) speaks German perfectly with no grammar mistakes and almost no accent. I‘ve never 😅seen a native English speaker whose German is so flawless.

[@RayyMusik]

It took me about four years of immersion to speak German fluently and correctly - plus another year to be able to read and write. It‘s my native language, and yes, it is hard!

[@deepderp8483]

As someone who never learnt german, can confirm, it's hard

[@Haexxchen]

Lol, I was impressed you got fluent in 4 years until I read to the end. Awesome, BUT it sounds like you learned how to write at the age of four. Hard to believe, even though I saw my nephew becoming a fluent reader in that time. The ting, that I would find hard to believe is, that your writing has been anywhere near readable that early on. Someone would have needed to work very hard with you to make that happen.

[@deepderp8483]

@@Haexxchen i believe he was five when he learnt how to read and write, which is not that big of an achievement, unless you're parentless

[@manloeste5555]

@@deepderp8483 I'm fine with being able to read, but being able to write (which includes writing complete sentences not only drawing letters) with the age of 5?

[@eastfrisianguy]

Grundstücksverkehrsgenehmigungszuständigkeitsübertragungsverordnung. Enough said, I guess. 😂

[@i_bims_dana]

The video was very entertaining as a german, especially when you already know what the harder parts of the language are

[@graymalkin7645]

Fun fact: Some verbs have a separable and inseparable form- distinguishable in spoken language by word stress. For example: "umfahren". And we made sure to make them extra easy to tell apart so there will be no safety- issues arising from possible mix-ups. Watch: Bitte _umfahre_ die Katze.: "Please drive around the cat." Bitte _fahre_ die Katze _um_.: " Please run the cat over." *giggles in German*

[@watchnocatch171]

As a German native I think I can say that German is probably one of the if not the language hit hardest by prejudices. (This sentence probably makes no sense grammatically, but I guess you get what I mean) It's not that hard to learn and sounding. It surely isn't ugly. It seems to me that even a lot of Germans especially young women give in to the western prejudices and think that their own language is indeed ugly. Of course there will be people who dislike their language everywhere in the world but I think German and maybe Dutch as well although Dutch isn't really in the focus of western media suffer more from this.

[@kilianklaiber6367]

You don't have to use the guttural r sound. You can also use a rolling r like the Italians use. It is used in large parts of Germany as well, in the north as well as in parts of Bavaria (Franken).

[@hah-vj7hc]

I read that booklet and it's quite amusing. I think Mr. Twain might have wanted to try learning English as a foreigner though. But hey, English can be taught through thorough thought though, am I right?

[@AvioftheSand]

11:10 Funny that you should say that. I stopped learning German and went to Italian about 5 months ago, lol

[@thisisrandom6418]

I feel like it’s not too hard to learn but practicing is annoying as in Germany they often just reply in english

[@vizzyb8400]

Lmao everyone just speaks German to me.

[@369tayaholic5]

German is a very logical and mechanical language, it's quite heavy at the start, like sentence structures, but once you grasp the concepts in first few months, everything just makes sense and becomes much easier after. Its verb system is really less complex than Romance languages like Italian and French, the noun case system is very much less complex than to say Russian or other Slavic languages. The word formation in German is highly straightforward, pronunciation isn't hard either, understanding spoken German is also easier than most languages because they don't speak very fast and phonetics are quite regular too. I still wouldn't say it's a very easy language since it's quite front-heavy one but it's definitely not a difficult one as many people think, it's moderate among European languages though.

[@Treinbouwer]

7:18 because the word girl has an ending telling it's small. That's the same in Dutch BTW.🙃 All german words ending in -chen and -lein and all dutch words ending in je (in many cases with an extra letter to make it 'sound well') are neuter because of that gramatical feature making things little. Ofcourse that also counts for dialectal versions of those endings.😉

[@ashbison]

As someone who grew up German but never learned or picked up the language I would love to learn it but am spending so much time in college already studying I feel I don’t have enough time to dedicate to it.

[@Vanilena]

German may be difficult from the perspective of a speaker of a language with no case-system. However, the grammar is a joke compared to slavic languages like Russian, Polish and Czech etc., all having more cases and a far more complex grammar (also three grammatical genders, and a lot of things that I never thought about, for example the inanimate and animate masculine accusative or the perfective and imperfective verbs). Currently learning Polish and I am glad that my native language is German so the concept of cases is generally not new for me. I wouldn't even imagine learning Polish as a native English or French speaker for example!

[@stevencarr4002]

I'm learning Polish and the case system makes German look a doddle. For example, in 'I have an apple' and 'I don't have an apple', German uses the accusative in both positive and negative statements, while Polish has one case for 'I have an apple', and a different case for 'I don't have an apple'.

[@nicholasthorn1539]

You hit the nail right on the head by saying that German grammar is a joke compared to Slavic languages. A crucial factor here is that in German only the articles and demonstrative adjectives are routinely declined. Other adjectives undergo weak declension when used with the definite article (which really is a joke), a mixed declension when used with the indefinite article, or strong declension when used without articles but this happens relatively seldom. Nouns themselves also undergo minimal declension - plural, genetive singular, dative plural and occasionally the dative singular - unlike the Slavic languages which have no articles so that nouns and adjectives have to take the burden of declension.

[@dutchreagan3676]

The praepositions take their own cases: Mit, nach, nebst, bei, seit, von, zu, zuwider, entgegen, ausser, aus, gemaess, gegenueber: Dritter Fall!!

[@bigscarysteve]

That is to say, most German prepositions govern only one case rather than two. Of the ones that govern two, the difference is that if there's motion towards something, it's the accusative case that's governed. It's exactly the same as in Latin. This is not nearly as difficult as in Greek or the Slavic languages, where most prepositions govern more than two cases, and the difference in meaning caused by the different cases governed usually is totally unpredictable.

[@softwaretechnologyengineering]

36 Weeks or 900 class hours, means your doing 25 hours of classes a week. That's 5 hours every working day, or just over 3.5 hours every single day. Class time doesn't sound like it includes things like homework and excercises or immersion time. So yeah, 36 weeks if you make it more or less your full time job.

[@SlugSage]

@0:21 I never heard German sound so attractive before.

[@meropale]

The hardest part for me is learning the vocab, just because of the volume. When reading books it's usually not knowing a word that trips me up.

[@crooniegrumpkin4415]

Amen!!!

[@derpauleglot9772]

The distance from A to B is the same as the distance from B to A. I'm German, and getting to a point where I could read English books without a dictionary took me a long time^^

[@ruedigernassauer]

You must be writing about English, right? Good German has few basic words (these mostly consist of a single syllable or apparently two syllables ending with a schwa that can be cut off without losing information), but many derivations and compositions. An unknown word in German is mostly self-explaining.

[@meropale]

No, I'm writing about German as that's what this video is about. Also, I'm not counting compound words.

[@ruedigernassauer]

@@meropale Sure your video is about English. But how many words are there in English? More than a million? I gave up on English about 25 years ago. Before I underlined each new word and learned it. It never stopped...

[@LilianLin21]

I am studying the german language (Germanistik) and it's kinda interesting to see someone talk about german from a whole other angle of view.

[@AR-GuidesAndMore]

10:13 Ich höre gerne den brüllenden Löwen. (without the "zu" this sentence still works, its just that you listen now to a single lion who is defined as the one who roars. The "zu" in the end turns the entire thing into a refference to multiple Lions.

[@EHonda-ds6ve]

Why is "the girl" neuter? The word is "Mädchen" and if a word ends with"-chen", then it´s trivialized. "Mädchen" ( girl) is the cute version of "Magd" ( Maid) and "Magd" is "die".

[@manud.7799]

Es handelt sich hier um den Diminutiv, also eine Verkleinerungsform. Man kann aus fast jedem Substantiv eine Verkleinerungsform machen. Und der Artikel ändert sich entsprechend mit und aus einem maskulin/ feminin wird ein neuter. die Katze -> das Kätzchen (cute little cat) der Hund -> das Hündchen (cute little dog) Oder wie in deinem Beispiel: die Magd (-> das Mägdchen) -> das Mädchen.

[@bigscarysteve]

It's diminutized, not trivialized.

[@Lingo_Lore]

... Is it just my phone... Or does this video have 0 views and 5 likes?

[@storylearning]

I don’t know, but I like them odds!

[@enavoid6285]

10:09 That is similar to a problem in Portuguese where you only know a sentence is a question when you see the question mark in the end: O leite está quente. O leite está quente? The first one means "The milk is hot." and the second one means "Is the milk hot?". Spanish fixed this by adding the upside down question mark to the start of interrogative sentences, but Portuguese didn't.

[@-cirad-]

In questions without question words the verb comes first: Die Milch ist heiß. Ist die Milch heiß? Ich höre gerne den brüllenden Löwen zu. Höre ich gerne den brüllenden Löwen zu?

[@enavoid6285]

@@-cirad- Yeah, just like English

[@dagmarszemeitzke]

In Germany the English sitcoms are Dubbed in Germany and every movie was dubbed too. In some cinemas special movies are shown OmU (Original mit Untertiteln/ original with subtiles)