Well, personally I just love learning new language, nothing else. Really? Hmm....perhaps I felt challenged with German language. Hey, have you ever read this quote below:
“A person who has not studied German can
form no idea of what a perplexing language it is. […] surely there is
not another language that is so slipshod and systemless, and so slippery
and elusive to the grasp.”
– Mark Twain, “The Awful German Language”
I mean, come on! There are four noun cases, endless verb conjugations, umlauts, grammar rules with more exceptions than rules.
I listed some compelling reasons why I should learn German:
1. German is quite easy to acquire.
You're lucky if you are an English speaker! It would be easier for you to acquire German since English and German share the same Germanic root. There are many thousands of words which are closely related known as “cognates.” For example, the English chin is Kinn in German. Water becomes Wasser and father turns into Vater. Not so hard after all, is it?
Furthermore, unlike Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Russian, or Arabic, there is no new alphabet to learn, only a few letters to add. If you already know Latin script (and if you do not, I am incredibly amazed you have been following the article this far) the only new arrivals will be the umlauts ä, ö and ü as well as ß which is just a fancy German s.
2. German is language of inventors and innovators
Over one hundred Nobel Prizes have gone to brilliant Germans for accomplishments in physics, medicine, chemistry, literature and other areas. That is not even counting the prizes awarded to people from the other two major German-speaking countries Austria and Switzerland. Plus, many of the recipients from other nations received their training at German universities.
3. German companies are global market leaders
Germany is home to a large number of economic global players. Siemens, Volkswagen, Adidas and Lufthansa are globally recognized brands and corporations. The country also hosts some of the biggest international trade fairs including CeBIT, the world’s largest exhibition for information technology, as well as the IFA trade fair for consumer electronics.
4. German is the most widely spoken language in Europe
English, French and German are the three official working languages of the European Union. In absolute numbers, German is the second most-spoken language on the continent of Europe. However, when it comes to native speakers, German is number one.
5. German has a big online presence
You don’t even have to meet those 100 million people in the real world. You can do so from the convenience of your own home! German websites make up a huge part of the internet. In fact, in terms of domain endings that are clearly affiliated with a particular country, Germany’s .de is the most popular top-level domain out there. I know, I’m as surprised as you are.
Knowing German gives you access to an additional 15 million websites and that is not even counting the German sites ending in .net, .org and .info. Of course, in terms of absolute numbers .de takes second place to .com which is way ahead of everything else. Second place in the whole worldwide web?YES!
Okay what are you waiting for? Let's get our feet wet!
Back to Deutsch Lernen to find more lesson on German!
