15.1.08

The Awful German Language, or, "Deutsche Sprache, Schwere Sprache"

In a previous post, I discussed the aspects of German that make it easier to learn, especially for native English speakers. In this post, to the delight of German teachers everywhere, I will talk about the most difficult aspects of the German language. Hopefully I won't scare everyone away from learning German, because it really is worth it.

Deutsche Sprache, schwere Sprache
is a saying in broken German ("German language, hard language") used ironically when difficulties with German come up in a conversation.

So, here's what makes German a difficult language:

1.Gender
In German, each noun has a gender. A word can be masculine, feminine, or neuter. That means that instead of just using "the" for every word, you have three different possibilities if you want to say "The ______ is big." Masculine words use der, feminine words use die (pronounced dee), and neuter words use das.

2. Cases
There are four different cases in German, which indicate the role a word plays in the sentence. You can usually tell which case a word is in based on the article(a word like "the" or "a") in front of the word. That means that there are four ways to say "the" in front of a masculine word, 3 in front of a feminine word, 3 in front of a neutral word, and 3 in front of a word in the plural form.

That means, for the masculine word "man", you would say "the" four different ways, depending on the role of the word in the sentence.

Der Mann ist groß.
The man (subject) is tall.

Ich mag den Mann.
I like the man (direct object).

Ich gebe dem Mann eine Blume.
I give the man (indirect object) a flower.

Die Frau des Mannes ist nett.
The wife of the man ("of" relationship) is nice.

Changing the article (the word "the" in this case) according to the case is called declining a word. In Mark Twain's famous book "The Awful German Language", he says "I would rather decline two German beers than one German noun."

The gender and case working together result in a sometimes very difficult process of trying to decide how to say a word as simple as "the".


Sometimes I'm just a little confused.

3. Adjective endings
Depending on the aformentioned gender and case of a word, along with the article, you have to change the way you end the adjective. Examples using the German word gut, which means "good":

Der gute Mann or den guten Mann

Ein guter Mann or einen guten Mann

4. Plurals
The German words in plural form are much more irregular than the English. You can't just stick an 's' onto the end of a word to make it plural. There's somewhere around 12 different categories of plural words, plus exceptions.

Der Zug and die Züge (the train and the trains)
Die Zeitschrift and die Zeitschriften (the magazine and the magazines)
Der Spieler and die Spieler ( the player and the players)

All of that adds up to many small mistakes for those learning German, but they can get by anyway. A mistake in the adjective ending or using the wrong gender doesn't mean people don't understand what you say, it just means you make mistakes and you always talk a little funny.

Another effect of the complexity of the language is, in my opinion, a larger barrier between classes in German society. Often the people with a lower level of education will simply leave out the word "the" for whatever reason. Maybe it's because they don't feel like declining it, maybe it's because that's the way they always hear it in their group of friends. In any case, it results in very interesting sentences like "Come train station" or "I drive car to airport", which, quite frankly, sound a little bit neanderthal.

Does anyone else notice effects of the complexity of the German language on German society?

For all of you people out there learning German, what do you find is the hardest part about the language?

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

Remembering past participles of verbs stinks. especially because, for example, gefallt means something COMPLETELY different from gefallen.

Amy said...

What I have a hard time remembering is the order that words go in. I guess there's the whole "TEMPE" rule to follow, but it's frustrating sometimes when you can't just say a sentence in the same order you would in english. Example:

I've been learning German for five years.

Seit funf Jahren habe ich Deutsch gelernt.

haha, i hope that's correct grammar because even though I have been studying it for 5 years, i'm not good at all.

Kevin said...

Murphy, that's a problem in every language. The German past forms actually seem relatively easy compared to the Spanish ones, but who knows.

But you're definitely right. The most annoying example I've found is that for two meanings of the word "schaffen" there are different past forms. For the meaning "to accomplish" the past forms are "schaffte" und "geschafft"; but for the meaning "to create", the past forms are "schuf" und "geschaffen".

Amy, I find the word order difficult as well. It's something that you can just get a feel for through practice. The sentence you said is gramatically correct as far as I know, but remember that you do have a little bit of flexibility in the German sentence structure. You can move certain parts of the sentence to the front for emphasis. I have also heard such a sentence structured in the present.

Seit fünf Jahren lerne ich Deutsch.

or

Ich lerne seit fünf Jahren Deutsch.

So, yeah. I don't really know what my point is. The sentence structure is in one sense difficult, but in another sense one aspect of it allows you to express yourself a little bit better.

-Kevin

Amy said...

yeah, I guess I know what you mean by getting a feel for it, because there are times when it just comes. I guess I just have a hard time when I'm put on the spot and I think of something in English and try to translate it straight-up ...and that doesn't work too wll.

Before you went to Germany, how much German did you speak? and would you say you're fluent now?

Thanks!

Kevin said...

If you translate word for word, it will usually sound a little funny, but people will almost always understand you. Then you can ask them how do say it correctly, and from the whole experience you can learn. It happened to me dozens of times a day at the beginning.

I spoke a pretty good amount of German. I had learned all of the essential grammar in school in America in my five years there. I did, however, have a very thick accent and didn't know enough words for everyday life.

"Fluency" is a tricky word to use. It's hard for me to tell how good my German is. I'm probably a C1 on the CEFR chart (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CEFR), which is the second highest and corresponds to "effective operational proficiency".

Bottom line is, immersion is the best way to learn once you've got a framework from a standard language course.

-Kevin

Anonymous said...

Good words.

Kyra said...

I'm living in Germany right now as an exchange student, and I've been here for 3 months now. The language is a real bitch sometimes but I honestly love it anyway. It's really fun to speak, and even more so when I've had some drinks. I'm able to speak fluently when I'm drunk for some reason, but when I'm sober I end up having a little more trouble. I've never taken classes so what I'm doing now is a straight up immersion. It's amazing. I love it here.

Blaise said...

I find your modesty refreshing, Kevin. I thought going to Germany for a year would make me fluent, but I realized during my year there that there really are degrees of fluency, with true fluency being almost like an unobtainable goal (at least for me, so far ha). It's disconcerting to hear some people in the states call their German fluent, when it's nowhere close to anything I'd consider fluency.

Hoffe es hat dir trotz allem in Deutschland gefallen. Grüße aus Florida

Cansu said...

I'm from Turkey. I go to a german school in Istanbul and ı've been learning german for 4 months..
It has been difficult to get used to having 17 hours german lessons a week .. but as a result of this ı can understand most of the conversations on TV or ı can express my opinions..
ı reckon that the most difficult part of learning german is articles, passive and contionals. On the other hand , it is amazing ! at least ı know that (if ı pass my exams ) ı will have graduated 5 years later and ı will have got my abitur diploma :D

Lev Raphael said...

I've been in Germany three times, have had two semester-length classes and two evening college classes that met only ten sessions each and though my accent is good, and I can even pun and make jokes in German and dream in it,and my aural comprehension is good I find thinking in German takes time, especially remembering sentence structure. That and genders for nouns and the accompanying changes in the articles depending on case. However, I love that in German as well as French (which I speak much better) you can get three tenses from one sentence:

Ich studiere Deutsch: I study German & I have been studying German & I will study German.

Lev Raphael, author of "My Germany"