The German Language

Though I grew up in the United States, my first language was actually German. I was born there, and came to the US when I was 4 years old, so I'm not exactly fluent in German, but have enough of a basic background to pick it up again fairly easily.

As I grew up, besides learning English, I also picked up a little bit of Spanish and some high school French. And I've learned one thing: in some respects, German is an easy language to pick up, and in other respects, it's one of the most difficult.

It's easy in the realm of pronunciation and vocabulary. There are set rules governing the pronunciation of German words (they are similar to Spanish), and if you follow these rules, it's fairly easy to pick up spelling and pronunciation. Contrast this to English, where there are more exceptions than rules when it comes to spelling and pronunciation ("i before e", anyone? And how about pronouncing through, enough, plough, cough, and dough?)

In terms of vocabulary, it can be a little tricky to pick up at first, but after a while you start to notice something: those super-long German words? Are easily deciphered by breaking down the individual words. German is pretty literal: the word for something generally describes exactly what it is/does.

Now, when it comes to *grammar*, on the other hand, German is definitely harder to pick up. English is actually pretty easy because we don't have gendered nouns. Languages like French and Spanish, with their masculine and feminine articles for nouns, are a little trickier, but still manageable. Then along comes German, which adds a THIRD (neutral) article to the mix, and somehow dealing with 3 different articles makes the corresponding grammatical rules exponentially more difficult.

Aesthetically-speaking, I've heard non-German-speaking friends tell me they think German sounds harsh and guttural. Not to me. Maybe it's because I'm used to it, but it actually sounds very smooth and clean and... open to me. It's hard to describe except to contrast it to English, which I feel involves more "swallowing" of words and rolling the tongue backward to properly pronounce. A little bit like French, but on a smaller scale. With German, I feel like my tongue and my lips are more... free! It is certainly a language I love :-)

What are your takes on other languages?

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