German classes in Germany

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I guess this is more for our German SP'ers (Ragusa, etc.) but anyone with knowledge about my question, please reply as well.

I'm currently taking Spanish lessons in Salamanca and will be done at the end of May. I'm now considering taking German lessons somewhere in Germany. Here's my question: what place in Germany would you guys recommend? I'd like to take part in an actual University's "International Student" type of program for a semester or 2 and not just some language school. My main considerations are just cost of living and tuition fees. I'm quite sure that it'd be too expensive to do this in one of the major cities like Munich or Hamburg. Also, what are the "University Towns" in Germany? I'd like to encounter an environment like the one here in Salamanca, namely used to foreigners and with a lot of people in their teens to mid-late 20s. Thanks guys.

Also, for those who do not speak German as their first language but have studied it, I've heard that its quite similar to english and will be easier to pick up if you're a fluent english speaker, is this true or were those people just making it up?

 

argh, the bastard. It was a classmate of mine in my Spanish class last term. He'd been taking German a few months before and said that it was easier than learning Spanish.

 

English is similar to German in the way that they are from the same group of languages, Germanic. I think that a lot of words are near equal and that the language structure is mostly the same.

I don't know, but I am sure that picking up German and English are easier if you're a fluent Dutch speaker.

 

Perhaps your friend was referring to OLD English, which was a Germanic language and was much more heavily inflected. After the bloody French entered England in 1066 they did a fine job of altering the language. Try reading Beowulf in its original text and you'll see what I mean.

On a side note, I'm bloody envious -- I'd love to study a foreign language in its own country -- you can learn something and then take it to the streets and test it out! Good luck to you!

 

I think it depends on the person, and yes, also on your native language.

There are many words that are similar between German and English, but then there's also words that sound and look similar, but have quite different meanings.

Then there's words that sound *very* similar, though still a bit different. I recall my Canadian French teacher who was trying to learn German (I went to an International School, so we all spoke English between and in most classes. Language classes were the exception, as we had to speak in the language we were trying to learn) asking one day how to pronounce the word "sehr" (which means "very"). He had difficulty pronouncing it right, and always said "Seher". He asked if it really made a difference, and we said yes, because "Seher" means "Seer".

Also, a British English teacher, who back in the UK had taught German to English students, and now taught English to us, told me one thing she had to teach the students was that German had a lot more variation in the pronounciation of sentences. In English this is done too, but not to such a great degree - she said in comparison to German, English had a rather monotonous overall sound. Also, she noticed after having stayed in Germany for a longer time, thus having spoken a lot more German than usual, when she returned to England, she actually had to stop herself from speaking too loudly - Germans indeed seem to speak slightly louder in general, though what the cause of that is, I don't know.

One thing that I know is often difficult for foreign speakers, and English native speakers in particular, is pronouncing Umlaute: Ä, ö, and ü. The French have an advantage in this case, as those sounds are actually quite common in their language, but to a great degree, these sounds are rare, if they even exist, in the English language. And it is difficult to learn to reproduce a sound your tongue isn't familiar with creating (that's why some languages can prove literal tongue breakers for one person, and really easy to reproduce for another person, depending on which language background they are).

 

I'm going to have to disagree here. They are both Germanic languages, there are certainly aspects of the languages that are similar. Phrasal verbs, for example, are attested in all Germanic languages. They are often regarded as one of the most difficult aspects of the English language for foreign language learners. If you're in the habit of using the phrasal verb mechanism in English, it will be a lot easier to grasp the process as it is used in German.

Also, German is harder in the beginning, but English is a lot harder to truly master.

In the end, I think exposure is the most important thing. My native language is Dutch, yet my English is far better than my German.

 

Really? I thought Belgium was a French-speaking place?

 

I have to jump on the wagon of saying English has quite a lot in common with German. It depends on your point of view though, my native language is Swedish and even though I did not realize it at first it has helped me a lot in learning English and what little German I know. All three languages have the same roots, the basic buildingblocks of the languages are the same. That they then diverge quite drastically is another matter and at a quick glance they may appear vastly different. If you come from a completely different culture, if for example Chinese is your native language you are going to think that the Germanic languages are very similar.

I have studied both German and Spanish and even if German perhaps is harder to master, especially the grammar, it is not that hard for a person with germanic language roots to get a basic understanding of hte language. The ability to slowly read a text, understanding most of it and even be able to understand and produce basic spoken German.

 

I've read it just fine, and I can't say more than few words in German.
The Germanic influence is maybe greater, but not to a significant extent.

My native language is Serbian (Slavic group), and I have to say that I don't find German and English all that similar. Sometimes I am able to understand certain words in a body of text written in German, based on my English knowledge, or even grasp the concept, but that's about it (for me at least).

I am not saying that there are no similarities, because there are, but I'm not sure how much would knowing English actually help you with learning German.
Maybe the two languages have a similar grammatical "feeling" to them. I'm not familiar with German grammar, so I can't really say. As for the sound flow... different, definitely.

My father disagrees, as he's always expecting me to translate stuff written in German, just because I speak English. I'm rarely successful. Very rarely.

 

I'm going to be the odd ball here (among native Dutch speakers) and agree with Tal. I've always thought that English was, at least in its vocabulary, much more similar to French, rather than any germanic language.

German and Dutch are very similar, and to me Scandinavian languages are almost understandable as being a fairly close relative to Friesian. (Friesian is a sublanguage spoken in the province Friesland in Holland, which seems to have linguistic links to Scandinavian, Dutch and some English as well.) English doesn't quite fit in with these languages for me, except perhaps when looking at Friesian.

If you want to learn German, it'd be a big plus if you could speak Dutch, but I doubt there are very many other languages which will help you understand German better.

 

Remembering back -- WAYY back to my languages classes, IIRC English is historically a language from the Germanic branch of all Indo-European languages. However, exposure to other Indo-European languages from other branches (particularily Romantic languages influenced by Latin) has restructured modern English into something far, far different than its Germanic roots.

I would agree with Uytuun when she said that it is easy enough to get some basic English but true mastery is a different kettle of fish altogether.

 

I just knew you were going to react.

So was I and as I have shown with the phrasal verb example, the germanic roots of English still show in contemporary language use...practical use always has to do with origins and evolution.

I think you overestimate the influence of foreign influences on English. There is a reason why they call it a Germanic language and not a Romance one. Sure, English and German seem rather different when compared to Dutch and German, but when you take a step back and look at it from Enagonios's point of view (IIRC his native tongue isn't one of the Gemanic languages) there are important similarities. The differences are probably mostly situated in the lexicon because that part of a language changes relatively easily. Then again, vocabulary is also relatively easy to learn. Other aspects of language (e.g. syntax, tense system etc.) are waaaay more fixed and also tend to be harder to grasp when your native tongue is a non-Germanic one. Ergo, when you're already familiar with those concepts from English, you'll have an easier time picking up German.

I think you underestimate my ability to detach from personal and practical experiences.

Also, I'm Belgian.

That's just scratching the surface of the language you're doing there. I never said that they were insanely alike, but English has enough in common with German for it to be helpful to a non-Germanic native speaker that seeks to learn English.

An yeah, DotW, I live in Flanders. My dialect is in fact somewhat similar to English in that it is a Germanic language that is rather heavily influenced by French (and English, in fact) on some levels (again, mostly lexicon).

 

I will answer this later, but one thing I definitely wanted to add now is that even the vocabulary isn't that different. Just some random ones:

bed-Bett
lamp-Lampe
family-Familie
star-Sterre
paper-Papier
mother-Mutter
father-Vater
book-Buch
card-Karte
fact-Fakt
process-Prozeß
house-Haus
child-Kind
oil-Öl
warmth-Wärme
hour-Uhr
milk-Milch
bread-Brot
sand-Sand
to sing-singen
to dance-tanzen
to cook-kochen
to see-sehen
to drink-trinken
the colours (rot, weiß, gelb, blau, grün...)

and the list goes on...

Note that even if the vowels are sometimes different, the consonants are the same...they frame the word. There is a historical explanation for this, but I should really go to bed now. Anyway, I think you guys can see the similarities.