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Why do I not like German? | ||
Tags: "Louche" Languages | German | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Advice Center |  | |
| Tyrion101 Senior Member United States Joined 3848 days ago 153 posts - 174 votes  Speaks: French | Message 1 of 19 30 December 2014 at 8:02pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I've always felt the need to learn German (there is a pretty big population here with a big BMW plant, and for classical music reasons), only that the fact that I really dislike the language, might hinder my progress in it. I don't know if it is some sort of carry over from WWII or not? My great grandfather escaped the Nazis and immigrated to here, though I have no problem liking composers like Wagner who were decidedly antisemitic (but not living anymore), so I'll ask again, is it simply a matter of taste?
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| eyðimörk Triglot Senior Member France goo.gl/aT4FY7 Joined 4034 days ago 490 posts - 1158 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French Studies: Breton, Italian | Message 2 of 19 30 December 2014 at 8:23pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Possibly. Possibly not. They are your feelings, so you tell us.
Strangers on the internet with nothing to go on are not going to be able to tell you if your feelings relate to aesthetic or a relationship, which we know nothing whatsoever about, to your great grandfather... or something else entirely. 13 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Darklight1216 Diglot Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5035 days ago 411 posts - 639 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: German | Message 3 of 19 31 December 2014 at 2:06am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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It seems like German is something bordering on an obligation for you. I hated language
learning in school for that reason (and many, many others). Let's face it, you do not truly need to learn to German. If you want to take up Norwegian (or whatever) instead, then go for it. Plenty of your fellow Americans are not learning Spanish despite an enormous population of Spanish speakers. You can join us. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 4944 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 4 of 19 31 December 2014 at 12:32pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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It's actually not a bad question. I have some experience with hating languages,
especially English and German. ;-) German was easy to hate, not just because of the history, which is the very last of the reasons why anyone should hate the language in my opinion as all the nations have some shady past. (at least such a distant history as your grandfather or great- grandfather. A different thing are people who personally suffered from a nation, that is why most Czechs hate the Russian language while the youngest generation learns it again) -in Europe, especially when you have borders with Germany and Austria, everyone tells you "learn German, French is useless" and they are not always nice about it. I chose French instead and I was right but people are just brainwashed into thinking German is the only non-English language worth learning. Nope, any language you learn well is an asset. And you are unlikely to learn well something you hate. -German is not beautiful at first encounter, sometimes not even at the second, third or 5Oth. There are even many jokes about ugly German words on the internet and many speakers sound horrible. Well, some of those speakers would sound horrible no matter the language in my opinion. I'd say German is like olives. At first, you might wonder why anyone would eat this. After a few good quality pieces, you just crave more. -German is viewed as the language of reason. Money, money, cars, money, industry, money... that is pretty much all you hear about. There are not the usual emotionally attractive things like well known popular music, even though there is a lot to discover once you search a bit deeper, the tv series are said to be so bad even the Germans don't watch them much (and all I've seen imported from Germany just confirms the idea), Bratwurst and Germknödl, despite their qualities, are just not as attractive as pizza, sushi or quiche. -The natives. Yes, there are many really nice Germans, Austrians, Suiss etc. Yes there are and I've met some. But from the usual point of view, you can mostly see the tourists. And Germans are among the worst, loudest and rudest turists you can usually meet, sorry to say that. But it is true. So, there are reasons to dislike the language and as long as those overweight the good things (huge book market, great places to visit, the nice natives, some good quality metal and other bands, the classical music, the good movies und so weiter), it is not worth learning, you'd just torture yourself. You have English as your native language, you don't have to learn anything, you can choose whatever pleases you. Be it German, Spanish, Japanese, Swedish, Polish, Swahili or Klingon! Really, I am unlikely to ever understand how can the English natives feel pressured to learn a particular language, you don't know what such a pressure is, in my opinion. :-D If you want to learn German for practical reasons though, I'd wait for a change of mind, if I were you. That's what happened to me. After years of hate, I found reasons to like the language and to enjoy it. And I am making progress. But had I started before the change, I'd have burnt out really fast. If you want to speed up the change, than look in the logs of learners, especially the intermediates and more advanced ones, and look for tips on music to try, movies to watch with English subtitles at first, to see whether you'll like them, books you can try in translation or anything else that could make you appreciate the language and its culture more. 12 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| carlyd Groupie United States Joined 3924 days ago 94 posts - 138 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish | Message 5 of 19 31 December 2014 at 10:44pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Cavesa, I see your point but I laughed through your whole post. I'm learning German, and my family heritage is German, so even thought I won't eat Bratwurst, I still have that connection of liking the language/liking the culture.
I think that any successful/fun language learning has to have that combination of wanting to learn the language and being intrigued or at least interested in the culture. I think that's what keeps you going. To Tyrion101--you may feel the need to learn German, but if you don't have that spark to want to learn it, well, there's lots of other languages you can work on that might make you happier. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Gemuse Senior Member Germany Joined 4017 days ago 818 posts - 1189 votes Speaks: English Studies: German | Message 6 of 19 09 January 2015 at 9:42pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
One of the reasons I like German :D
On the webs, at least where I tend to hang out, German music is more popular (go Rammstein!). Way before I even thought about learning German, I had German songs on heavy repeat. And way before I had German songs on repeat, I was importing trance music CDs from amazon.de. The only French song which I know about is the fishdance one (and not for the song).
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| Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6517 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German | Message 7 of 19 09 January 2015 at 10:18pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I'm gonna go say try it out. You might find out as you start understanding it from the inside that you actually like it. Or you might confirm your suspicions that you don't much like it. If you do, stop and do something else. Life is too short to learn a language you don't like, even if it's useful, and you're not likely to succeed, anyway. Learning a language to a decent level involved choosing to do things in the language that you could more easily do in English, and it's going to be very difficult to make that choice if you don't like the language. At best you'll be able to do it, but exhaust all your willpower on it and then eat too many donuts and be miserable.
So give it a month or two. Get the Assimil course and take German for a spin. I've found that my perceptions of and feelings about languages can change a lot when I start to actually learn them. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| daegga Tetraglot Senior Member Austria lang-8.com/553301 Joined 4456 days ago 1076 posts - 1792 votes Speaks: German*, EnglishC2, Swedish, Norwegian Studies: Danish, French, Finnish, Icelandic | Message 8 of 19 11 January 2015 at 8:52pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Standard German is just ugly. But German is not the same as Standard German. There are
plenty of charming accents around, even within Germany. They are just not used that much anymore in public, which is a shame. It's a bit like Danish: you have to spend some time with it and discover its variants until you can like it ;) As for attractive food: you are much better off in Austria than in Germany. Who needs pizza, sushi or quiche if you can have Wiener Schnitzel (the real thing, not the stuff you get in Germany), Apfelstrudel etc (well, that's probably pretty standard in the Czech Republic too I guess given our fellow history)? For chocolate and cheese, you need to go to Switzerland though (but both are overrated, better go to Norway). Edited by daegga on 11 January 2015 at 9:02pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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