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Discount on German? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| aquarius Diglot Newbie United Kingdom Joined 6902 days ago 23 posts - 23 votes Speaks: Bengali, English* Studies: Spanish | Message 1 of 16 19 February 2006 at 9:41am | IP Logged | ||
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I am a native English speaker who is currently learning Spanish. After "finishing" Spanish I am thinking of starting on German. Will my command of English and Spanish give me any kind of discount on learning German?
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| Kveldulv Senior Member Italy Joined 6954 days ago 222 posts - 244 votes  1 sounds Speaks: Italian* | Message 2 of 16 19 February 2006 at 10:28am | IP Logged | ||
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I don't think Spanish will give you a deep discount on learning German, but after having mastered a language learning another one will be easier because you'll know how languages work. Yuor english will help you just with vocabulary, but not so much.
And Sir Nigel is planning to digitise the FSI German course and you will be able to download it for free. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| dadafeig Diglot Groupie United States Joined 6987 days ago 82 posts - 83 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: German, Dutch | Message 3 of 16 19 February 2006 at 11:44am | IP Logged | ||
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As somebody who has learned a good amount of Spanish and having already started on German I can tell you knowing Spanish won't really help when learning German at all. However if you learn both German and Spanish then learning any language from the Germanic or Romance language families will be much easier.
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| Sir Nigel Senior Member United States Joined 7105 days ago 1126 posts - 1102 votes 2 sounds | Message 4 of 16 19 February 2006 at 1:31pm | IP Logged | ||
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German is related to English and they are in the same language family, Spanish of course isn't.
Just the fact that you've learnt Spanish will help you some in that you understand learning languages better. Edited by Sir Nigel on 19 February 2006 at 1:33pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| aquarius Diglot Newbie United Kingdom Joined 6902 days ago 23 posts - 23 votes Speaks: Bengali, English* Studies: Spanish | Message 5 of 16 19 February 2006 at 2:51pm | IP Logged | ||
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I appreciate all the advice that has been posted, especially "dafadeig" who is best positioned to answer my question.
Yes, what I thought has just been confirmed. Spanish will give me a massive discount if I choose to learn French or any other Romance language. However, despite the fact that English is part of the Germanic family, the FSI say that it takes an English speaker longer to learn German than Spanish. OTOH, learning German will give deep discounts on other Germanic language such as Dutch and Swedish if I ever choose to tread down that path. It is seems unlikely now but only a year ago I had my heart set on French after Spanish. How wanderlust sets in! Anyway, like you say, the experience that I will gain by learning Spanish will at least make it a little bit quicker to learn German than otherwise. Even a 5 per cent discount on the study effort required is better than nothing. Edited by aquarius on 19 February 2006 at 3:01pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 jeff_lindqvist Diglot Moderator SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6910 days ago 4250 posts - 5711 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Irish, French Personal Language Map | Message 6 of 16 20 February 2006 at 1:40pm | IP Logged | ||
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Something that hasn't been pointed out is the actual similarity between German and Spanish (and other Romance languages): both languages have genders - Spanish has two and German three. The un/una and el/la correspond to ein/eine/ein and der/die/das. Not exactly of course, but if you know Spanish you're used to having to remember which gender a noun is. That might make you better prepared for German. :)
Just a few thoughts. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| FuroraCeltica Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6866 days ago 1187 posts - 1427 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, French | Message 7 of 16 20 February 2006 at 3:20pm | IP Logged | ||
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Knowledge of Spanish wont really help you learn German. To be honest, I think the level of similarity between German and English is an over estimate. Having studied Dutch, I found Dutch to be much closer to German than English.
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| dadafeig Diglot Groupie United States Joined 6987 days ago 82 posts - 83 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: German, Dutch | Message 8 of 16 20 February 2006 at 3:46pm | IP Logged | ||
Definitely true, although I only have very basic knowledge of Dutch it seems very much closer to English rather than German. I have counted to many times where I said "Hey this word is almost the same as in English", or at least more than I have found that to be the case in German. Edited by dadafeig on 20 February 2006 at 3:47pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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