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Why does German have a bad reputation? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages | ( Topic Closed) |  |
| Johntm Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5425 days ago 616 posts - 725 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 17 of 45 27 March 2010 at 5:13am | IP Logged | |||||
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I personally love the sounds of German and plan on learning it some day, but I think less people like it as opposed to Latin (an academic language) and French (language of love, sounds so "romantic") while German sounds angry (not my opinion). And in America, the main exposure to German in most of the US (places with high German speaking populations obviously left out) is History Channel programs that show Hitler shouting it (angrily, I might add) from a podium. So people associate with Nazis, anger, and other negative things.
Edit: Keep in mind those aren't what I think of the language, just what I think is the reason people think so negatively of it. Edited by Johntm on 27 March 2010 at 5:13am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| doviende Diglot Senior Member Canada languagefixatio Joined 5989 days ago 533 posts - 1245 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Spanish, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Hindi, Swedish, Portuguese | Message 18 of 45 27 March 2010 at 6:54am | IP Logged | |||||
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I think the "negative perception" aspect has been thoroughly covered, but there's still the "difficulty" question. I've heard many people say that German is somehow extremely hard, although this has not been my experience. I think this stems from a grammar-focused study method, as is common in schools, because German has several grammatical features that some people consider more difficult than other Germanic languages or romance languages.
In my opinion, these grammatical features don't inhibit understanding at all, although they sometimes cause me a few problems with getting my output exactly correct. Others have told me that this resolves itself with more exposure. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| cordelia0507 Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5841 days ago 1473 posts - 2176 votes Speaks: Swedish* Studies: German, Russian | Message 19 of 45 27 March 2010 at 9:07am | IP Logged | |||||
True. That's a good reason to be suspicious against English language media in general I think. Just because it's everywhere doesn't mean that 1) it's trustworthy 2) it's unbiased 3) it's good quality. But this comes down to the view of the country in general, I think, not just the language. If the only German they hear is actors barking commands while playing soldiers in some shallow B movie about the war -- then yes, it's easy to understand that they get that view. But if they watch a good German film, listen to a quality radio programme or read a book in German they'd notice it's a beautiful and elegant language which does NOT sound aggressive. It's VERY sad and concerning that there are people in the English speaking world who base their views on other countries and people solely on what they hear and view in some English speaking media. This happens not only for the views on Germany and on French people (as we've seen in some threads here..), but also people in Moslem countries, people in the remaining Communist countries etc. Anything from the news to romantic comedies are spreading these stereotypes and misconceptions. That's exactly why it's so good to learn foreign languages. It opens you up to new culture, worldviews and social life that would otherwise not be possible. As for German; I can't even imagine what it's like to constantly have to face these stereotypes and comments about the war which for most people happened before they were born. Actually, watch "Heimat" the whole series to get to know Germany better. Footnote: :-) My only complaint about the German language is: The words tend to be very long, which often creates problem when you are localising software (which I sometimes have to do in my job). Also, many people there seem to be quite perfectionist about using good language at all times, so in these localisations my team gets a lot more complaints about the translations from DE than from any other country. But really, this is a GOOD thing (why accept sloppy translations or text that cuts out because a button is too small to fit the entire word..) 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Rameau Triglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6110 days ago 149 posts - 258 votes 4 sounds Speaks: English*, GermanC1, Danish Studies: Swedish, French, Icelandic | Message 20 of 45 27 March 2010 at 12:38pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Simple jealousy, no doubt.
5 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Johntm Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5425 days ago 616 posts - 725 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 22 of 45 28 March 2010 at 6:56am | IP Logged | |||||
4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| indiana83 Groupie United States ipracticecanto.wordp Joined 5493 days ago 92 posts - 121 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Cantonese, Italian | Message 23 of 45 28 March 2010 at 11:03pm | IP Logged | |||||
In my own family's experience, it was WW2 that stopped German. My dad's family is from Dubois County, Indiana. Even today, the population is 64% German. According to my Dad, the population was at least 90 or 95% German when he was a kid, and closer to 100% when his parents were children. My dad's parents are both 3rd generation American, and neither of them learned English until school. They spoke German at home, German in church, German in the store. My grandma still spoke German when she worked at the grocery store, and when she worked as the town's telephone operator. Even today, she still speaks German to her sisters. However, my grandparents married right after WW2, and they never taught my dad or his siblings any German at all. Right after WW2, the entire town switched over from German to English. My dad remembers that some of his cousins were considered weird for still speaking German to each other during elementary school. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Bao Diglot Senior Member Germany tinyurl.com/pe4kqe5 Joined 5769 days ago 2256 posts - 4046 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin | Message 24 of 45 29 March 2010 at 1:30am | IP Logged | |||||
I made a native English speaker laugh not too long ago when I said something like 'Germans like short words' I had meant that Germans like words that in itself express something that in English or Spanish needs a whole subordinate clause to be expressed. And I somehow don't regard anything with less than two syllables as 'real word'. :D Anyhow, German is awesome. I really like the way we have words that when you look at them, have piled up two, three affixes or suffixes and are considered everyday vocabulary. But often when I try to explain something to a learner of German, I end up being really glad that I speak this language natively. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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