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Letting go of German | ||
Tags: Loss of confidence | German | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| William Camden Hexaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6272 days ago 1936 posts - 2333 votes  Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Russian, Turkish, French | Message 9 of 22 29 June 2009 at 2:34pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I was once given medical treatment by a doctor in former East Germany who wanted to bring in an interpreter as he spoke no English. I said in German that that would be unnecessary, as I could speak German. On former GDR territory, even the educated don't necessarily know English. In former West Germany, the educated tend to speak English at least to a basic level, but even then, not everyone is educated, and the German grasp of English is overall less extensive than the Dutch command of it (and I have encountered non-Anglophone Dutch people, even in Amsterdam).
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| FrenchLanguage Senior Member Germany Joined 5736 days ago 122 posts - 135 votes | Message 10 of 22 29 June 2009 at 2:46pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I am located in Bavaria, and I agree with what you say. Im often surprised when I hear people rave about how good Germans are at English. My guess is those are the kind of people who come here and meet mostly people who are in college (whose social circle consists of the same kind of people), most of which speak English and then they feel like "wow I didnt even have to know German!". I think that must be the impression American or british friends of friends of mine must have gotten, for example...but its just not true for everyone.
My sister went to Amsterdam and asked cautiously if the person she spoke to spoke English and was extremely surprised that the woman/girl replied "*Of course*, I can speak English" (or something along those lines), I guess that reaction by my sister (being totally surprised at it) shows how much better the grasp of English is in Amsterdam than it is here. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Sprachgenie Decaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 5709 days ago 128 posts - 165 votes Speaks: German*, Dutch, Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Faroese, Icelandic, Flemish, Persian, Swiss-German Studies: English, Belarusian | Message 11 of 22 29 June 2009 at 3:09pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Maritime Guy, since you said you have problems understanding a lot of words still you shouldn't rate yourself as advanced fluent. Advanced fluent should only be used when you can speak (using the correct grammar every time), understand (including all idoms), write, and read just as good as you can in English without a strong accent. I gave a 1 hour long seminar presentation in French and fielded questions afterwards from an academic audience (also in French). But I cannot express myself like I can in German (my native language) and therefore I wouldn't consider myself to be advanced fluent in French at all.
My advice to you is to listen to a German radio show online and see if you can understand all of it, and not just the jist of it. By this I mean you can follow it just like you would follow an English language show. Several years ago when I had only been studying Icelandic and Faroese (languauges close to Danish which I already knew) for a few months I rated myself as advanced fluent but once I tried listening to their radio programs I realized I wasn't. It took me another 6 months as well as long stays in those countries to reach advanced fluency. So I think the first key to stopping frustration with German is to be honest with yourself about your actual language ability. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| William Camden Hexaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6272 days ago 1936 posts - 2333 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Russian, Turkish, French | Message 12 of 22 29 June 2009 at 3:37pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I was on holiday in rural Austria (east of Salzburg - beautiful place) last summer and, even though tourists often come to that area, knowledge of English seemed to be quite patchy and I encountered one or two interesting and largely incomprehensible German dialects.
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| Bao Diglot Senior Member Germany tinyurl.com/pe4kqe5 Joined 5766 days ago 2256 posts - 4046 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin | Message 13 of 22 29 June 2009 at 4:04pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Jajaja, Sprachgenie, I should probably rate my English down one level then.
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| Drabant Diglot Newbie Sweden Joined 5634 days ago 5 posts - 5 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: Japanese Studies: Latin | Message 14 of 22 29 June 2009 at 4:05pm | IP Logged | |||||
I think that map is based on how many people study German in school, at least with regards for Sweden. Most of those people would only be able to do really simple stuff like asking for simple directions and order food, if they haven't forgotten it completely. I doubt German would be very useful unless your level was so high that you could identify likely mistakes.
The instructions when adding languages on this site says: "Advanced Fluency means that you can read a popular novel and not miss more than 2 words per page on average, and hold advanced conversations with minimal mistakes." Which is far, far from knowing all idioms. Who knows all idioms even in their native language? Though I think that someone who is fluent should be able to use idioms without identifying them as such. But I would perhaps agree that the definition for advanced fluency used here is a bit too lax. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Sprachgenie Decaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 5709 days ago 128 posts - 165 votes Speaks: German*, Dutch, Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Faroese, Icelandic, Flemish, Persian, Swiss-German Studies: English, Belarusian | Message 15 of 22 29 June 2009 at 4:26pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Given that, I might consider changing some of my language ratings (especially English, Danish, and Faroese) to Native even though I did not grow up with them. I speak these languages error-free and can express myself just as well as I can in German. The only thing that was holding me back is a very slight accent.
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| Lindsay19 Diglot Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5821 days ago 183 posts - 214 votes Speaks: English*, GermanC1 Studies: Swedish, Faroese, Icelandic | Message 16 of 22 29 June 2009 at 6:05pm | IP Logged | |||||
Of course not! I don't base my language learning on what's found to be "useful" here in the United States like Spanish, but on what I myself have fallen in love with, and that is German. I personally can't stand the sound of Spanish and could never learn it because of that. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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