Well at first I wondered if there was some sarcasm or irony in that statement, but it looks to me as though you actually meant that as it was said! What an absolutely outrageous thing to suggest, I'm really surprised nobody else noticed that statement.
Anyway, this topic seems to have degenerated into one of the many High German vs Swiss German discussions. So Litespeed - go for it if you have the motivation. You'll probably find that when you go for your third language somethings come easier and something things are harder. For example you've now got a basic idea about how grammar works in English and German so you won't have to go through all that head scratching that most people go through trying to figure out accusative and nominative. And you've already been introduced to the insane concept of nouns with gender - but now you only have two to deal with.
One disadvantage with starting your third language is that you may find that first it isn't the English words that spring to mind when speaking - it will be the German words! It's as if you brain is saying "I'm speaking a foreign language now" so you'll find yourself thinking in German when you should be doing French and wondering why it's not English that is coming to mind.
Good luck.
That happened to me quite a lot when I moved from Neuchatel to Zurich; especially when I started to understand some questions in German. Someone would ask me something in German and I would say a perfect reply in French and then wonder why they were giving me such a quizzical look .
Yes Mark I do agree - and I missed it too not reading all threads... While I understand the sentiment of the writer, it is showing ignorance of linguistics as there are no languages that I am aware of that are "naturally" spoken by all - they all have variances called dialects - Swiss German included. Hence by implication you could argue that there are no true spoken languages and that the skill of linguistics is the ability to interpret and understand the meaning of the spoken word. A language in its purest form only exists in the written form...
I'm sort of forced to agree with lala based on my experience. Most people I know speak dialect at home (and even in the office...), so kids learn that first (i.e. "naturally"). For some reason (I had this discussion with someone yesterday strangely enough) dialects are much stronger and more prevalent here than in the UK, for example, where there tend to be maybe a few alternative words and a distinctive accent, but little in the way of different grammar.
I think there may be only two or three surviving English dialects in England, but I may be mistaken - I can think of only Northern, with many things taken from Norse, Midlands, whose most obvious difference is probably how the second person plural "you are" becomes the second person singular "you am" ("yow am", or "yam", hence "yam yams"), and "Southern English". Anyway, what I wanted to say is that I think English speakers tend to underestimate the prevalence of dialects.
I can relate to that 100%
I find German is easier to learn than French - mostly because of the pronunciation!
In German one speaks as one writes - whereas in French - one writes one thing which sounds nothing like the written stuff!
On the other hand - if one learns one foreign language - the next one is much easier and it doesn't take as long especially if one has the opportunity to practice it.
I would say French is easiest... for me anyway. I started learning German 10 years ago when i met my husband, then we lived in Paris for 7 years before coming here. I find that French is much similar to English than German in the way that it's structured. Besides French is far sexier
Yes, I took offence to the fact that such a comment, coming from a Swiss person, seemed to be indicative to me of the wide-spread prejudice and resentment shown towards Germans by the Swiss, as well as possibly a linguistic inferiority-complex when it comes to High-German (since most Swiss aren't particularly good at it they tend to dislike it and feel embarrassed speaking it, especially in front of Germans). I thought comments such as those would be considered offensive by my German friends who do seem to speak High German without any problems whatsoever.
There are many people in the UK and elsewhere who speak English without an accent, I would never venture to suggest that such a thing is not natural, or that they were just trying to appear educated. Unless I had some sort of axe to grind for another reason that is...
Now that the underlying message is discovered, I feel really embarrassed for all the German I've spoken so far...
In case: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standarddeutsch
I'll take your word for it. I tend to avoid The Norf
Mark: Standardgerman ist not natural language (emerged in a natural way), at least not in Switzerland, and as far as I know not in Germany, thus, it is not naturally spoken in the actual sense.
Richard: The point is that Standardgerman ist NOT a dialect that emerged in a normal way, it is a construct, a standardisation of the various german dialects.
Standard German is standardised German, which consits indeed of natural dialects. However, many Germans of the more educated class adopt High German instead of their "homebased" dialect to bring up their children. So High German is used in Germany despite it is not always the user's first mother tongue (which will of course change more and more, since more people got it presented as their first mother tongue).
(Standard German and High German are used as synonyms, despite the fact that High German can also mean something else, but that has nothing to do with this topic)
Mark: I haven't come accross any German man or woman (and I maintain a lot of relationships to people from germany, dialect speakers and non-dialect-speakers) who is likely to take offense in such statements, everybody I know consider it as a fact. there is no valuation in it.
In Switzerland dialects are primarly used by all social classes, Standard or High German is exceptionally used (on that account the "swiss inferiority complex" when it comes to speak high german, as you call it). In Germany however people that are less educated tend to speak local dialects while educated people mostly speak the High German.
Anybody that wants to learn german should start with Standard German, any other thing would be too complicated, there is a reason why it was standardised. If you live in the german speaking part of Switzerland everybody will understand standard german, so if you speak that and if you are at the same time able so understand a little swiss german (since some swiss do not speak standard german very well) you are well off.
by the way, there is a discission in switzerland going on itself: Experts consider it as a bad trend that teachers and students in the school more and more drift away from the Standard German which would be the official language during the lessons. But even teachers do not stick to that rule anymore. They are often being advised to re-strenghten the position of standard german, since it is essential for the children to learn it properly (Standard German is afterall the ground for written skills).
german vs. french:
altough German and English are closer related and French and English, French seems easier to learn, as mentionend the grammar is structured more easier, German (and also English) seems to consist only of exceptions.
My husband who is among others english speaking has picked up french so fast, he never learned french systematically as he learned german, but till now he is more comfortable with french than in german (has lived five years in the german speaking part and had lived four years in the french speaking part before)
Learning French was easier for me in Switzerland because the Swiss Romands speak very slowly compared to the "French of the Interior" and write more or less the same words as they speak. Learning "German" on the other hand is a complicated matter here.... German High German, Swiss Written German, Swiss dialect etc. I wonder why my contacts in Gemany always laugh when I speak my Swiss version of their language ??
Would like to take up the challenge of Italian... the language of music, hospitable people, smart-looking men, beautiful women, Berlusconi...... yeah!
i learned german before moving to bern. I wouldn't say that I didn't encounter any difficulties. But let's put it this way, every document that you will receive and would write is going to be in german and not in swiss-german. so i think that shouldn't discourage you from learning german before coming to switzerland. Then to learn swiss-german you could learn it along the way.
Trust me, you will always find that the swiss are willing to switch to high german. At least that is my personal experience.
Interesting that,
spoke to a women yesterday and she started off talking swiss German; 2 minutes of me staring at her blankly and then I apologised and said I only spoke hoch deutsche. She switched to "proper" German and we chatted for a bit, when I told her I was English she immediately looked relieved and asked if we could speak English because she found it easier.
I was staggered.
English easier for a Swiss person to speak than German!!!!
I find that this is normal. All of my Swiss friends tell me that they much prefer speaking English to High German, the say they find it easier.
Strange that french is leading the poll considering English is a germanic language. Old english is in fact just another word for anglish, coming from the anglo saxons who settled england. I wonder if most of you realise you speak a german language. Of course i understand the structure is very different, but it seems much easier to pick than french to me.
hi all,
i'm sorry to bother some with my question. i would appreciate ur thoughts on the following:
i'm a native portuguese speaker, fluent in english (have studied, worked, and lived in the US for quite some time). i'm debating what language to tackle next and as you might have guessed, the battle is between French and German.
I like the sound of French but love German writers. I think that German will be more useful in science, particularly neuroscience and psychology circles, so I'm leaning towards it.
My major concern with German is that I believe I will struggle tremendously with pronunciation. And, if I can't speak the language, there is no point for me to learn it. French, on the other hand, comes easy for me to fake it (though I could be sounding quite ridiculous).
Given I am naive to both languages, I wonder if some of my fears are myths. After reading the thread, I get that people have mixed feelings about which one to learn. However, I want to know if the rules for pronunciation in German are easy to learn and whether my fear of speaking it could be overcome?
oh, an important aspect of all this is that i plan on learning much of it on my own.
ur input is much appreciated.
I think I agree with this. I have studied French and Spanish and can get by. I speak Swedish and English (native) and German is much harder for me to start with. I can read a bit and many words are familiar, but the grammar is nearly incomprehensible. I really need to take some courses...
fduvall