[vram22]

>It is possible to learn German but it requires huge effort and dedication and not many people are capable of that.

Interesting. Wondering whether your native language is English. While mine is not, I'm pretty fluent in it. Why I am saying this, is because I've been learning German slowly for a few months now via the Duolingo app on mobile, and I did not find it (so far, anyway) to be very difficult. And that - not finding it difficult - surprised me a bit, because I had heard from friends in high school that they though German, for instance, was harder to learn than French (anecdote only, not data). I thought about the possible reasons for this (my not finding it too hard), and came up with one: since I know English, and German and English have some words and historical and cultural background in common, I could make educated guesses in many cases about the meanings of German words, before learning what they meant (because they were similar to English words meaning the same thing), and also in some other cases, after learning what the words meant, I could, with hindsight, relate them to English words meaning the same thing, just spelled a bit differently. This trick does not work for all words, of course, but does for enough of them, that it eases my learning. Also, I've developed a memory trick to associate new German words with known English words. It's not really anything new, just a form of association of the new word with a memorable (to me) English word or phrase, using what I think is called the memory palace method or something like that (I need to look up if that is the right one I mean).

[wolfgke]

> And that - not finding it difficult - surprised me a bit, because I had heard from friends in high school that they though German, for instance, was harder to learn than French (anecdote only, not data).

In my opinion (native German speaker) German is at the beginning harder than French for English native speakers. After you got to some level both languages are about equally hard.

For the reason: To become fluent in German you have to know inside out how to conjugate a verb (there are some ugly verbs and tenses) and declinate a noun/adjective (in all three grammatical genders, singular and plural) in all tenses/cases, which is really ugly at the beginning for people who aren't used to it. The best way to learn this is in my opinion brute training until you can do it blindfolded.

The reason why I emphasize this is that you will not be speaking fluently if you have to think for seconds each time what the correct conjugation/declination is for the verb that you want to speak now.

As soon you got over this ugly part (which, because it is ugly you better should be learning it directly at the beginning, so that you have it in you reflexes), German and French are in my opinion about equally hard.

[vram22]

Thanks for the advice, in general.

>For the reason: To become fluent in German you have to know inside out how to conjugate a verb (there are some ugly verbs and tenses) and declinate a noun/adjective (in all three grammatical genders, singular and plural) in all tenses/cases, which is really ugly at the beginning for people who aren't used to it. The best way to learn this is in my opinion brute training until you can do it blindfolded.

Like learning multiplication tables by repeating them out loud and/or writing them out, multiple (heh) times :)

I guess that makes sense, particularly if there are not very systematic rules that define those things, i.e. you just have to memorize it (and is that what you mean by 'ugly' - that it does not follow logical rules by which one can figure out, say, verb conjugations of verb B after knowing it for verb A?)

E.g. I realized a bit after starting the Duolingo course, that it was not clear (without knowing it already) when to use Der vs. Die vs. Das, and some other things like that; even Sie means both She and They (in different contexts) - at least it was not explained in the app, AFAIK - could be I missed some part of it and need to re-check.

I think I need to now get some proper learning books for it. Duolingo can take you only so far, I guess.

[wolfgke]

> I guess that makes sense, particularly if there are not very systematic rules that define those things

There are systematic rules for this, but you don't want to derive the result each time you want to express something. Compare it to applying a formalized multiplication algorithm each time you want to compute something from your multiplication table (up to 100) vs. memorizing the table. You have to understand the rules (just as you have to understand how multiplication works) for conjugating/declinating, but to apply them in practise you have to rote train them as often as you don't have to think about the rules anymore (because you really don't want hesitate for seconds what the correct, say, declination is).

[vram22]

Thanks again for the elaboration. I'm getting what you say, and that was sort of why I referred to learning multiplication tables by rote, above.

It's pretty late for me, so I will read and reply to your and @lorenzhs's (thanks to you too) comments again tomorrow, if I have anything further to say or ask. Good stuff.

[lorenzhs]

"Sie" has multiple meanings: in addition to the two you mentioned it's also the form of "you" used for strangers/official stuff/... it's usually capitalized in that meaning, and always plural even when talking to only one person. Prepare for lots of confusing moments with the Sie-vs-Du question.

[vram22]

>"Sie" has multiple meanings: in addition to the two you mentioned it's also the form of "you" used for strangers/official stuff/

Ah, thanks. I remember now that a few days ago I subconsciously noticed this - or rather, had a doubt - because I thought I had seen "Sie" used for all the three meanings, but wasn't sure (they did not all occur in the same session of using the app). Thought I had got it wrong between the meanings She/You or She/They. Good to have it cleared up.

[vram22]

Interesting. Hindi has 3 words for "you": tu, tum and aap.

The first is for informal usage with familiar people, such as friends or relatives, the second for more formal usage, such as in business or with people you don't know from before, and the third is the more respectful one, such as for elders or superiors in business or people of official rank, such as a judge, priest, etc.

[wolfgke]

> it's usually capitalized in that meaning

Not only usually capitalized in that meaning, but always.

[lorenzhs]

Not everyone does it, though. I mean technically yes, it's required grammatically, but it's one of those rules that isn't always obeyed. It's a mistake but common enough to be aware of it.

[wolfgke]

In my opinion there is a cultural difference here: While in English, as I see it as a foreigner, if many people spell something wrong, it becomes an accepted spelling, in German if lots of people spell something wrong, it is still considered as wrong. There are even websites for common spelling errors and wrongly used words which you can link to in internet discussions to convince someone that/how their spelling was wrong, such as

> http://www.das-dass.de/

> http://www.dassdas.com/

> http://seit-seid.dassdas.com/

> http://wie-als.dassdas.com/

> http://einzigste.dassdas.com/

> http://standart-standard.dassdas.com/

[vram22]

>The reason why I emphasize this is that you will not be speaking fluently if you have to think for seconds each time what the correct conjugation/declination is for the verb that you want to speak now.

Yes, makes sense.

[dilemma]

Learning is easy if you're interested. Einstein's advice to his daughter was something along the lines that you should pursue your curiosities because that way you can learn anything effortlessly.

For me, learning English was effortless, and Mandarin is no longer difficult as I now have a goal and an interest in learning. On the other hand, I never properly learnt to program though I started with QBasic at the age of ten, because I had no clear goal for it. Likewise with French and Japanese, and German while I lived in Berlin - I never saw myself living in any of the three countries for a long time.

I think Duolingo helps a lot in learning because you don't need to plan out times to sit down with books to study, making it less of a chore and more a natural part of life. Learning in school is really no way to learn. For me its always been books, movies, and the internet.

[SyneRyder]

Duolingo is good, but I'm not sure it's a great measure of understanding the language. I've been teaching myself German over the last 5 years using Duolingo (and LingQ) and I've completed all the German lessons (Level 23) - and while I can read German reasonably well now, I would still struggle to write or speak fluently in German. Thinking of what you want to say quickly is a skill that Duolingo doesn't really teach - but maybe that's where iTalki or LingQ Skype classes come in. [Native English speaker here, for what it's worth.]

[vram22]

>Duolingo is good, but I'm not sure it's a great measure of understanding the language.

On further thought, I agree. When I wrote what I wrote above, it was in the back of my mind, to also add that I don't think the rate of progress that Duolingo shows for me, can be even near correct. E.g. after these few months (which also had gaps of a few days now and then during which I did not use the app), it now tells me I am 14 or 15% fluent in German - which I don't think can be the case at all, even without knowing much about the structure of the language, the number and kinds of grammar rules, tenses, the number of words in the German vocabulary, etc.

(I'm probably much lower, maybe 1 or 2% is my guess, if such a thing can even be measured.)

Also, some of my school friends who said German was hard to learn - for others, were Germans (who also spoke good English), so they likely knew what they were saying.

>and while I can read German reasonably well now, I would still struggle to write or speak fluently in German.

Interesting. Will have to see what my experience is as time goes by.

>Thinking of what you want to say quickly is a skill that Duolingo doesn't really teach

Will check that as time goes by. Maybe immersion is more useful for that skill.

[SyneRyder]

The 15% fluency could be accurate - another way to interpret that number is that you struggle to understand 85% of the language. (Even after completing the German lessons, Duolingo says I'm only 49% fluent.) Duolingo is still great though, because it keeps you practicing every day. I'm amazed at how much more I understand now compared to when I started. It's worth persevering!

[vram22]

> (Even after completing the German lessons, Duolingo says I'm only 49% fluent.)

Interesting. A sort of logarithmic scale maybe.

>Duolingo is still great though, because it keeps you practicing every day.

Agreed.

>I'm amazed at how much more I understand now compared to when I started. It's worth persevering!

Definitely worth. I'm enjoying it. Thanks for the info.