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The German language is crucial for doing business in Europe. About 95 million speak the language as a native tongue. When Germany played in the 2016 European Football championship, McDonalds advertised with 'Ich liebe es' instead of I'm loving it. So why not give it a try and do my new, free online course?
The German language is very close to the English language, so it's relatively easy for English speakers to learn it. Mann means man. Haus means house. Kommen means to come. The general structure of the sentences is also very similar to English.
However, the German grammar can be very challenging sometimes. English doesn't have cases, its verbs have only two conjugations for its pronouns, and the genders are not as important as in German.
That is why it is important to practice while learning. If you're in Germany, it's easy. There's German all around. If not, look on Facebook if there's a German expat community around your town. Connect to the German embassy, or the Austrian one. See if they have any events or know any organisations or teachers.
Practice can't be overestimated. Speaking, and writing, are essential to learn German. It takes the learners outside of the study books, ridden with rules. If one focuses too much on the rules, one will fear to make mistakes while speaking. So speak!
Set in the first World War, a few prisoners of war try to escape from the German prison. The use of three languages (German, French and English) make the movie 'la Grande Illusion' (the big illusion) already interesting to watch. Including many language subtleties, a great sense of humor and sometimes interesting questions popping up, like the cow that doesn't care whether she's fed by a French or a German person.
Some other interesting details: one of the detainees is a jew, another one belongs to French aristocracy and discusses what aristocracy is going to become after the war with a German aristocrat. This somewhat predicts the end of the rule by unelected leaders in Europe after the first World War. Interestingly, there's not many prison escape movies from Germans escaping - unfortunately, since they went to war for more or less the same reasons, at least in the first World War.
The movie received a high rating on IMDb, the Internet's biggest movie database. There are some parts of the whole movie on YouTube, so make sure to check them out.
Movies: good to learn a new language?
Is watching movies a good way to learn a language? Sometimes yes, sometimes no. If a movie is on with subtitles and we're not at all listening to what the persons are saying, the value is about zero. However, if we're watching a movie in a different language with subtitles in the different language, that's great, because it improves our vocabulary, our listening skills and our reading skills at the same time.
For beginners, it might not be a good idea: people speak too fast, there's no way of following the movie, so it becomes an embarrassment. For more advanced students, it's great. Especially with series, so we can adapt our ears to the characters' voices.
A great discussion topic in multilingual environments: untranslatable words. If you're feeling a bit uncomfortable, it's a great icebreaker, especially if there's lots of people around from all over the world.
My favourite: Fingerspitzengefühl. That's in German, and it means literally: the great feeling in the finger. But the actual meaning is that general feeling that you know something is wrong, or something should be done. It's like intuition, but somehow different.
