
Why we should learn German - kawera
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2017/jul/02/why-we-should-learn-german-john-le-carre
======
geff82
Thanks for sharing the article. German is my mother language - and I came to
appreciate it as a beautiful language. It has not the natural beauty of
Italian, it is more how you can go from sounding harsh to sounding soft, where
you not only change your voice but also the kind words you say. You can make
it sound and feel like the worst of all Nazi movies or as romantic as a
Beethoven piano serenade.

By the way, I think it is a language for men. Women have a tendency to sound
too harsh with it. In contrast, egyptian/syrian Arabic or Farsi tend to let
you fall in love with the women who speak it, yet men speak it to harsh
(Arabic) or often strangely funny sounding (Farsi). Few languages are nice to
hear whichever gender it speaks (French comes to my mind, of course its all a
personal taste).

~~~
wingerlang
Could you give an example of soft-speaking romantic german language? Like a
video or something.

~~~
omer_balyali
Ave Maria by Schubert (Barbara Bonney)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CM0W98t9KSU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CM0W98t9KSU)

~~~
wingerlang
Sorry, but any normal speaking? Opera like this sounds exactly the same to me
regardless of language so it is harder to compare.

~~~
superplussed
I'm an American that has lived in Berlin for over 3 years now, so I'm very
used to the language (if not exactly fluent). And one of the early surprises
for me was how soft and beautiful it can sound when spoken by a woman.

An example:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEJDJnnfRc8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEJDJnnfRc8)

And this is more of a joke video, but it shows how most of the reputation of
German being harsh comes more from its typical usage in movies than anything
fundamentally harsh about the language:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLvL7a8Y0pI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLvL7a8Y0pI)

------
captainmuon
I really like German for its expressivity. I would not say it is more
expressive than English, but differently. There are many things that are easy
to say in German but very hard in other languages, and vice versa.

"Schadenfreude" is well-known, but one word I wanted to use often in recent
times is "Missgunst" or "missgönnen": When you don't want somebody to have
something. It's not jealousy, it is resenting somebody for their fortune.
Google translate offers "resentment", but it doesn't fit perfectly, as that
can also mean you just hold a grudge towards somebody. "Missgönnen" is the
opposite of "gönnen", which means to be generous, to grant something, to be
happy for somebody's fortune.

~~~
cel1ne
You can say things like

    
    
      Eifersucht ist Leidenschaft, die mit 
      Eifer sucht was Leiden schafft.
    

Meaning:

    
    
      Jealousy is a passion, that 
      zealously searches what brings suffering.
    
    

By the way, if you enjoy german you should try learning czech, it's similarly
lyrical.

~~~
_nalply
A Czech told me that Czech is possibly the most complicated language of the
world. Not really difficult but you have to learn hundreds of different forms.

~~~
cel1ne
Czech is complex, but there are way less exceptions compared to german.
Pronunciation is literal, if you know how a word is spelled you know how to
pronounce it.

~~~
gr__or
Then it has high phonemic orthography
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonemic_orthography](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonemic_orthography)).

------
tluyben2
I am Dutch, we seem to have some feeling for languages (small country and when
I was young, the television would have BBC (English), ZDF (German), BRT
(Flemmish) some French channels and really bad Dutch tv), I speak 6 languages
including German fluent enough to make jokes and I am trying to learn #7,
Mandarin, which is indeed quite hard when you get older. Of the languages I
interact with, I find Flemmish, German & Mandarin the most pleasant to listen
to. It is always a pleasure when the plane enters CN airspace and the soothing
sounds of that language come up, while, on the other hand, German triggers my
analytical senses. German sentences (especially from writers like Boll)
somehow seem more provocative for the brain than my mother tongue. Flemmish
has that too for me, but it needs to be well written and that is not that
common, still when it is (Lampo for instance), it is a feast.

------
mohene1
There is a deep fallacy in his argument. The academic learning of a language
teaches almost nothing. The true challenge is not foreign vocabulary it is the
reluctance to engage another culture, which is the prerequisite to learning
any language. The author does not make this distinction possibly because he
was stationed in a German-speaking country and assumes each language learner
can mimic his learning process without his experience.

Often, one won't even attempt to learn a language unless you appreciate - or
at least think you appreciate - the culture.

~~~
tnzn
I learned English playing MMORPGs. I didn't give a damn about the culture, I
just wanted to communicate with people. This means I do not understand some
pop culture references, but I can speak quite fluently without having cared
about English speaking countries' culture.

~~~
awkwarddaturtle
> I learned English playing MMORPGs. I didn't give a damn about the culture

MMORPGs were created by americans and is part of american culture...

> This means I do not understand some pop culture references

Culture isn't just pop culture.

> but I can speak quite fluently without having cared about English speaking
> countries' culture.

That's fine. But I find it highly unlikely. Especially considering "anglo" (
particularly american ) culture is so world dominant.

------
Eric_WVGG
“I speak Spanish to God, Italian to women, French to men, and German to my
horse.” — Charles V

~~~
kgarten
Just wondering what you want to express with that. Do you also equate Germans
with animals or why did you share the quote? (quality discussions at HN again)

Edit: also the quote is not verified ... Seems like Charles V never said it :P

~~~
smalley
I believe the implication was most likely that German happens to sound very
stern and commanding to many english speakers. Presumably the speaker would
want to be speaking German because they believe it would intimidate the horse
into performing very efficiently.

~~~
tomjakubowski
I would be surprised to learn that Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, was an
English speaker.

~~~
petecox
It's possible he learned a few words, given that the act of Henry the Eighth
divorcing his aunt (Catherine of Aragón) sent shock-waves through Europe.

~~~
gns24
French was the Lingua franca of the time and probably the principal language
of Henry the Eight's court, so quite possibly not.

------
diminish
>> J.Le Carre: "And I discovered that the language fitted me. It fitted my
tongue. It pleased my Nordic ear."

After learning several european languages, I once went to Romania, and enjoyed
how nice romanian sounds. I was always thinking why we perceive some languages
sound nice and some others not. How languages are perceived depend on the
backgrounds of speaker and listener, on the context we're in, on which part of
the mouth they are spoken and on the pitch level etc. So a good test is to see
the languages spoken by a beautiful seductive person, during dispute, during
business negotiation, in pop culture, during manly talks full of testosterone,
in the mouths of immigrants and lower classes.While I worked in Germany, a
test I was making was to ask someone from a non-neighbor, remote country like
Cambodia how German/French or Spanish sounds. At the end all languages sound
nice in some context.

~~~
bryanrasmussen
A corollary is what accents sound nice is different languages. I have been
told that American accents sound awful in Danish, and French accents sounds
nice.

I think Spanish, Italian, Portuguese sound nice in English, even when the
accents are quite thick. French can sometimes be variant, a really thick
French sounds worse than thick Italian I believe. German accents do not sound
that nice. A really good Danish accent often tends to sound nice, whereas the
thicker ones are just awful, dull and plodding. These are of course my own
perceptions but I wonder if there are any studies of accent preferences across
cultures.

------
jondubois
Interesting how some people find the sound of German natural. I find German
sounds extremely difficult to pronounce with all these consonants next to each
other.

English is not the easiest to pronounce either but it seems easier than
German. Dutch sounds like a clearer version of German but with a funny 'g'
sound.

Italian is so clean and simple, even if you don't speak it, you can probably
tell each word apart.

French is pretty clear and easy to pronounce, I rarely ever ask people to
repeat themselves in French. It uses a broad sound spectrum with lots of open-
mouth sounds (lots of vowels and vowel combinations which produce new sounds).

It's very easy to start muttering in English because you barely need to open
your mouth to speak it.

~~~
dmichulke
> French is pretty clear and easy to pronounce,

After half an hour of French, I often have difficulties pronouncing properly
the difference between en, on, un and in(-ternet).

> I rarely ever ask people to repeat themselves in French

Among the two other non-native langauges (EN, PT), it has been the hardest to
understand for me because it's hard to map sounds back to writing.

~~~
btschaegg
> After half an hour of French, I often have difficulties pronouncing properly
> the difference between en, on, un and in(-ternet).

I find this very interesting, mainly because I see similar effects when I'm
using a foreign language :)

For a long time, I felt that speaking in a certain language forces me to
"shift" my language brain to a degree. German is my mother tongue, but I have
trouble pronouncing e.g. German names correctly within an English sentence.
The opposite - English words in German context - isn't really a problem,
although that might be the product of modern German adopting more and more
English words into the common vocabulary.

I also recall having trouble with the German-style "R" in a french context.

As a side note, I do hope they won't butcher all those English words in the
future like they did the French ones :-/

------
pampa
"Rather than join the chorus of anti-German propaganda, he preferred,
doggedly, to inspire his little class with the beauty of the language, and of
its literature and culture."

That was in 1940. In 2017 those languages would be farsi, russian and chinese
i guess?

~~~
microcolonel
I haven't seen any contemporary anti-Iran/Afghanistan, anti-Russian, or anti-
Chinese propaganda use the language or culture against them... except perhaps
the mass-media "comedy" industry making offensive Russian accents while
insinuating things. I doubt most people could identify Farsi readily enough to
understand the propaganda. I don't think all that many people could tell you
if they're looking at Chinese, Japanese, or Korean text; Two of these
languages' countries are basically universally beloved in the U.S, so it'd be
hard to make visual (or even audible) propaganda out of it. I guess Russian
might be the easiest of the three to use in propaganda. :- P

~~~
awkwarddaturtle
> except perhaps the mass-media "comedy" industry making offensive Russian
> accents while insinuating things.

Really? You haven't seen any offensive chinese/asian "accents"?

> I doubt most people could identify Farsi readily enough to understand the
> propaganda

We generally mock them as sounding arabic with harsh guttural sounds. The
exaggerated "phlegm" in the throat sounds.

> I don't think all that many people could tell you if they're looking at
> Chinese, Japanese, or Korean text;

Does it matter?

> Two of these languages' countries are basically universally beloved in the
> U.S

Which two are universally beloved in the US? Certainly not japan and korea...

> so it'd be hard to make visual (or even audible) propaganda out of it.

You can... But we just assign the propaganda towards "north korea" because we
want to sell movies in china/japan/korea.

[http://articles.latimes.com/2011/mar/16/entertainment/la-
et-...](http://articles.latimes.com/2011/mar/16/entertainment/la-et-china-red-
dawn-20110316)

There most definitely is an anti-russian, anti-china/asia, anti-iran/middle
east/muslim, etc "sentiment" in the US. Just because you know a few cosplay
fanatics doesn't mean the US "loves" these asian countries. The truth of the
matter is that we view them as competitors at best and enemies at worst.

~~~
microcolonel
> _The truth of the matter is that we view them as competitors at best and
> enemies at worst._

What's wrong with being competitors? Japan gained the most public respect in
the U.S. when it looked like they were kicking America's ass in manufacturing
and high technology.

> _There most definitely is an anti-russian, anti-china /asia, anti-
> iran/middle east/muslim, etc "sentiment" in the US._

I was mainly saying that you don't tend to see the language used as a tool for
propaganda. I'm not saying that some people don't feel animosity toward china,
north Korea, Iran (I actually don't see anyone complaining about Afghanistan
these days), and Russia; I'm just saying that their languages aren't being
used in propaganda like German was used in anti-Nazi propaganda.

> _Which two are universally beloved in the US? Certainly not japan and
> korea..._

The only people I hear complain about (South) Korea are Japanese people, and
the only people I hear complain about the Japanese are Chinese and Korean
people. Maybe I live in a bubble, but I would think I'd run into somebody with
one of these prejudices over the years, if it were a big thing.

~~~
awkwarddaturtle
> What's wrong with being competitors?

Nothing. My point is that they are competitors AT BEST. Unlike say our fellow
anglo nations like canada/britain/new zealand/etc who are our "family/friends"
at best.

My point is that china will never be our "friend/family".

> Japan gained the most public respect in the U.S. when it looked like they
> were kicking America's ass in manufacturing and high technology.

They did? Asians were mistaken for being japanese and killed. Doesn't seem
like "respect". I know plenty of people who still hate the japanese to this
day and blamed them for the decline of american industry.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Vincent_Chin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Vincent_Chin)

Sure, the chinese have overtaken the japanese now, but the "respect" is highly
superficial.

> I was mainly saying that you don't tend to see the language used as a tool
> for propaganda.

Really? You don't see people mocking chinese for sounding "silly"?

> I'm just saying that their languages aren't being used in propaganda like
> German was used in anti-Nazi propaganda.

That's because there are other differences to attack the chinese. Germans are
fellow white northerner europeans. We can't attack them for being "white like
us". We have to find something different about them to attack. With the
chinese, there are plenty of differences to attack.

> The only people I hear complain about (South) Korea are Japanese people

Really? I know military personnel stationed in south korea. I have friends who
visited south korea on business. Many of them had bad things to say about
them.

> Maybe I live in a bubble, but I would think I'd run into somebody with one
> of these prejudices over the years, if it were a big thing.

Maybe you do. I'm from NYC. Where did you grow up? I'm not saying EVERYONE
hates them. I'm saying there are plenty of anti-chinese, anti-japanese and
anti-korean sentiment in the US ( including highly liberal areas like NY metro
).

Why do you think Trump got elected bashing china, japan and korea?

------
colechristensen
I came for the linguistics and left disappointed for the end devoted to
politics. There's a point to it, I suppose.

~~~
gaius
Well, it's the Graun, of course it's political

 _Every time I hear a British politician utter the fatal words, “Let me be
very clear”, these days I reach for my revolver._

That's an... unexpected reference!

------
wink
It's probably very presumptuous to compare myself to the writer, but for me
it's kind of the other way round.

My native tongue is German (but I grew up speaking Bavarian first, which is
clearly German but not just pronounced differently, there are also some
grammatical peculiarities...) but I started to learn English pretty early -
and all things considered I much more prefer English to German. I've never
lived abroad and spoken it daily for more than 3 weeks (unless you count the
internet) - but going into programming it's the lingua franca, I don't think
I've read even 10 German books about programming or computer science. Still,
if I'm not talking daily (like with coworkers who don't speak German) my use
gets rusty and faltering and so I wouldn't call myself absolutely fluent when
being honest and not just padding a resume :P

Still, I prefer the sound of English, I like many more English dialects than
German ones, and even puns are easier to craft ;)

But overall I wouldn't advise anyone to not learn German, at least if you like
hard work, pain and humiliation.

~~~
MattLeBlanc001
I'm fluent in German, French and English. None of them is my native language,
but I prefer German when watching action/war movies. And French/English for
comedy/drama.

I think German has that "power" in it that you wouldn't find in other
languages. I also like German poetry.

German is a beautiful language with a lot to offer (poetry, books or even
movies).

------
partycoder
I think to some extent linguistic relativity might be a thing. Linguistic
relativity is the idea that language affects your world perspective.

Some languages such as Spanish and French encode a lot of irrelevant
information compared to English. e.g: objects like chairs and computers have a
gender, words tend to be longer, verb conjugation is more complex... and that
eventually translates into more cognitive load.

~~~
3131s
All of those features can lessen ambiguity in other ways though, so that's
probably the trade-off at work.

Weak linguistic relativity is pretty well attested. I've seen people
misattribute or assume qualities about unrelated entities that share a name,
e.g. assuming that something true of "milk" is also true of "soy milk". That
example is similar to the idea of overextending a metaphor, and since every
language has its own particular metaphors, that's likely among the most common
ways that a linguistic feature impacts our worldview. Whether or not there are
syntactic features that do the same is more debatable, but it's plausible that
adjective ordering, pronoun systems, etc. might have an effect.

------
rullelito
I really wish I had the patience to read this, but the title is just too damn
boring and I see no all-inclusive reason to learn German outside of a German
speaking country.

If anyone could TLDR, I would appreciate, but at the same time you shouldn't
encourage my sloth.

------
elcapitan
As a side note, as a German I could not help but chuckle about John le Carré
smuggling this into the essay:

    
    
        Every time I hear a British politician utter the fatal words, “Let me be very clear”, these days I reach for my revolver.
    

which is a reference to a (most likely misattributed) quote by Hermann Göring,
"When I hear the word culture, I reach for my revolver" (or ".. my Browning").

------
microcolonel
> To help make the European debate decent and civilised, it is now more
> important than ever to value the skills of the linguist

Personally I think the German establishment is just trying to conquer Europe
again, as much respect as I have für die Deutschen und ihre Sprache. Today,
Britain needs no additional sympathy for Germany, they need sympathy for
themselves, a will to live. The EU is unrepresentative, unproductive, and
unaccountable. Nobody needs any more reverence for it. The EU is the worst
French idea the Germans ever took to.

Germany is today a country where foreign journalists are chased through the
street by communist activists, and where you need a license to post a video on
YouTube. If your teacher's beloved Germany ever returned, it is surely leaving
yet again. I talk to Germans who are fleeing to Austria, because they feel
something wicked coming, and I don't blame them.

Britons could stand to learn from Germany's mistakes and be more honest with
themselves before it's too late for anyone to be honest with anyone.

~~~
nunobrito
Germans also flee to Switzerland, Spain, Portugal, UK, US and just about any
other interesting country. I live here in Germany and last year was living in
London for a year so I've seen these arguments before.

Please allow me to say that this isn't a perfect land and that "hate speech"
is indeed abused to silence the masses (especially regarding fake refugees).
However can guarantee you that it is no police state, especially when compared
to the UK where everything is controlled and monitored heavily (nanny state).

As for conquering Europe, in the end its all about business. You're blaming
other countries when they understand the game and score well on it.

~~~
microcolonel
> Please allow me to say that this isn't a perfect land and that "hate speech"
> is indeed abused to silence the masses (especially regarding fake refugees).
> However can guarantee you that it is no police state, especially when
> compared to the UK where everything is controlled and monitored heavily
> (nanny state).

Also agree with this, they really need to get back the better parts of their
tradition. They had _Mill_ , and now they hardly go a year without somebody
suggesting universal key escrow or something worse. That said, becoming more
continental is not going to help with their nanny state problem.

It's lovely that Germany is not a police state yet.

> As for conquering Europe, in the end its all about business. You're blaming
> other countries when they understand the game and score well on it.

I agree, which is why I don't think it's in Britons' best interest to give the
German establishment what they want.

I wouldn't live in the UK for exactly the reasons you describe, I just don't
think more continentalism is going to help alleviate the problems they do
have.

~~~
nunobrito
Really sad for the UK direction. Had many friends talking proudly of their
goal for a completely isolated/fortified main island.

I was living in London exactly when Brexit happened, so I understand the
reasons and respect them. You're right, an exit might be the best for
preserving independence and (hopefully) bring economical growth.

Its just that I was born under the EU and grew up with a positive image of
what is being built, later growing up and seeing in more detail the good or
bad things.

My own country (Portugal) has been affected heavily by Germany and France.
However, a thing that I've learned while living in Germany is that their
internal politics are even MORE aggressive. Incompetence and failure are fatal
in anyones' career around here, so the government officials rising to top
don't play around. If one even tries to be corrupt, that person won't last as
there exists little complacency. In overall this makes their machine very
efficient. Just compare to the UK and the endless NHS discussions.

When Germans seat at a negotiation table, they crush our own politicians from
Portugal, making them look like amateurs. I don't fault Germany for having
success with EU, I look at our own people so that we can learn and match this
game.

------
becga
DAS BOOT!! I remember talking to a colleague about this movie at a former job,
and a woman near me piped: "Who would want to watch a movie about a Boot?!" We
were speechless and she was totally serious.

------
felixschl
The "real" Germany is back? The author must not have been there in a while.

------
jalayir
Mr. King sounds like inspiration for some part of George Smiley's character.

------
awkwarddaturtle
It's disturbing how many guardian articles we seem to be getting lately here.
I left reddit to escape these types of articles.

Also, it's pointless to learn german - especially if you know english as
english is already a germanic language.

What we ( I'm referring to americans ) should learn is LATIN and ANCIENT GREEK
as they are truly "foreign" languages that had such a strong influence on
english and western civilization.

I studied Latin and Greek independently AFTER I graduated college and it's
shocking to me how useful it would have been during my academic career. Not
only would it help you understand the english language better, it helps with
the understanding of western civilization and of course expands your
vocabulary immensely since so many of english words ( especially
technical/scientific ) is derived from these two "dead" languages.

