Learning English in Germany

I've recently started tutoring a group of four students through my school's "Schüler helfen Schülern" (Students helping students) tutoring program. The program matches tutors from the upper grad levels with students from the lower grade levels and provides a room for one hour of tutoring a week. The students signed up to be tutored in English. Imagine their surprise after they found out that their tutor is an American exchange student!

At the beginning of the first lesson last week, I asked the students what their goals were for the tutoring session and why they think learning English is useful. The students wanted to get good grades, be able to understand music that they listen to, and thought it would be cool to be able to speak another language. But what one of the students said really made me realize something about learning English in Germany: "I have to either learn English or Turkish to have any chance of getting a job here."

Now, the situation the way I understand it is a little more complicated than that. Of course there are lots of jobs for people who can't speak English. But it seems that the aspect of employabilty that foreign language skills affect the most here is mobility. Without knowledge of English, many Germans have trouble climbing the career ladder. On the other hand, there are lots of small businesses founded by Turkish immigrants, which explains why Turkish would help job chances.

This explains the demanding English classes in German school. In the highest grades at my school, students analyze Shakespeare, Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech, and novels in English. Germans often learn 3rd, 4th, and even 5th languages in school, too. English is portrayed as a requirement for getting a good job here, and other foreign languages along with English help even more.

So, for those of you worried about English fading away as the mother language in America, don't worry. You can always come to Germany and get by speaking only English here.

German is Easy

"German is easy." Definitely a bold statement. I don't think it's true, but there are definitely some elements of the language that make it easy for English learners:

1. Spelling
Spelling in German is straightforward. No student of German has ever had to learn a rule like "i before e except after c and in words that rhyme with..."

2. Pronunciation
I find pronunciation in German much easier than in English. Read a word just like it's written and you'll pronounce it correctly almost all of the time. The main exception to this is found in French words that have been imported into German, like Portemonnaie, a kind of wallet, or Kampagne, a campaign.

3. Vocabulary words
If you can speak English, you already know a bunch of very impressive-sounding German words.

Take any abstract term, scientific term, or political philosophy, spell it just a little bit differently, pronounce it differently, and you've got a German word, and you'll sound highly educated.

the agitation = die Agitation ah-gee-tah-zee-ohn (used mainly in a political sense)

the inflation = die Inflation in-flah-zee-ohn

anti-Americanism = Antiamerikanismus an-tee-ah-mehr-ee-kahn-ihs-moos

4. English is a Germanic language
English is very closely related to German. In addition to the above vocabulary words that have been brought back over to German, there are many similar words that stem from the common ancestor of the two languages. "Tür" and "door" and "Grab" and "grave" are just a couple of examples.

For you polyglots out there, what do you think? What makes German easy for English speakers? What makes German difficult for English speakers?

Stay tuned for the coming post "German is Hard, or "deutsche Sprache, schwere Sprache".