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/lit/ - Literature

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18879511 No.18879511 [Reply] [Original]

I want to learn German so I can read some philosophers in their original language. Anyone here have experience learning a new language do I need to take classes or just use internet? REPLY NOW REPLY NOW!

>> No.18879517

it's hard insofar as it takes a long time but everyone is capable of doing it. be diligent and expect plateaus.

>> No.18879522

>>18879511
Just start, anon. I started again today. Don't give up, you can probably make it in at least 10 years or so.

>> No.18879523

Good Luck Reading philo in german

>> No.18879566

>>18879517
>>18879522
Thanks frens will give it a try.

>>18879523
Same to you if this wasn't sarcastic

>> No.18879624

german grammar is hard man. im german and ive been living here for 20 years now and i still sometimes can't get the hang of it

>> No.18879631

>>18879624
If that makes you feel any better, I don't get my own language either.

>> No.18879873

>>18879511
You're not really going to do it anyways, otherwise you wouldn't be on this board.

>> No.18879936

>>18879624
fuck grammar
I have to google the correct plural form of the words to not look like a complete retard and I'm a native speaker
I'm not talking about german
idk if you guys have the same problem, but anglos live on easy mode

>> No.18880078

>>18879936
whats ur native lang anon

>> No.18880127

You’re speaking English so it really will not be that difficult. Put in time and effort everyday and you’ll be able to have conversations within a year.

>> No.18880141

>>18879511
You can use Duolingo not on your phone but the desktop version. I heard that the desktop is different from the mobile version. The desktop for learning Grammer and mobile for flashcards.

>> No.18880186

>>18879511
if you lack motivation and discipline, sign up for a class where you have to perform well in order to pass.
If you had motivation and self-discipline as well as the drive to learn it, you wouldn't have made this thread.

>> No.18880219

I'm working my way through German for Reading and these cases are a motherfucker. Although I don't really know anything about English grammar either, and I'm wondering if I shouldn't get one of those 'English Grammar for Students of X' books as well. Might help, or maybe not.

>> No.18880249

>>18880219
Honestly I read German just fine and I have "loose"/"good enough" memory of case endings. When in doubt look it up.

Used to agonize over that shit but 95% of the time context+syntax is enough. I don't want to tell you to be lazy but that's my experience. I advise getting into reading shit you actually care about and simply building your vocabulary as your priority.

I found Sandberg tedious but it does build some decent foundational vocabulary. I did it to the best of my ability, didn't sweat minor mistakes, then went and read a lot of German that I actually enjoyed. Then I came back and did another tear through Sandberg to fill gaps and refresh my knowledge of especially difficult or quirky things about German.

>> No.18880767

>>18880141
>>18879511
don't use duolingo, it's far too slow and won't really help you with reading. once you've got the basics of the language down, start reading books in german, working your way up from easier to harder. assuming your're learning to read, that is

>> No.18880888

>>18879511
harder than spanish, easier than french

>> No.18880954

>>18880078
you dumb fuck he said he's native.

>> No.18880986

german is very hard. I studied diligently for 2 years before life got in the way. I could read A1/A2 texts pretty easily, but B1 I had to use a lot of help.

Grammar is difficult, but it starts to make sense and I personally found I began to really like it. It always make me think of how ambiguous english is as a result of having lost it's cases and other grammatical functions.

There is a phrase I've heard in England - "Believe you me" and it makes no sense in English. In German it would be "Glauben Sie mir", which makes perfect sense.

>> No.18881164

>>18879936
Smoothbrain

>> No.18881177

>>18879511
Honestly, Dutch is a more simple version to German. So if German is too hard to learn at first, I would suggest learning Dutch and then switching to German once you get the hang of it.

>> No.18881222

>>18881177
Is there any Dutch literature worth learning a language for? Only one I know of is Erasmus, and I don't believe he wrote in the vernacular.

>> No.18881395

>>18880888
Great digits but wild take. French is easy as fuck for a native English speaker - found Spanish much harder

>> No.18881470

>>18880986
Why doesn't it make sense? It's the same phrase. English still allows for "unusual" syntax like that, it's just rarer. That doesn't mean it's grammatically invalid or exceptional. It's like saying "trouble me not." It's obviously more colloquial to say do not trouble me, but grammatically perfectly acceptable to say. Here's Carlyle in perfectly acceptable English:
>Vain is protesting, entreaty on bare knees: the House of Saint-Lazarus has that in it which comes not out by protesting. Behold, how, from every window, it vomits: mere torrents of furniture, of bellowing and hurlyburly.
>Night unexampled in the Clermontais; shortest of the year; remarkablest of the century.
Poetry obviously still retains non-colloquial prose the most. Learning to read Shakespeare is less about archaic vocabulary and more about learning to read English grammar like you read German or Latin grammar, the way it and most other languages can be written by competent writers.
>Be not fond,
>To think that Caesar bears such rebel blood
>That will be thaw'd from the true quality
>With that which melteth fools; I mean, sweet words,
>Low-crooked court'sies and base spaniel-fawning.
>Thy brother by decree is banished:
>If thou dost bend and pray and fawn for him,
>I spurn thee like a cur out of my way.
>Know, Caesar doth not wrong, nor without cause
>Will he be satisfied.

English was a lot more flexible before the average speaker became a retarded immigrant who only needs it for work and buying groceries.

>> No.18881723

>>18879511
It depends on your goal. If you only want to read it's already much easier because you can skip all the work for developing listening comprehension (it takes literally thousands of hours), and even avoid studying grammar too much in detail.

And in the field of just reading, reading philosophy is much much easier than reading fiction. I could comfortably read Kant and Jaspers after 2 years, but literature only after 5 years (the number don't have to match yours because you don't know how much or how little I've worked at it, but notice that there is a big difference between them).

Don't take classes. They are useless and they will not be focused on what you want to do. You will waste your time by drilling conjugations and reading dialogues with people asking how to get to the train station. Just read Sandberg's German for reading, start reading graded readers, and just keep at it.

>> No.18881789
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18881789

>>18879511
Use what academics use, you don't want to learn conversational German or how to order coffee and toast at a Berlin cafe. Focus on learning to how to read.

>> No.18881819 [DELETED] 

>>18879511
This language sucks. Sie means they and thou and conjugated same. So you have to guess from context something so essential. Also not to mention Sie is also the accusative form and on top of that sie is she.
This language has fuck ton of words for anything but cannot figure the fuck of out how to properly name pronouns.
Many such cases as well. You can read it here from a genius https://faculty.georgetown.edu/jod/texts/twain.german.html

>> No.18881911

>>18880767
I don't see anything wrong with using duolingo to start as long as it's a supplement and not the only tool you're using to study a language. Otherwise you're not going to get a great grasp on grammar or idioms etc and be stuck with beginner words/phrases and stupid duolingo sentences that don't help whatsoever

>> No.18881913

Du schaffst das! Viel Erfolg, Brudi!

>> No.18881969

>>18881723
which graded readers do you suggest?

>> No.18882013

>>18881969

Find the torrent called '88 german graded readers' or something like that. I suggest starting with the ones by Leonhard Thoma, as they are the most interesting. You will find their level (a1,a2,b1,b2) on the book, or maybe on amazon or the author's site. Go in order of difficulty. Other books in that collection are easier but much more boring.

If you want to start with something even easier, find the book Erste Stufe.

Also, be sure to do all the readings in Sandberg's book. After the few first chapters, they are picked from original German text and are very interesting.

Use readlang.com or something similar to lookup words effortlessly. You will need to do that a lot for some time.

>> No.18882385
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18882385

>>18879511
Look at this image and see for yourself what an abomination of language it is.

If you think I am a midwit, read from the genius himself:
https://faculty.georgetown.edu/jod/texts/twain.german.html
http://www.twainquotes.com/German.html

I got filtered so hard by German. Fuck this gayest shit. The problem is I live in Germany. But still fuck this shit. They have fuckton of nouns for minute details, yet they had a big shortage of pronouns, like what the fuck. Pure autism.

>> No.18882590

>>18879511
It's not hard at all if by "hard" you mean "requiring substantial mental effort", but it does take a lot, and I mean A LOT, of time. Andon't waste your time doing grammar drills, they don't work. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1944-9720.2003.tb02123.x
Instead, listen a lot and then read a lot - in this order.

>> No.18882608

>>18881789
You can't be a fluent reader if you're not a fluent speaker. Sure, you can learn to decode things, but will never get to the point of intuitive understanding and if not, what's the point of putting all this work instead of just picking up a translation?

>> No.18882613

I know basic German but feel like I will forget it soon if I don't study it anymore. Are there any children's books you could recommend? Have never read a book in German before.

>> No.18882618

>>18880986
>There is a phrase I've heard in England - "Believe you me" and it makes no sense in English. In German it would be "Glauben Sie mir", which makes perfect sense.
Because the formal imperative is just the second person plural.

>> No.18882634

>>18882385
Trust me, it becomes so much easier than it looks there. The problem ultimately is vocabulary, not grammar. And if you think that is bad, try Latin out, or ancient Greek.

>> No.18882648

>>18879936
arabic? broken plurals?

>> No.18882671

>>18882385
That's what happens when you attempt to learn rules of which even a native speaker won't be aware. Languages don't come in tables. Sure, you can google a rule to help you understand something, but you should never rely on it when speaking. Otherwise you will never get fluent.

>> No.18882718

>>18880986
>"Believe you me"
It makes perfect sense. Believe[2nd person imperative] you[2nd person nominative] me[1st person accusative]. It's just a rearranged way of saying "you [shall] believe me", but most English dialects have fused "you", the nominative, and "ye", the oblique, into one term "you" that refers to both the performer of an action and the recipient.

>>18882385
tl;dr the article inflects instead of the noun itself.

>> No.18882974

>>18882634
>>18882671
It is not merely the difficuly of learning the language, I mean at the end of the day, with adequate effort even a retard can learn to speak it, but it is this sheer ugliness of it's ambiguity in even the most basic stuff.

Learning a language in which they and formal you are same and even conjugated in same manner, and you need context to understand the difference, howevever it will be intuitive by epxerience and will posit no problem in future to differenciate, makes me feel like I am wasting my time with an inferior language.

>> No.18882987

>>18882974
>ugliness of it's ambiguity
learning language is hard because I hate the sound of savage grug-grug speak invading and raping my consciousness, then sometimes it's rewarding, jury's out on whether I'm effectively learning

>> No.18883011

>>18882987
Actually I like the sound of German. Sure it is not melodic like a Romance language but it can be beautiful as well.

>> No.18883187

>>18882974
Sie is boomer cringe shit, just totally ignore it and use du for second person singular. Boom, you have now resolved half the ambiguities.
t. Austrian

>> No.18883316

>>18880078
romanian

>> No.18883322

>>18883187
Sie isn't even the hard one though, the irregularity of Ihr is much stranger.

>> No.18883438

>>18879511
Can anyone give me a rundown of what it's like living in a German speaking country? I know the language decently and I'm thinking about my future plans

>> No.18883488

>>18883187
Enjoy sounding like an uneducated swine.

>> No.18883539

>>18882618
>>18882718
>>18881470

being able to grammatically deconstruct a sentence is great. you're telling me you wouldn't be thrown off at all by someone saying "believe you me?"

>> No.18883765

>>18883438
I would say, despite all it is somehow some of the liveable places left within civilized world.

>> No.18883814

>>18879511
Hey bud, let me share by story with the Germaage, might be of some help.
Grammar side, yeah it's difficult, np way getting around it. Especially the cases have been a nightmare for me, understanding that positioning, prepositions and implied intentions can change the case has been herrendous for me, but when I've finally understood them the huge initial learning curve had been passed. To put this into perspective, I've picked on French once again since highschool has been useless in this regard, and yes it's difficult, but do far I've encountered no situation which I couldn't somehow comprehend.
Still, learning it feels so good. There's no need to pay for learning it, although in my case it took an unnecessary amount of time to figure stuff out by myself. I'd especially recommend you sure such as dw's Nicos Weg and yourdailygerman.
And that'd be it, yeah it sucks, but for me it's already a necessity. Lastly, for a Romanian speaker you might as well do all the work from English only, it might prove a tad easier.

>> No.18884050

>>18880219
>>18883814
cases are not a problem for reading, because you can always infer the meaning without knowing the exact rules. they only become problem if you need to write or speak, but for OP that's not an issue.

>>18882608
>You can't be a fluent reader if you're not a fluent speaker.
that's just wrong. passive understanding is easier to acquire than active understanding, so if one learns for reading and by reading, passive fluency (reading or listening) will come before active fluency (writing or speaking). and if one doesn't practice writing or speaking at all, then it will come significantly earlier.

>> No.18884077

>>18879936
Kek. Be thankful you're not french. In Lit college the vast majority of my classmates were still making basic mistakes.

>> No.18884145

>>18884050
>>18884050
>passive fluency (reading or listening) will come before active fluency
Of course, but it's utterly impossible to read fluently novels or philosophy in a language and not be able to put a few words together in speech.

>> No.18884470

>>18884145
"putting a few words together" is far from "fluent speaking". but even putting that aside, what you said isn't exactly true from my experience. I have read extensively on Marxism in Italian, and for the most part I can read similar texts fluently (as long as they're written by Marxists and not by obfuscating academics). nevertheless, I would struggle hard and would have to resort to caveman speak if I had to do shopping or ask someone for directions. or simply give basic explanations about the thing I've read tons about!
even in English, which is my second language, I stutter and make very long pauses, and I've literally read three volumes of Capital in it, a 600-page book on the Critique of Pure Reason targeted at philosophers, and so on. my speech is ways from being fluent, and the reason is simple: I've spoken virtually zero English since high school. and it would've been much worse still if I didn't at least regularly write in it (which is partly why I descend to this shithole from time to time).
so, given what I've experienced first-hand, it'd probably be easier to convince me that the earth is flat than that fluent reading requires anything resembling speaking fluency. some passive knowledge will indeed spontaneously pass into active knowledge if it's reinforced enough: if all I did was read Italian books about people going shopping, then I'd probably soon be able to fluently reproduce such speech myself. but in general you still need targeted production practice, because the threshold for efortlessly understanding language in context is simply much lower than the threshold of reproducing it from scratch.
and this yields a crucial piece of advice for people who learn for reading: don't waste time memorizing genders, conjugations and tenses.