If you read my blog post “America meets Germany”, you know that I moved from the US to Germany. Which means my mother language is not the spoken language of the country anymore….which sucks. Even though it’s beautiful that now I am learning a third language and trying to adapt to this country, it still sucks sometimes. It’s just hard, you know?! 

The German language is REALLY hard. Which makes it not that fun to learn. It’s more difficult to adapt to a country when the language is hard. However it can be good, just not fun. It’s good to learn a difficult language because it’s good for the brain and makes you more intelligent. There are a lot of scientific studies why it’s good but I don’t have time to go over that. Compared to English, there are many sounds in the German language that English doesn’t have. The letters are pretty similar but there are some letters that will be hard for English speakers. The ones that I think are the hardest are, (“ch”, “ä“, “ü”, “ö“, “r“, ).  “Ch” sounds nothing like the English “ch”. The sound is similar to “sh” in English however it’s still different and till this day I can’t do it right. You have to push your tongue on the front bottom teeth, and push with your cheeks, I dunno guys. It’s difficult! “R” also sounds nothing like the r in English. Sometimes it does a little. However usually the sound of “r” In German is a sound that doesn’t even exist in English, however it does exist in Arabic. In Arabic “r” is “غ”. The other three I listed I won’t even go through but just know they are hella difficult. 

The German language feels like you’re squeezing your throat when you’re speaking. It’s a very STRONG language. Compared to English. The way you will use your tongue, mouth, and even jaw, is all different from the way you speak English. 

The German language has a lot of words that are really close to English. Which will be helpful in a way. The letters look the same haha. So that will also be helpful. Many sounds are similar which is also an advantage. 

The grammar and pronunciation of the German language is what’s hard. They have a very complicated grammar compared to English. However it’s pretty organized. The pronunciation is very different from English of course because it’s not English haha. Grammar and pronunciation is the hardest thing of the German language. Especially for English speakers. They have things called nominativ, Akkusativ, Dativ. Which doesn’t exist at all in the English language and that will be the most difficult for English speakers who want to learn German. 

It would be only needed to learn German if you want to live in Germany. Other than that, it’s not needed. Germany is the only country that speaks German, so it’s needed in Germany. Unlike English, Arabic, Spanish, Hindi, and Mandarin. These languages in multiple countries in the world speak them, are very needed in business fields, politics, language teachers, international trading, etc. If you want to learn a language that you will be able to use in multiple places. Then learn either English, Spanish, or Arabic. 

From what I’ve seen not a majority of Germans speak English. It’s not used much in this country. When I went to Emirate and Kuwait, the two languages there were Arabic and English. Almost everyone was able to speak English. In Germany not a lot of things are in English, and the people don’t use it much. So if you are planning on living in Germany it won’t help to only have English. I’ve read many blogs that say you can live with just English but honestly I can’t call that a life. Germans love their language and appreciate more people that speak it. You won’t be able to make a lot of connections just with English and after time it will feel lonely to be honest. So it’s better to learn german if you want to settle in Germany.

Let’s talk positive now since everything was negative so far haha. German language is actually interesting once you get used to it. You will feel more confident when you can speak this language because it’s not easy. You will get smarter also!! That’s a bonus haha. Other than that I can’t think of anything haha. It got a lot easier for me now than a year ago. I’ve been trying to learn it for two years so far, and it advanced a lot. I liked it more when I was able to speak it, before that I didn’t really like it. I didn’t really like the way it sounds, but when you learn to speak it you will fall in love with it. I am looking forward to German being my third language. I don’t know how long it will take to be fluent with it. I will keep you guys updated! Thank you so much for reading guys! Hope you liked it! Have a great day guys! Tschüss!!