Exchange Trip to Germany, Don't know German. - Page 2

MotherOfRunes

Germany2862 Posts

November 08 2011 16:24 GMT

#21

only english will help you, not french....english and german are very similar in terms of the vocabulary. because the angle saxons invaded britannia, and the anglo saxons were a german tribe.
french wont help you in anyway.

discodancer

United States280 Posts

November 08 2011 16:45 GMT

#22

On November 08 2011 23:38 zatic wrote:
Defintely not easy to learn. French and English will help you a litte.

When you are saying exchange trip, how long a trip are we talking? You won't have to speak German beyond some basic stuff to get around fine for a couple of weeks / months.

I wonder what language is easy to learn then for an English speaker? I thought they were pretty similar...

calin

Australia107 Posts

November 08 2011 16:54 GMT

#23

I moved to Germany without knowing how to speak German..ended up living there for about a year and a half. You'll find it a little bit easier to learn German because you know a bit of french but that's only cause you'll understand "what" you need to learn first. Things like "I would like xxxx" "Ich hatte gerne xxx" when ordering food etc.
To be honest unless you live outside a major city almost everyone there will speak English. So you'll be fine..I lived in a small
town for my first 3 months in Germany where hardly anyone spoke English and I got on fine anyway.
Like everyone said German is not easy, sure some words are very similar to English but the grammar is really complicated. Germans themselves can't even explain why they say certain things sometimes..haha.
But yeah you'll be fine, just learn the basics..you'll pick up everything way faster when you're over there. Just learn simple polite things..Wie geht's, guten tag, difference between Du and Sie etc etc.

zatic

Zurich15366 Posts

November 08 2011 17:08 GMT

#24

Also forget about the language for a moment and come to Germany simply because it rocks!

kldfg

Germany59 Posts

November 08 2011 18:21 GMT

#25

I disagree that French won't help--the languages are dissimilar, but the fact that you learnt any other language already helps a lot (in particular, one where nouns have genders).

Also, I'd like to echo what others have said: many people speak at least some English. So, if you really want to learn some German... that's a problem. I've had several friends come to Germany without learning anything, simply because they got on fine with English. One workaround for this was pretending to be from Georgia or some other place with a language most likely not understood (I'm serious, I met a guy who actually told people this just to force them to speak German).

So, I hope you have a great time here and get treated well!

AmericanUmlaut

Germany2597 Posts

November 08 2011 19:57 GMT

#26

On November 09 2011 02:08 zatic wrote:
Also forget about the language for a moment and come to Germany simply because it rocks!

This is true. I came here to get my masters degree and get married, and I don't see myself ever leaving Europe again.

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