My dad always told me to learn German because it was a fun place to visit and knowing the language would let me do business virtually anywhere on the European continent. I have to agree its an important world language, as well as being spoken in several countries I plan to visit, its used in former colonial possessions in Africa which I definitely plan on seeing as well. Also contributing to my decision to take German was stereotypical images of giant mugs of beer held by beer maidens in those little Dirndl dresses at some giant Oktoberfest celebration, which just tickled my fancy a little bit. Through this course I have dispelled some of those stereotypes, but I'm still interested in what Germany has to offer.
German has been a hard language for me to learn. In high school, I took Spanish and it was very easy for me, I never had any problems. I know a collegiate course is necessarily more rigorous, but Spanish seems like an easier language to pick up to me. Maybe it is because German is so similar to English that its easy to cross over and speak some sort of hybrid on accident, a problem I have fairly often especially in class or oral exams. The grammar was hard for me to pick up because I didn't actually know the concepts and tenses in English. Now I understand why knowing a foreign language can help you understand your native tongue better, because you must understand the grammar structures in your own language before you can understand and apply them in a new one. The pronunciation in German is not too difficult for an English speaker, but I am by no means perfect. The Vocabulary is not too hard to pick up especially because alot of it looks much like its English counterpart.
My regret for this semester and course was not applying myself enough. I feel like I could have a much better understanding of the language if I had taken more personal time and practiced grammar and vocabulary. Not practicing speaking the language as much as I should really hurts me on oral exams, and next year when I take 203 I am really going to focus on practicing on my own more.
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William,
It looks like you figured some things out for yourself and I'm glad you have something like a goal to achieve in 203. But, you are a little hard to yourself because you like every other student in this course did a great job in learning this language.
Don't expect too much from the German language, there is actually just one former German colony that still uses the German language (although it's not the official language anymore) which is Namibia. But German is an important country in terms of globalization so you will definitely have use for the language in almost every work sector.
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