Russian Language

[Vonz90]

I'm using Rosetta Stone to learn German. Pricey at $450 for a three-disk set, but each disk represents about 40-50 hours worth of instruction. It's good for pronunciation and listening comprehension, less so on grammar and spelling. They really need to include a dictionary and grammar book with it to leverage what you know of English to best effect.

For a pretty good German/English dictionary, try http://quickdic.org/index_e.html it is a free ap that is sponsored by the BRD.

[Erik]

Honestly, it was covered in one class, I think. It's VERY VERY simple -- likewise German vocabulary is quite limited -- but, they make up idoms and new words by compounding small words constantly...

You find german grammar simple? Wow. We spent one year in High School just focusing on the grammar, and had a separate book just for that. I still never got the hang of it until I spent time in Germany and just decided to forget the grammar and keep talking, and let them stop me if they didn't understand me. Usually you get the message across even with bad grammar, and you improve it as you get more used to it and pick up on how other people speak.

Just to take one example, the nouns can be of three different cases, using different articles and grammar for each. And there are no clear rules for this, you more or less need to learn them for all nouns. Nouns ending with -e is usually feminine, and should have the article "die". The german word for 'lion' is 'Löwe', but despite that it's masculine and 'the lion' is 'der Löwe'. However, 'lioness' is 'Löwinnen' and that's feminine and thus 'die Löwinnen'.

Then you have all the grammatical persons, that also changes the grammatical structure. And all other rules. Most of them had to be learned by repeating the rules over and over.

I know there are people that could just read the rules and have them memorized and follow them, but to me that's more or less impossible other than as a basic foundation. I feel its much better to just speak a language a lot and let the grammar become natural that way.

[BadgerAZ]

Agree with Erik re German. Back in the '70s, though I was already conversant in three other languages, the powers that be decreed I needed to learn German. I'd picked up the others fairly easily, but German killed me.

Since then I've also studied Greek, and I'll admit that one may top German and even rival English for difficulty of learning. Like English, Greek has endless subtleties of meaning in word order, tense, case, conjugation, and exceptions, subtleties that intertwine and just can't be easily taught or memorized. I've heard that Chinese languages are even harder and I believe that, but Greek showed me my "Peter principle" point in languages, so I have no plans for Chinese, and thankfully no need.

[Jake]

I just got a hold of some Vladimir Vysotsky, and so far so good. It seems like a good portion of the music that I tend to like or listen to I end up finding suggested here. Thanks.

I've always wanted to learn German as well, as a lot of my family has Germanic roots and speaks a bit here and there, but I've never had the chance. Maybe I'll have at it if I get Russian under my belt.

[blackeagle603]

I feel its much better to just speak a language a lot and let the grammar become natural that way.

Meinst du das oder sagst du das nur so?

Eine Bit bitte.

Oh yeah and sing along with me, "In Munchen ist der Hofbrau House. "Oans, zwoa, g'suffa"!"


There you go. A year of high school German and a business trip to Munchen and Salzburg. Not a total loss. That and the surreal experience of eating a late dinner in a restaurant built into the ancient wall of Salzburg, looking out the window up the street to the sign proclaiming Mozart's birthplace while Elvis music played in the background -- and realizing it would have been Elvis' 65th birthday." Mozart, the Elvis of his generation.

[The Wizard]

i have been in Germany for 8 months and i cant speak German for crap. i have some of the basics but i cant converse in it, though i can order food and drinks, oh and ask if they speak English but not much more than that.

And where is Eugene? ill be back guys im going to go prep the GUNCOUNTER