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AthiestMessiah t1_jduy70u wrote

Might leave England for Germany, my wife speaks German and has family there. Unfortunately I don’t

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Rhoderick t1_jdv19np wrote

Honestly, if you're looking to learn German, starting from knowing English is pretty much the best position you can be in, short of knowing Dutch or something.

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bonyponyride t1_jdv28oj wrote

Trennbar verbs, reflexive verbs, gendered nouns, and verb cases have entered the chat. It does have quite a few similarities to english, but I've found people who speak Russian and Ukrainian pick it up way faster than others.

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AwfulUsername123 t1_jdv3sve wrote

You mean noun cases. And yeah, English speakers struggle with that. See: whom.

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AmargithHuld t1_jdx4gs4 wrote

The older gen in those countries had german as a second language in school, that helps as well.

But sure, cases throw many for a loop.

I can attest, however, that Russian ‘thinks’ in a very different way than germanic european languages, and they struggle very much with articles, wordplacement (as they have cases for that shit) and the idea of auxiliary verbs.

Source: lived there for a year, and soeak Russian and several germanic languages :)

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bonyponyride t1_jdx9w2f wrote

Ah interesting. Maybe that's the reason. I've been taking German classes in Germany with a few Russians and many Ukrainians, and they've always been at the top of the class. Some of them finished B1 in just 7 months, which is crazy to me. It took me 10 months of full time classes and I still fuck up all the cases and have a smaller vocabulary that I can use off the top of my head.

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Infamous-Werewolf196 t1_jduymhk wrote

Duolingo is good I hear to learn a new language

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RandomStuffGenerator t1_jduz3vf wrote

I learned German as an adult (while living in Germany). Duolingo is nice and you should use all the help you can get, but the key to learning the language is first gaining the basic foundations through courses (even the free VHS courses for foreigners are useful) and then talking to people as much as you can. No app can replace that.

It is a difficult language and the learning curve is quite steep, but with focus and dedication anybody can learn it within a reasonable timeframe.

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bonyponyride t1_jdv0kdq wrote

VHS courses aren't free for most people. Each level costs around 200 Euro, and the levels are A1.1, A1.2, A2.1, A2.2, B1.1, B1.2, B2 and so on, so it costs over 1000 Euros. It is still cheaper than other schools, and if you have a special circumstance, like being a German citizen or asylum seeker and registered with the job center, BAMF will pay for the courses in full. If you pay out of pocket and then pass the B1 test, I believe you get refunded 50% of your fees through level B1. If you take classes full time, going from A1.1 to B2 takes about a year.

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