Which language should I try to learn? German or Russian?

[LostInAnomie]

Poll question: Which language should I try to learn? German or Russian?

I've been interested in learning both for a long time now, but don't think I have the talent to learn two languages. I'm interested in German because that is where my ancestors are from. I'm interested in Russian because I think it is an interesting language and culture.

Any suggestions?

[arbusto_baboso]

1. German. With Russian, you have to learn an entirely new alphabet.

Plus, German is closer to English, so it will make more sense to your ears and brain.

[struggle4progress]

23. You actually have to learn a new alphabet to read German fraktur -- and if you want to

read Russian italics as well as ordinary Russian, you'll have to learn two new alphabets

[timtom]

42. I studied German at Berkeley in the late 60's

and fraktur was only mentioned in passing.

[struggle4progress]

45. I studied German in order to be able to read mathematics, and I actually had texts

that I wanted to read that were typeset in fraktur

[timtom]

46. Were they older classical texts?

[struggle4progress]

48. Of course

[hobbit709]

2. Russian is good for cussing

There are things you say in russian that just won't translate.

[MineralMan]

8. Yeah...

Yob tvoyu mat'!

It rarely means what the direct translation is.

In the instant case, I'd translate it as "Fuckin A!" or "You ain't said shit."

[martymar64]

32. "Mat" is mother

So it literally translates to "Fuck your mother".

I like cursing in Spanish. Living in Los Angeles taught me lots of Spanish profanity.

[MineralMan]

33. Yes. That's the translation.

However, it's not used in that way. It's become a generic expletive, and is used to express all sorts of things. Like my examples.

[Zavulon]

37. It's also used as an intensifier.

"Peredai eb tvoyu mat' sol'" - pass the fucking salt.

[RT Atlanta]

3. German

seems to be the 2nd language of Europe, and even moreso in Eastern Europe. You'd be well served in learning that language. Tchusss!

[old mark]

4. Since you obviously hate America, learn Spanish, the language of the illegal immigrants

according to the GOP.

Or French.


:evilgrin:
I don't understand why we still call it "English" - We don't live in fucking England...

mark

[realisticphish]

19. Why do Mexicans speak "Spanish," then?

BOOYA

;)

[old mark]

29. I don't know - I speak Spanish, and I'm an American mutt/German

first gen.


Just seemed like a good idea to learn it because I already had Latin, language of the Latts.

mark

[struggle4progress]

5. I found German easy and intuitive. Russian is a nice language, but when I was studying it

I had difficulty getting really good dictionaries: for some of the literature I tried to read, it seemed every third or fourth word wasn't in any of the dictionaries I had -- and I had three big ones! Russian also has some irritating features: for example, the word corresponding to our "not" sometimes means "not" and sometimes is an emphatic -- as if "Her hat was not blue" might mean "Her hat wasn't blue" or might mean "Her hat was really really blue!"

[Flaxbee]

15. da nyet!

:)

[struggle4progress]

21. I'm afraid all I remember off the top of my head two decades later is "yanki idi domoi"

x(

[Kali]

25. You found German easy?!!!???

I'm fucked. I can get by with Spanish but my best friend is German and in almost 15 years of months-long visits, travels with her and other Germans I have about a 4 word vocabulary. Of course 4 words in German are a hell of a lot more than 4 words in Spanish or English, as least I got that far.:rofl: But is seems pretty freaking hard to me. Yes some is very intuitive, especially reading but then there will be days where nothing makes any sense.

[struggle4progress]

35. The Awful German Language (Mark Twain)

... An average sentence, in a German newspaper, is a sublime and impressive curiosity; it occupies a quarter of a column; it contains all the ten parts of speech--not in regular order, but mixed; it is built mainly of compound words constructed by the writer on the spot, and not to be found in any dictionary--six or seven words compacted into one, without joint or seam--that is, without hyphens; it treats of fourteen or fifteen different subjects, each enclosed in a parenthesis of its own, with here and there extra parentheses, making pens with pens: finally, all the parentheses and reparentheses are massed together between a couple of king-parentheses, one of which is placed in the first line of the majestic sentence and the other in the middle of the last line of it--AFTER WHICH COMES THE VERB, and you find out for the first time what the man has been talking about ...

In German, all the Nouns begin with a capital letter. Now that is a good idea; and a good idea, in this language, is necessarily conspicuous from its lonesomeness ...

Every noun has a gender, and there is no sense or system in the distribution; so the gender of each must be learned separately and by heart. There is no other way. To do this one has to have a memory like a memorandum-book. In German, a young lady has no sex, while a turnip has ...

Some German words are so long that they have a perspective ... These things are not words, they are alphabetical processions. And they are not rare; one can open a German newspaper at any time and see them marching majestically across the page--and if he has any imagination he can see the banners and hear the music, too ... Of course when one of these grand mountain ranges goes stretching across the printed page, it adorns and ennobles that literary landscape--but at the same time it is a great distress to the new student, for it blocks up his way; he cannot crawl under it, or climb over it, or tunnel through it. So he resorts to the dictionary for help, but there is no help there. The dictionary must draw the line somewhere--so it leaves this sort of words out. And it is right, because these long things are hardly legitimate words, but are rather combinations of words, and the inventor of them ought to have been killed ...

http://www9.georgetown.edu/faculty/jod/texts/twain.german.html

[elleng]

36. Vonderfl!

:rofl:

[Kali]

41. I bought this little phrase book when I was there for a visit.

It was funny because just about every page said something to the effect of "even native speakers have problems with this, but you can get by with ____."

[montanto]

6. German is easier. Go German.

[mainegreen]

7. German!

It's sexy in a dominating kind of way.

:D

[MineralMan]

9. Some will tell you Russian is harder.

It's not. They're both tough. One uses a different alphabet...the other uses a different syntax. Both are a challenge. German's more useful, though, generally.

[Xipe Totec]

10. I agree with some of what you say

Don't necessarily agree that German is more useful, though both languages are very useful.

I've tried to learn both languages, and I made much more progress in Russian than I did in German.

[MineralMan]

12. Well, I'm biased, since I know Russian.

I have a little German, but just enough to be polite and get along with daily needs.

Russian's biggest problem is that it's one of the most highly-inflected languages currently in use. The multiple cases for nouns and adjectives complicates learning, as does the complicated verb conjugation structure, including the use of prefixes to alter basic verbs.

The alphabet thing is trivial, and Russian's probably one of the easiest languages to read aloud, since it follows its pronunciation rules pretty rigidly. I can read Russian aloud accurately, even when I don't understand what I'm reading.

German's wierd verb at the end syntax and habit of forming compound words makes it a bit odd, too.

OTOH, German has more cognates to English than Russian, which does speed up vocabulary building a little.

I'd call it a wash.

[Zavulon]

38. I do too, and I disagree with your

"German has more cognates to English than Russian." Look at all of the ~ovat' verbs. Look at all of the computer terms that are cognates. I'd bet Russian has way, way more.

Plus, any word in the language beginning with 'a,' 'e' or 'f' is a cognate from one language or another.

Further, if the OP knows any French at all, there are a ton of French cognates too.

As for English, here are a few nouns:

* аэропо́рт --- airport
* бар --- bar
* брюне́т --- brunette
* бюдже́т --- budget
* бюст --- bust (sculpture)
* ви́део --- video
* во́дка --- vodka
* гита́ра --- guitar
* дире́ктор --- director
* джи́нсы --- jeans
* Джихад --- jihad
* Евро́па --- Europe
* журнали́ст --- journalist
* зе́бра --- zebra
* иде́я --- idea
* Интерне́т --- Internet
* кафе́ --- cafe
* класс --- class
* компью́тер --- computer
* лифт --- lift (elevator)
* меню́ --- menu
* му́зыка --- music
* музыка́нт --- musician
* но́мер --- number
* океа́н --- ocean
* о́пера --- opera
* парашю́т --- parachute
* па́спорт --- passport
* президе́нт --- president
* радиа́ция --- radiation
* ро́бот --- robot
* санда́ли --- sandals
* секс --- sex
* студе́нт --- student
* субъе́кт --- subject
* телеви́зор --- television
* телефо́н --- telephone
* ура́ --- hurrah
* фильм --- film
* футбо́л --- football (soccer)
* хокке́й --- hockey
* цирк --- circus
* центр --- centre
* чемпио́н --- champion
* шокола́д --- chocolate
* шофёр --- chauffeur
* шо́рты --- shorts
* экза́мен --- exam
* ю́мор --- humour
* юри́ст --- lawyer
* я́хта --- yacht

[MineralMan]

40. Russian started adopting English cognates in the 20th

century, so there are lots of modern words that are cognates. Prior to that, they adopted German and French words.

German has way more cognates to English words than Russian, since English has roots in the same earlier languages as German.

[Zavulon]

50. Still disagree.

Russian has more cognates to English than German does. For the record, my mother is a native Russian speaker, my father is a native German speaker, and I grew up trilingual in Laval, QC, struggling with French. I do have some knowledge of what I'm talking about here.

[struggle4progress]

22. If you known English grammar, German follows similar rules: one sees the old Germanic

infinitives in such English words as "gotten," and constructions such as "has gotten" will make the German constructions seem natural

[MineralMan]

24. Well, one thing Russian did for me was to teach me

grammar in a way I had not even considered. Latin probably comes the closest to the number of cases for nouns and adjectives in Russian. Once I actually understood Russian grammar, I knew more about English than I had ever known before.

My favorite case in Russian: Vocative.

Bozhe moi!

Also the least used case in Russian.

[Moondog]

47. + 1

[SoxFan]

11. Klingon

Which is probably splitting the difference between German and Russian, actually.

[Xipe Totec]

16. Excellent language for toilet humor! n/t

[Mr. Ected]

13. Learn Dutch.

It's very similar to German, and it's a great secret language to speak in public since very few people outside of Holland or the Caribbean speak it.

[mainegreen]

28. What are you talking about. I swear one out of every twenty people running around is Dutch.

I can't go six feet without running into Dutch people, and I'm not just talking about my family.

14 million Dutch?

Seems more like 400 million Dutch.

x(

[Captain Hilts]

14. I was at Johns Hopkins - SAIS - in 1st year Russian and came across a bunch of

folks in the bathroom crying. My instructor said, "Oh, they're third year students."

Take German unless French is an option.

[Flaxbee]

17. I go back and forth on this issue all the freaking time, and have

ended up learning neither!

We have tons of Russian friends, and have been there many times. Russia is truly fascinating, and its people are wonderful.

My ancestors are German, too.

While German is probably more useful and widely used, whenever I get the $$, I'm probably going to take a crash course in Russian, just so I can talk to our friends (who are all fluent in English, by the way).

Many Russians also speak German.

Russia will be an economic powerhouse no matter what - the country has too many natural resources for it not to be.

Either one is good.

Does either language pull at your heart? Go with the one you can be passionate about. Use your heart for this decision, not your mind.

I'd be curious to know what you decide ... :hi:

[realisticphish]

18. I love both

but at least German uses most of the same letters as English. Learning Cyrillic is a pain in the ass.

[rockymountaindem]

31. I learned the Cyrillic script by myself in like 3 days

I haven't done much work on the actual language yet.

[KamaAina]

20. E ola mau ka 'olelo Hawai'i!

"The Hawaiian language lives forever."

[struggle4progress]

49. Yeah, I've been wondering if all the vowels in the Hebrew Bible went vacationing in Hawaii

and somehow never went back

[Wapsie B]

26. Chinese. Thanks to the massive deficit spending of the Bush administration

we'll need it to be able to interact with our new overlords.

[Kali]

27. Which do you think you would most likely be using?

I would say do that first. If you have a chance to travel and get someplace where you HAVE to learn/use it you will catch on pretty fast. (she says after just posting about her incompetence with German - heh)

[Lydia Leftcoast]

30. If you learn one language successfully, the next one is a cinch

because your brain then knows HOW to learn a language.

Learn whichever one appeals to you the most. Then, after a couple of years, learn the other.

Here are my old language teacher hints:

1. Do not be afraid of the language or of making mistakes. All your classmates will also make mistakes. They will laugh at you, and you can laugh at them. It's just a classroom, not a face-to-face encounter with the Russian mafia.

2. Listen to the language as much as you can. Thanks to Netflix and iTunes, you can get movies and music from all over the world. Even if you don't understand, you'll get the sound of the language in your head, and movies with subtitles can help you learn new expressions.

3. If your teacher gives you homework or enrichment exercises, do them.

4. Try talking as soon as you can form sentences. Think to yourself about what you're doing during the day.

5. Some people like flashcards for learning vocabulary. Personally, I had better luck with writing words or sentences over and over.

Both German and Russian are useful languages with rich cultural heritages. Don't be afraid of the Russian alphabet, because many of the letters are the same or similar, and once you learn the alphabet, most words are spelled pretty much as they sound. Now with an East Asian language, the writing system would be a legitimate concern, but not so for Russian, Greek, or Hebrew.

[HopeHoops]

34. I took 2 years each of Russian and German.

They are very valuable languages!

[Sanity Claws]

39. German syntax is very difficult

In a regular sentence, the verb must go in the second place.
Dependent clauses put the verb at the end.
I don't know whether Russian has the same syntax issues.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

44. In a regular sentence, must the verb in second place go.

Dependent clauses put the verb at the end.
I don't know whether Russian the same syntax issues has. :-)

[meow2u3]

43. Russian: I'm a hockey fan

There are more hockey pros who speak Russian than those who speak German :)

[Dogtown]

51. How many

Russian speakers do you meet daily?

How many German natives?



And how many Hispanics?

Spanish is a more practical 2nd language here, and will certainly enhance your employment possibilities.