How to start learning German?

Korey Kaczynski · 2008-04-01 04:37:49

I love Arch. Absolutely love it. But with the announcement of April 1 regarding the transition to German, I was wondering if there are any books available that will help me learn this fine lanaguage and continue using this excellent distro?

Hopefully, I would like a German version of the edutainment game "Reader Rabbit" to begin the basics; preferably open-source, but if I must I'll get wine working if I really have to!

Thanks, Archers!
Gute Nacht!

blu3ness · 2008-04-01 05:16:25

O.oo... happy April 1st~

Korey Kaczynski · 2008-04-01 05:20:24

blu3ness wrote:

O.oo... happy April 1st~

Well, It seems they don't make a Reader Rabbit game for German. Any other ideas?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reader_Rabbit

Leigh · 2008-04-01 07:15:13

I'm already learning Chinese as a second language, but honestly, I never realized that the majority of Archers are native german speakers. I guess I love arch anough to deal with it, but I hope the pacman comands and file names stay the same.

wuischke · 2008-04-01 07:24:57

If you are actually serious about learning German: First of all make sure, that you have an ongoing motivation to learn the language. If that's missing, you'll probably give up frustrated after some weeks, because learning a language can be frustrating.

Then get yourself a dictionary and a course book with many demonstrative explanations for the grammar. Start by learning the basics: nouns, articles, verbs and the basic sentence structure S-V-O (subject-verb-object). Try to find a German-speaking friend and try to practise your knowledge, even if you can only say simple things like "Ich spreche Deutsch.", "Der Mond ist rund." or a little more complicated: "Heute ist der erste April."
Also start to read as much as you can. Learning vocabularly is no fun, but it's easier if you remember vocabulary from the context, because you see that a word is important and not only word of many in a vocabulary list.
Now expand your knowledge slowly by learning more, reading more and practicing your new knowledge as often as possible and try not to get frustrated once you encounter the more challenging parts of the German language.

Also consider a stay in a German-speaking country once you have basic knowledge. You'll be amazed how fast you learn when you're in contact with native speakers - just don't get frustrated.

Good luck!

KimTjik · 2008-04-01 07:50:28

I've heard rumours that Arch will become a rolling distro in another aspect as well: it will make these base language transitions on a regular basis in an attempt to reach out to the whole community. Thus it wouldn't be necessary to make some 100 variations of Arch like the current situation of Ubuntu. Some speculate about Urdu becoming the next language in line.

I think I need a lot of books to catch up.

Korey Kaczynski · 2008-04-01 07:50:52

wuischke wrote:

If you are actually serious about learning German: First of all make sure, that you have an ongoing motivation to learn the language. If that's missing, you'll probably give up frustrated after some weeks, because learning a language can be frustrating.
Then get yourself a dictionary and a course book with many demonstrative explanations for the grammar. Start by learning the basics: nouns, articles, verbs and the basic sentence structure S-V-O (subject-verb-object). Try to find a German-speaking friend and try to practise your knowledge, even if you can only say simple things like "Ich spreche Deutsch.", "Der Mond ist rund." or a little more complicated: "Heute ist der erste April."
Also start to read as much as you can. Learning vocabularly is no fun, but it's easier if you remember vocabulary from the context, because you see that a word is important and not only word of many in a vocabulary list.
Now expand your knowledge slowly by learning more, reading more and practicing your new knowledge as often as possible and try not to get frustrated once you encounter the more challenging parts of the German language.
Also consider a stay in a German-speaking country once you have basic knowledge. You'll be amazed how fast you learn when you're in contact with native speakers - just don't get frustrated.
Good luck!

But what about Reader Rabbit?!?!?!?

thisllub · 2008-04-01 10:21:01

wuischke wrote:

If you are actually serious about learning German: First of all make sure, that you have an ongoing motivation to learn the language. If that's missing, you'll probably give up frustrated after some weeks, because learning a language can be frustrating.
Then get yourself a dictionary and a course book with many demonstrative explanations for the grammar. Start by learning the basics: nouns, articles, verbs and the basic sentence structure S-V-O (subject-verb-object). Try to find a German-speaking friend and try to practise your knowledge, even if you can only say simple things like "Ich spreche Deutsch.", "Der Mond ist rund." or a little more complicated: "Heute ist der erste April."
Also start to read as much as you can. Learning vocabularly is no fun, but it's easier if you remember vocabulary from the context, because you see that a word is important and not only word of many in a vocabulary list.
Now expand your knowledge slowly by learning more, reading more and practicing your new knowledge as often as possible and try not to get frustrated once you encounter the more challenging parts of the German language.
Also consider a stay in a German-speaking country once you have basic knowledge. You'll be amazed how fast you learn when you're in contact with native speakers - just don't get frustrated.
Good luck!

Funny thing is that I started looking for resources to learn German this morning.
I studied it at school for 5 years (over 30 years ago) and although I can read German pretty well, albeit with a limited vocabulary, I have never spoken it since.
My daughter is moving to Bonn in May and I plan to visit her in September / October so I want to have some proficiency by then.

At the moment I am sure my grammar would be like the Englishman in Allo Allo.

quarK · 2008-04-01 11:07:03

Grüßgott!

A little help for our non-German friends: if your keyboard layout won't provide you with proper German characters, here are some for you:

ääääää ööööööö üüüüüüüü ßßßßßßßß

Please only take one special character for each post, or we'll run out soon.

Und jetzt alle:

99 Luftballons auf ihrem Weg zum Horizont
Hielt man für UFOs aus dem All
Darum schickte ein General... :D

Schönen Tag noch!
mfg
quarK

dyscoria · 2008-04-01 11:11:14

ääääää ööööööö üüüüüüüü ßßßßßßßß

oops, i think i just used up your stockpile! Guess we have to move back to english then...

I'm also getting very tired of 'Absenden'-ing my posts instead of sending them. I don't want to Absenden dammit!

oliwer · 2008-04-01 12:44:16

I heard the ß character was not mandatory anymore. You can replace it with "ss". Is that true ?

wuischke · 2008-04-01 13:06:29

You can replace it and people will still understand you. In Switzerland, they got completely rid of the "es-zet" (ß) and replaced it by "doppel es" (ss).

But there are many words, which will not be distinguishable when you remove the difference of 'ss' and 'ß' (for instance die Maße [dimensions] - die Masse [mass]) and therefore it's still mandatory in Germany.

But as we are fresh out of umlauts: Replace ä by ae, ö by oe and ü by ue and you're fine.

@Korey Kaczynski
Hasenbraten.

quarK · 2008-04-01 13:09:18

@oliwer: No, that's not quite true. In *some* words the ß has to be replaced by ss, in other words both the ß and the ss are possible and sometimes a ß is still the only right choice. This is one of the MANY reasons why nobody is truely happy with this reform and some newspapers still disregard it completely.

To put it simple: Whenever the preceding vowel is pronounced elongated the ß is the right choice:
"Fußball" (soccer)
"Ruß" (grime, the stuff in the chimney)

But whenever the preceding vowel is pronounced shortly, the doule s is used:
"Nussknacker" (nutcracker)
"Flussbett" (river bed)

cheers

EDIT: By the way, the mentioned rule of pronounciation works with wuischke's examples quite nicely. But I must admit, his explanation is way better...

Last edited by quarK (2008-04-01 13:13:39)

xdeusx · 2008-04-01 13:20:18

Just change your locale to german in arch linux,
you will know where to click if you read the upcoming german posts in the wiki and the forums

schivmeister · 2008-04-01 14:29:10

You should prepare for Sanskrit instead, heard there may be some breakage during upgrade when the time comes.

Yes, the SS character can be used interchangebly with just ss. See, i'm not even bothering.

TontonBizar · 2008-04-01 14:44:42

To start learning german, just begin with a simple word 'Fisch' (same as fish in english) : easy no?

Jacek Poplawski · 2008-04-02 11:27:18

<voice="John Cleese"> Guten Morgen </voice>

Zibi1981 · 2008-04-03 22:32:30

Jacek Poplawski, that meant to be in Polish, if I remember this advertisement correctly

Arch Linux

#1 2008-04-01 04:37:49

How to start learning German?

#2 2008-04-01 05:16:25

Re: How to start learning German?

#3 2008-04-01 05:20:24

Re: How to start learning German?

#4 2008-04-01 07:15:13

Re: How to start learning German?

#5 2008-04-01 07:24:57

Re: How to start learning German?

#6 2008-04-01 07:50:28

Re: How to start learning German?

#7 2008-04-01 07:50:52

Re: How to start learning German?

#8 2008-04-01 10:21:01

Re: How to start learning German?

#9 2008-04-01 11:07:03

Re: How to start learning German?

#10 2008-04-01 11:11:14

Re: How to start learning German?

#11 2008-04-01 12:44:16

Re: How to start learning German?

#12 2008-04-01 13:06:29

Re: How to start learning German?

#13 2008-04-01 13:09:18

Re: How to start learning German?

#14 2008-04-01 13:20:18

Re: How to start learning German?

#15 2008-04-01 14:29:10

Re: How to start learning German?

#16 2008-04-01 14:44:42

Re: How to start learning German?

#17 2008-04-02 11:27:18

Re: How to start learning German?

#18 2008-04-03 22:32:30

Re: How to start learning German?

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