Why is German the post important language for

cnablis   Thu Jan 07, 2010 10:31 pm GMT
<<For example, it is interesting how in Italy, that shares border with German speaking countries, only 3% of people or less can speak German. >>

Is that mainly because German is horrendously complex, compared to English and some of the Romance languages?
Reality   Fri Jan 08, 2010 5:23 pm GMT
Why sould it be interesting?
First, a knowledge of german is not all that necessary. English is used for commercial purposes.
Second, I guess that 3% is underestimated. In northern Italy is widely studied (we should discuss over the general level of knowledge but that's another story :-) ).
Third, german is NOT horrendously complex. Grammar is rigid but regular, german declensions are plain vanilla if compared to the slavic ones, for instance. And germans do not turn up their nose if foreigners' german is not that perfect. German complexity is a pure legend, there are other languages far worse than german.
Finally, I'm always amused when someone states that ''some of the romance languages'' are so easy. Which ones? French, spanish, italian and portuguese all have more or less the same level of complexity. The differences among them do not make none more complex or easy than the others.
looling Joao   Sat Jan 09, 2010 9:38 am GMT
Exactly Reality, you're right.