Is German really worth learning?

<<<Of course the inventions of Diesel, Gutenberg and many others can be seen as great contributions to Western Culture. But Why the protestant religion is an achievement of the German people? It is a very debatable thing at least. In my oppinion, Luteranism cannot be seen as a good thing since Lutero was a lunatic who spreaded an intolerant religion that caused many bloody wars across Europe. Thanks to God Catholicism is still strong in Germany , specially in the good and brave Bavaria. >>>

It has to be considered that the Catholicism of today is strongly influenced by the Protestant movement since Luther. Who known what the Catholic church would be without the Protestants?

Further achievements of the German people are the feudal system that reigned Europe for many centuries and the great military efforts that both prevented the Indo-Europeans culture to become Arabic, Asiatic or Turkish. The fate of the Byzantine Empire and culture is a good example of what whould have happened to western Europe without the Germans.

The problem of German is that it is spoken by 120 million people in Central Europe (and some minorities in other countries). These figures in the last century were important, but not now.

Nowadays, the demographic increase of the world population is a fact. An a language spoken by 120 million people in a small area of a continent is not amazing.

For instance, almost any large or medium Asiatic language is more spoken than German (or French): Malay-Indonesian is spoken in 5-6 countries by more than 250 million people.

Explain to an Indonesian that a language spoken by ONLY 120-130 million people is really important.

This is the real problem of German (and the same with French): the figures of these languages were important, but not now.

>>For instance, almost any large or medium Asiatic language is more spoken than German (or French): Malay-Indonesian is spoken in 5-6 countries by more than 250 million people.

Explain to an Indonesian that a language spoken by ONLY 120-130 million people is really important.


We may also view the demographic factor from another perspective. This factor should be fitted into the language learning plan of different individuals accordingly. If your business is based in Asia, you would naturally not choose most of the European languages at all. But if the EU is important for you, then German should be good enough.

Yes. You are partially right.

But, this example is not by chance. All this happened ten years ago. The German and French Ministers of Culture went to Indonesia and Philippines to introduced their language.

The reality was really painful. The Indonesian and Philippinian Government said not, of course. They said that English and even Indonesian are more spoken and important than these not very spoken European languages.

The same in other Asiatic countries. Why people don´t study Dutch or Swedish?. That´s because not many people speak these languages.

In the near future, It will be the same with German and French.

The envy and insecurity of the hispanics show up even in this thread. Spanish will never become widespread in Asia it's because they know that no progress can beseen if these 3rd woolr d Asian countries collaborate with other 3rd world countries from the hispanic world.

Before you attempt to propagate the Spanish language in countries like Japan, China, Korea, India and others, prove firts that you can restore the glory of the Spanish language in the Philippines, Guam,, and Marianas Islands. It's big shame because the languages and cultures of the people of these countries were very much influenced by Spanish. And now it's a big shame that they no longer speak it but instead they are more likely to speak French, German, Italian, or Japanese and yet they carry Spanish surnames.

>>The German and French Ministers of Culture went to Indonesia and Philippines to introduced their language.

It isn't that important in regard to the discussions anyway. IMO, as long as individuals have the will to pick up a language, it doesn't really matter whether the popular languages are losing their popularity. At least, in my place, nothing except English (business factor) and Mandarin (business factor; both are official) are propagated, but German and French are still learnt. On the contrary, even though there are lots of other Asian peoples living here, few Chinese would want to learn their languages, primarily for econ. reasons.

It all comes down to personal decisions. Despite the int'l status (esp. English), languages would only be of use when the learner truly masters that language and thus engage in econ/cultural activities that would promote the use of the language. My view is that, so far, only English is of such significance across the continents, and other bigger languages in their (limited) areas of influence.

"Before you attempt to propagate the Spanish language in countries like Japan, China, Korea, India and others, prove firts that you can restore the glory of the Spanish language in the Philippines, Guam,, and Marianas Islands. It's big shame because the languages and cultures of the people of these countries were very much influenced by Spanish. And now it's a big shame that they no longer speak it but instead they are more likely to speak French, German, Italian, or Japanese and yet they carry Spanish surnames."

In 2008, Spanish will be again an official language of Philippines (the third official language) according to several articles. Tagalog has more than 5000 Spanish words. It is easy for them to study Spanish. There is a Spanish creole in Philippines, Chabacano, spoken by 500.000 people. We can understand each other perfectly. Nowadays, there are 3 million people that speak Spanish as second or third language, and increasing very fast.

Marianas and Guam have Chamorro and English as official languages.
Chamorro is a Spanish creole. It is very easy to study Spanish for people from Marianas and Guam. It is one of the most popular foreign languages there, of course (at least 10% of the population of Guam speak a basic Spanish, and almost all of them Chamorro).


P.D. Perhaps you need to think more in reintroducing French in Vietnam, Laos and Kampuchea than to worry about the health of Spanish in Philippines, Marianas and Guam, my French mate.

I don't think that the Vietnamese are willing to reintroduce French again. They are fully Asiatic in the traditional sense , while I see Philipines as a more Western country rather than Asiatic. Perhaps I'm wrong, but this subtle detail makes the Philipinos to be more comfortable using English and Spanish, bothe Western languages ,than the Vietnamese. You can check for example that may Philipinos have Spanish names and surnames, and the all (excluding a muslim minority) are Catholics. On the other hand all the Vietnamese have those strange names ,for example ,Chui Toi Huang, or Chin Lin Feng, and belong to Budism or other Asiatic religions. Hence that makes them to consider French as a strange language not related to their idiosincrasy but Philipinos hardly think that way and consider Wester culture as a strong component of their identity. That Marianas and Guam have a Spanish criole is new to me. I underestimated the influence of Spanish across the world, and that is strange considering I'm quite an Spanish fanatic. Spanish has a great future even in Asia, Deo gratia.

German is the native language of a very singular and of the by far most important and successful people in Europe.

AAHAHH!!! Yes they were incomparable to exterminate people

Learning German is visiting the source of modern western culture, philosophy and technology.

yes, and Italy, France, Great Britain or Greece obviously not....

You cannot understand Europe or the two Americas if you do not understand German.

Now, it is not enough Europe, even the two Americas... why not the entire universe...

Isn't the problem with German that many Germans just happen to speak English fairly well? Most Germans I've met were comfortable speaking English. Same goes for people from the Netherlands.

I think it's comparable to the Hindi language in that they both are important languages, but are not so important internationally because of the strong presence of English in those countries.

That is a good point!

People from Germany, France, Quebec, Austria and India speak English. So, you do not need to study French, German and Hindi. That is a waste of time because of the power of English language.

For instance, you can study Russian, Spanish or Chinese because in former USSR, China and Latin America English is not very spoken.

Iryna : « People from Germany, France, Quebec, Austria and India speak English. »

Je ne sais pas pour les autres pays, mais pour la France je t'assure que c'est une vue de l'esprit. En France, (très) peu de gens sont capables de s'exprimer en anglais.

most people who profess to speak English in those countries are horrible at it.

^ Not for many from Germany and India. Most Germans I've met in or out of Europe could speak decent or great English. I haven't met many Indians, but everyone I did could speak English well.

But it's very hard to understand Indian accent, particularly for native speakers who are not accustomed to foreign accents.