Did Somebody Say Language Book Collection?

These are photos of most of my language books and Rosetta Stone software that I have collected over the past 20 years. And yes, I wrote "most"... unbelievably I have a few more scattered about. Click on the picture and you should be able to read the titles. I am going to start reviewing a good chunk of these in the future, but ask me for a specific review if you have questions.

Scandinavian Languages: Dansk, Norsk og/och Svenska

Danes, Norwegians, and Swedes will probably all be pissed at me for lumping these languages in together, as they tend to concentrate on the differences to well... differentiate themselves from each other. For those of you wanting to learn a Scandinavian language, Norwegian is probably the best one to start with simply because it is a good medium. Danish and Norwegian look very similar in writing, but Norwegian actually sounds more Swedish. Weird huh? (Speaking of weird, most speakers seem to have an odd habit of breathing in quickly when affirming something. Confused? Just ask one, although they probably don't realize they do it).

On the other hand, Norwegian has two different standard dialects (among many regional dialects). The two are called Bokmål and Nynorsk. The first is primarily used in writing and the latter in speaking. Norwegian also uses the feminine gender for nouns in addition to masculine and feminine, whereas Swedish and Danish only use two: common and neuter. Basically, masculine and feminine combined equal the "common" gender. Maybe this is some type of hippy enlightenment to blur the sexes or actually serves a purpose, who knows? All this doesn't really matter nowadays since Norwegians have officially ruled, in 2005, that feminine nouns can be written as masculine nouns. So... yeah, now they have common and neuter like the other two languages, but don't want to classify it that way. See what I mean about wanting to be different? By the way, I studied Norwegian at Concordia College in Minnesota. Can you believe it? They actually taught Norwegian. I had studied Danish beforehand and went in to the professor's office there when I found out and asked him if I could skip to a more advanced level. He said yes. Oh, should mention, I held the whole conversation in Norwegian... that may of helped ;)

So, Danish. I remember when I was taking an orientation class before I did my exchange year in Germany, that there was this long-haired blond kid who was going to Denmark for a year. I asked him why he decided on Denmark and he said, "because Lars Ulrich is from there." Lars Ulrich, for the layman, is one of the best drummers in the world and has been the only drummer for Metallica. It's funny, I used to think old Lars had a speech impediment, it was then I learned, no, he's just Danish. Listening to Danish is both an exciting experience and also one of eyebrow raising amusement. It has the glottal stops of the Scottish dialects but, whereas and American can understand about 50% of what a Scotsman says, he/she won't understand a damn thing if it's Danish.

Oddly enough, even though I grew up in New England, I am fairly sure that Danish was the first real foreign language I had ever heard (French doesn't count). It must have been 1982, or so. I was in first grade waiting outside for my mother. Alongside me, waiting for her mom, was a very pretty blonde girl named Eva Shultz, who never, ever, ever spoke in class. Her mom shows up and Eva starts speaking with her in this frightfully odd tongue. I remember thinking to myself, "what on earth is that!"? It was doubly shocking, a) to hear her speak period and b) to hear the words that sounded like she was speaking with a hot potato in her mouth. When I got home, I told my parents about this unusual occurrence (another unusual occurrence was when I asked why my English friend Paul had a weird looking pee-pee; he wasn't circumcised. Yeah, yeah, I saw while peeing next to him, don't get any funny ideas). The 'rents explained to me that Eva was from Denmark and couldn't speak English, and THAT is why she never spoke in class. Ahhh, mystery solved. Eva, if you are out there, Skriv til mig! write me!

And then there is Swedish. Oh Ja! The meatballs, the borgi borgi Swedish Chef and of course the girls. Swedish is similar to the other two, but differs in sound and script (somewhat), as it sounds like people are sleepy and almost whiny when they talk, and the alphabet uses the umlaut (two dots) instead of the slash or ae combination. Swedes also seem to be more stuck up than the other two folks, but that could just be me. One good thing about Swedish learning is that you have a hefty supply of books IN SWEDISH at Ikea. No, I kid you not, I actually went in and bargained with the folks at Ikea to buy a book straight of their bookcase displays; got it for two bucks. Hey, why not? Beats paying shipping!

Just a bit of useless knowledge: The Norwegians and Swedes don't like each other much. This might have to do with the fact that the Swedes let the Nazis roll right over them into Norway. The (Minnesotan) Norwegians have a saying: 1,000 Swedes came out of the weeds, to kill on sick Norwegian. Ouch.

Prepare For a Speaking Test... Even When You Don't Have To

Cat got your tongue or your brain?

So, there I was in a job interview a couple of days ago. The job itself is not important, but the lesson is. Basically, I got caught with my language pants down. How?
Well, the job deals with being a subject matter expert and also knowing a foreign language. I won't give away the language but it is one I have studied a long time, but have not used in about a year. In the middle of the interview, one of the interviewers -a native speaker of the language - asks if he can take a moment and speak to me in front of everybody, in the target language. I didn't totally bomb, per se, but I could have done much, much better in our 5-minute conver-terrogation.

The problem was I simply hadn't prepared my mind and mouth. Usually when I take a spoken language test, I will talk to myself like a re-tard (think Hangover, the movie) that day and switch my brain over. Needless to say I was caught off guard and I felt somewhat foolish that I couldn't wow them with my lyrical Jesse James skills.

Here's a couple of bad scenarios for language tests:
- Anything over the phone, that sucks pond water
- The room is big and bright
- The tester is far away
- You have not imbibed any alcoholic beverages
- It is front of multiple people, whom you do not know
- They are using a tape recorder (I had that right in my face for an FBI job interview and all I had to do was speak English. Luckily it went well).

So, take this next piece of advice very seriously!

You should, no, no... you MUST not only know how to talk about your life story in the target language by heart, but you MUST also be able to talk about WHY you learned the language and every major detail about your learning process with it i.e. why you started studying, what books you read, what movies you have seen, what music you have listed to, grammar problems etc. And I don't mean just know the vocab and wing it, I mean you need to memorize and recite the stuff like it's going out of style.

Now, some may think that knowing how to ask for a train and be able to say "I have nothing to declare" is important, fine. But you won't be tested on it. In almost all conversational cases, the other person will be curious about why and how you learned their language and THIS will be the topic of conversation. Plop yourself in front of your computer (like you are now) and type the stuff out, and memorize it.

Once you have established that you can speak the language well it is much easier to feel relaxed for the rest of the conversation and your mind and mouth will be attuned. Amen.

Spanish - Español

Spanish. I can read it much better than speak it. This is a poor excuse considering all the opportunities there are to practice in the USA. It does seem, however, that just about every American knows at least some Spanish, and perhaps this is why it's hard for me to get motivated enough to really dive into Spanish as much as I should; it's just not that exotic. This, if not laziness, may explain why High School students in American can sum up 4 years of what they learned in Spanish class with mi tío está enfermo and una cerveza, por favor. Were practicality the deciding factor for those of us in the good ol' US of A about which language to study then Spanish would be número uno, especially in the law enforcement and medical professions. That aside, one thing that always dumbfounded me was the fact that in TV shows and movies, Spaniards or Latinos can have full-bore conversations in fluent English but can't seem to muster the English equivalent of "sí señor", but I digress.
Truth be told, I actually find Spanish to be más difícil than French, even though due to spelling and pronunciation French is classified as slightly harder to learn for English speakers (I don't know who classifies it this way, but it is general knowledge). I took French longer in school and had more motivation to learn French, but something just seems off with Spanish. For one, I get perplexed by the verbs estar and ser. Is it es or esta, estuve or estabe... or fue? I mean I know the difference, but in conversation I always find myself thinking too hard. En cualquier caso...

Motivation:
- Being able to understand 20% of the US population
- Soccer; gooooooooooooooool!!!
- Good looking women

Pros:
- Relatively easy
- An enormous amount of learning material is available
- Endless opportunities for immersion

Cons:
- Not very exotic
- They speak too damn fast
- Accent marks are a pain
- ¿Why the need for the punctuation sandwich?
- Somebody will always be able to call your bluff if you suck at speaking Spanish

Consejos:
- When speaking to an American (as in North, Central and South) speak the lispy Castilian Spanish; it may intimidate enough to gain that initial "Yes, I AM speaking the King's Spanish with you"... or it will make them laugh.
- Vice-versa when speaking to somebody from Spain. If you can't think of a word, make up a Spanish sounding word and say "Oh, it's what they taught us in school, you know that silly Mexican Spanish."
- If they catch you lying, say "mi tío está enfermo", sob quietly, then walk away.

Flemish/Dutch - Erik Hartman Boemerang

Watching foreign language YouTube videos is a great way to learn. You can see and hear what the clip is about, plus read comments about a clip that will most likely be in the colloquial form of the target language. You will also, undoubtedly, learn some good swear words as well. Here is some motivation for learning Dutch; understanding one of the funniest videos I have ever seen on YouTube. This one includes the English subtitles:

Dutch - Nederlands

Believe it or not Dutch is the language that most resembles English. Funny thing is, most English speakers have no clue about this. Dutch also holds the distinction of having a hard "R" sound as in English, and is considered by some to be even uglier sounding than English. This is due mainly to a guttural "G" sound, which is similar to "Ach" in German or Arabic's harsh KH sound.
Dutch is spoken not only in the Netherlands (Holland is not the official name, but a region) but in Belgium as well, where it is called Flemish or Vlaams in-country. I also found this odd, because Belgian Dutch, er... sorry, Flemish has a much softer loogie hawking "G" sound than Dutch. It's somewhat ironic that Flemish - think "phlegmish" - produces less phlegm than its counterpart.
Dutch is also spoken in Aruba (remember that pimpin' loser Joran van der Sloot?), Suriname, and serves as the base language for some other Pidgin languages in Africa. Another somewhat archaic form of Dutch is spoken in South Africa, where it is called Afrikaans. The two are similar, but nowhere near as close as Flemish and Dutch, which are practically the same language.
Some may wonder why Dutch is called Dutch in English, when they themselves call it Nederlands (meaning language of the low-country). This is most likely due to the German word Deutsch, which sounds like "dutch." This explains calling the Amish people Pennsylvania Dutch, when in fact they are German. I once spoke to some Amish people I met at a bus station in Cleveland, Ohio in German; their German was rather archaic sounding and not necessarily mutually understandable.

Motivation:
Simple, the Netherlands is home to the tallest people in the world, and some of the prettiest women. I have only been to Holland a couple of times; girls there are nice but a bit cold if they don't know you. If you speak German, the greatest motivation in learning is the simple fact that by knowing German and English you will know MANY Dutch words, plus the grammar will seem refreshingly easy compared to German's. while I would not consider myself fluent in Dutch, per se, I can read it and understand it pretty well. My last trip to Holland I picked up the original Anne Frank's Diary, which is called "Het Achterhuis." I always wanted to read the original, and I am happy to say it is not a difficult read in the original language.

Pros:
- It's basically German light
- Fun place to visit, although if you are inclined to smoke pot in Amsterdam, you will probably trip out when you hear the language.
- the Netherlands offers a boatload of books for foreign learners; they are really proud of their language.

Cons:
- Many Dutch people speak English, and many of those speak it better than you do. Damn them!
- German speakers will find a hard time with the way Dutch has its word order. It is closer to word order in English, but sounds wrong to my ears, which are more accustomed to German word order; strange, I know.
- Finding an abundant supply of Dutch learning books and CDs in the States could is tough, but like I said, they have a lot of good materials in The Netherlands.

Tips (same word in Dutch, see? Told ya it was close):
- If you don't know the gender, just say "de", most nouns take it. The other is "het", which is, unfortunately, hard to BS.


If you are just starting out, check out the dictionary I included for Dutch on the widgit wheel. And you might want to skip Teach Yourself Beginner's Dutch and go straight for this one:



Yes, I know I promote alot of "Teach Yourself Books", that is because in most cases, it is the best deal and most comprehensive. The "Colloquial" Language books are great too. In fact, I find the Colloquial Chinese, Japanese, Icelandic, and Persian/Farsi books and CDs to be better than their Teach Yourself counterparts, but they are usually a bit more expensive and harder to find. Here is the Dutch one:

Great Product: Focus on Contemporary Arabic by Shukri Abed

Ya... Arabic speaking dudes and dudettes, for those of you who have a good commmand of Arabic but feel like you just never get enough practice listening to how Arabs actually speak their dialect, this book is for you. All too often books you buy to learn Arabic revolve around Modern Standard Arabic i.e. how to speak like a newscaster. Instructional books on dialects always start from the bare bone basics and are boring. This is the one book that I keep turning back to. It features real conversations on numerous topics on a DVD that are literally transcribed in the book, and I mean literally; every ahhhh and uummmm is accounted for. The only thing that would make this better is a comprehensive lexicon at the back of the book and, most importantly, the option to convert the audio to an MP3 file to listen to on your ipod. No matter how long you have been studying Arabic, this book is worth picking up!

French - Le Français

Yes, my friends, despite our differences with the French, their language is here to stay as the premiere foreign language to learn. Hell, even the word premiere is derived from French (then again so is the word surrender). French is spoken and/or studied all over the world, from the eager high school student suffering no doubt from ennui to the most prestigious of world leaders. Having grown up relatively close to the Canadian border i.e. the Provence of Quebec, French was something one could often hear over the radio. Even the welcome sign of my New England state had Bienvenue au... welcome to... written on it under the English. In the spirit of trying to keep this blog more about the language and less about its history, it is important to note that many linguists of today consider French the epitome (another French word) of languages. That is to say, you can speak 10 languages natively as a Norwegian or as fluent as a Finn, but you will always be judged as a linguist by how well you speak your French. French is indeed the language of art, politique, commerce and snobbery.

My motivation:
French was the first foreign language I had ever been exposed to other than New Englandese: "Ayah, davey said a statey pull him ovah fah pahkin' in havid yahd. He was wicked stahtled when he snuck up behind him like a faht in tha wind, byjesus." The first foreign country I had ever visited was Montreal, Quebec, Canada. In our hotel, there was a parrot, which was "bilingual." He would say "aaak bonjour/hello, comment-allez vous, how are you aaaak!?" What more motivation could a little kid ask for?

Pros of learning French:
- If you know English, you already know a lot of French words.
- Just about every school offers French.
- French, along with Spanish, are really only the two languages you will find in your local bookstore's "Foreign Language" section.
- Speaking French will make you sound elegant even if you live in a Georgian double-wide (if you don't know what a double-wide is, chances are you speak French very well).
- It's the one of two MAYBE three languages you can select when watching DVD's (I really think German should be among them, but never is).


Cons:
- Due to the different accented marks and swallowed word endings, spelling is very, very difficult; makes English spelling look like making words plural in Indonesian (you just say it twice).
- It does not have many stressed words like other languages, and comprehending it can be tough.
- Uses a lot of "is-it-that-it-may-can be" structures, which seem excessive.
- Parisians will want to shoot you in the face with buck-shot if your pronunciation sucks.
- Learning it in school will force you to read Le Petit Prince. Eventually, you will study French In Action. In this story is the ever beautiful Mireille. She is gorgeous and you will never date her. Live with it; I have.

Trucs et Astuces, tips:
- As with other languages that have masculine and feminine articles, just say mumble out a "L". If you say it fast enough, people won't really notice. Besides, who cares?
- If you are grasping for a word from your English vocabulary, try saying the English word with a French accent, you never know it may just be correct, especially if it ends in -ion.
- If in Paris, do not attempt to speak louder thinking that they will understand you better. They will most likely take off their fancy, leather driving-gloves finger by finger and proceed to slap you with it.

If you don't use this already in school (and you can afford it), I strongly suggest:



You must also get the hardcover book as well:




There is a part two, which you will want, and there are also videos, which are hard to find. The workbook must be ordered separately, but I'd skip it; I hate workbooks. Namely because "work" is in the word, and work drains motivation.

If you can't afford the above, you can always start with:



I will review some other French goodies in later posts. D'accord?

Arabic اللغة العربية

If you ever thought learning Klingon would be cool, but then suddenly realized only dorks want to learn Klingon, Arabic may be for you. I started learning Arabic in 1997, and let me tell you it's a tough nut to crack. Arabic is spoken in about 20 countries and has just as many if not more dialects. Some dialects like the Gulf dialect are somewhat close to Modern Standard Arabic (MSA), which is used in official communication, TV News, taught in school etc., whereas other dialects such as Moroccan or مغربي is so different that native speakers of one country will have a very difficult time understanding them. It's like billy bob from Mudlick, Kentucky trying to listen to somebody from the highlands of Scotland, only worse. A problem I ran into with dialects when I was learning, was that the teachers of various Arabic speaking countries weren't used to speaking proper MSA and would therefore often slip into English because it felt more comfortable to them. Nevertheless, Arabic is a very important language to learn these days, especially if you want to work in the oil industry or for DoD, State Department and so forth. If you are going to go with a dialect start with Egyptian first. It is the most widely spoken.

My motivation:
Initially my motivation was a woman I had met. I was a waiter and she was one of the scientists I was waiting on. Whether it was my quirky behavior or my devilishly good looks I am not sure, but she took an instant liking to me. I ended up enlisting in the Navy to be a linguist, and was probably the only person to walk into the recruiters office and proclaim, "I want to learn Arabic." Nobody else really wanted Arabic, they wanted Japanese or German. What they got, once arriving at the language school in Monterey, CA, was Korean, Arabic or Russian. For those who flunked out of Arabic they were given what was referred to as Arabic-lite aka Persian/Farsi. After graduating from the language school, I went on to learn intelligence application in Texas, and from there went on to work for a DoD customer. When my enlistment was up, I was stop-lossed as were many others due to the horrific events of 9/11 (and no, none of us whined like the dude who was responsible for the Hollywood flop of the same name "Stop-loss"). Despite the numerous times I cursed the language and the camel it rode in on, I am glad I learned it.

Pros:
- A lot of teaching materials have come out in the past ten years for English speakers.
- Speaking any amount of Arabic will delight a native speaker, who will be pleased you took the time to learn some. By the way, in my experience if you are light skinned they may assume you are from Lebanon or Jordan.
- Learning Arabic will help you in learning Aramaic and Hebrew, both of which are based off of the three letter root system; words derived from three root letters such as K-T-B, i.e. to write or he wrote.
- Grammar is relatively easy, especially for those speaking عامية; everyday dialects. They have one word for the, ال and word order is similar to English i.e. subject-verb-object.

Cons:
- Extremely hard for people, who are used to studying Indo-European languages.
- The dialects really make it tough.
- Most dictionaries make you look up words by the root instead of alphabetically. This can be tricky at first.
- Finding Arabic rock music is almost non-existent, as well as good-quality movies in MSA.
- Plurals can be very tricky, as you don't just add an "s" or "en" at the end.
- Even the best English to Arabic dictionaries seem to really suck.
- Subtle differences between hard H and soft h, hard S and soft s, hard T and soft t etc. can get annoying after awhile.

Tips:
- Unless you are super motivated, take a class first. I have yet to meet anybody who learned Arabic on their own.
- Use the word ya"ni يعني a lot when needing to grasp for a word; similar to also in German.
- Most Arabic bookstores have English language classic that are in English on one page and Arabic on the other; dual-language books. This is a big help, although the quality of the book isn't always stellar.

If you are just starting out I suggest:

Dschinghis khan - Moskau: The Youtube Sensation in German with English Translation

So, above is the video of probably one of the most WTF videos I have seen that is so bad it's good. I provided the German to English translation for those who don't understand German... Hey, what are language dudes for?! Ho ho ho ho, hey!



Moskau
Fremd und geheimnisvoll
Türme aus rotem Gold
Kalt wie das Eis

Moscow
Foreign and secretive
Towers of red and gold
Cold as ice

Moskau
Doch wer dich wirklich kennt
Der weiß, ein Feuer brennt
In dir so heiß

Moscow
Those who really know you
They know a fire is burning
In you so hot

Kosaken hey hey hey hebt die Gläser
Natascha ha ha ha du bist schön
Towarisch hey hey hey auf das Leben
Auf Dein Wohl Bruder hey Bruder ho

Kosaken hey hey hey lift your glasses
Natasha ha ha ha you are pretty
Friend hey hey hey drink to your health
Cheers brother hey brother ho

Moskau, Moskau
Wirf die Gläser an die Wand
Russland ist ein schönes Land
Ho ho ho ho ho, hey

Moscow, Moscow
Throw your glasses at the wall
Russia is a beautiful country
Ho ho ho ho ho, hey

Moskau, Moskau
Deine Seele ist so groß
Nachts da ist der Teufel los
Ha ha ha ha ha, hey

Moscow, Moscow
Your spirit is so large
At night the devil is on the loose
Ha ha ha ha ha, hey

Moskau, Moskau
Liebe schmeckt wie Kaviar
Mädchen sind zum küssen da
Ho ho ho ho ho, hey

Moscow, Moscow
Love tastes like caviar
Girls are for kissing there
Ho ho ho ho ho, hey

Moskau, Moskau
Komm wir tanzen auf dem Tisch
Bis der Tisch zusammenbricht
Ha ha ha ha ha

Moscow, Moscow
Come we’re dancing on the table
Until the table breaks in half
Ha ha ha ha ha

Moskau
Tor zur Vergangenheit
Spiegel der Zarenzeit
Rot wie das Blut

Moscow
Door to the past
A mirror of the czarist times
Red like blood

Moskau
Wer deine Seele kennt
Der weiß, die Liebe brennt
Heiß wie die Glut

Moscow
One who knows your spirit
He knows the love is burning
Hot like embers

Kosaken hey hey hey hebt die Gläser
Natascha ha ha ha du bist schön
Towarisch hey hey hey auf die Liebe
Auf Dein Wohl Mädchen hey Mädchen ho

Kosaken hey hey hey lift your glasses
Natasha ha ha ha you are pretty
Friend hey hey hey drink to your health
Cheers brother hey brother ho

Moskau, Moskau
Wirf die Gläser an die Wand
Russland ist ein schönes Land
Ho ho ho ho ho, hey

Moscow,Moscow
Throw your glasses at the wall
Russia is a beautiful country
Ho ho ho ho ho, hey

Moskau, Moskau
Deine Seele ist so groß
Nachts da ist der Teufel los
Ha ha ha ha ha, hey

Moscow,Moscow
Your spirit is so large
At night the devil is on the loose
Ha ha ha ha ha, hey

Moskau
Lala lala lala la, lala lala lala la
Ho ho ho ho ho, hey
Moskau, Moskau Lala lala lala la, lala lala lala la
Ha ha ha ha ha
Oh, oh oh oh oh, oh oh oh oh, oh oh oh
Moskau, Moskau

Moscow
Lala lala lala la, lala lala lala la
Ho ho ho ho ho, hey
Moscow, Moscow Lala lala lala la, lala lala lala la
Ha ha ha ha ha
Oh, oh oh oh oh, oh oh oh oh, oh oh oh
Moscow, Moscow


Moskau, Moskau
Wodka trinkt man pur und kalt
Das macht hundert Jahre alt
ha ha ha ha ha, hey

Moscow, Moscow
One drinks Vodka pure and cold
That makes (it) 100 years old
Ha ha ha ha ha, hey

Moskau, Moskau
Väterchen dein Glas ist leer
Doch im Keller ist noch mehr
Ha ha ha ha ha

Moscow, Moscow
Little father your glass is empty
But in the cellar there is more
Ha ha ha ha ha

Moskau, Moskau
Liebe schmeckt wie Kaviar
Mädchen sind zum küssen da
Ha ha ha ha ha

Moscow,Moscow
Love tastes like caviar
Girls are for kissing there
Ho ho ho ho ho, hey

Moskau, Moskau
Komm wir tanzen auf dem Tisch
Bis der Tisch zusammenbricht
Ha ha ha ha ha, hey!

Moscow,Moscow
Come we’re dancing on the table
Until the table breaks in half
Ha ha ha ha ha, hey!

Learning German, Deutsch Lernen!!!

Ja!!! The cool thing about German is that no matter what you say, you sound pissed off. Now, this isn't always the case, but, well... ok, it is. German is probably my best foreign language. I used to live in Germany and I loved it, the people, and the language.German is an important language for business, technology, skiing and beer. Did I mention beer?I am into generalizing (sue me PC people), and the best way to generalize a language's cultural proclivities is by what phrase most people know. In German it's probably "Ein Bier bitte" or "Sprechen Sie Deutsch" (the latter being lame, I admit). In French, most people know "voulez-vous couchez avec moi ce soir" do you want to sleep with me tonight? So there, I rest my case.German is spoken in as an official language in Germany (with many accents), Austria, parts of Switzerland (I guess you'd call it German), parts of Luxembourg and Belgium, and a host of other nations as a second language.My motivation for learning German:German was never offered to us in High School. We had only French, Spanish and Latin to choose from. For this reason German seemed very exotic when I'd see it written on old alpine ski pins my grandmother had kept. I will admit that there was a girl involved, who initially sparked my interest and served as a muse to learn the language. One day I signed up and applied for a Youth For Understanding exchange year, the next thing I knew I was on a plane headed to Germany to live one year with a German host family. I spent many hours studying and tried to learn about 25 to 30 new words a day in addition to ones I would just pick up subconsciously. It took about 6 months before I felt comfortably fluent in the language. There is simply no better way to learn a language than to be immersed in it 100%.

Pros for Deutsch Lernen:
- Offered at many schools.
- Many family members may know some German. Hell, it missed becoming the official language of the USA by one vote.
- The spelling and pronunciation is straightforward.
- Lovers of World War history and pretty women will find some good motivation to learn it.

Cons:
- Grammar is a real pain in the Arsch. German, Icelandic and Faeroese have retained case endings and declension. Trust me, it's a pain.
- Verbs often come at the end of a sentence and make it wicked hard (yes, originally from New England) to interpret. Example, the first sentence I learned in German (I think) was "Jetzt muss ich zum Studentenwohnheim gehen." meaning literally "Now must I to the dormitory go."
- The umlaut Ü sound can be tricky.
- Rolled R's in the back of the throat can be tough, I still have trouble with the verb that means to repair, which is reparieren lassen. Most natives pronounce it quickly like "prie'en lassen", I do the same.

Hinweisungen (Tips):
- If you don't know the gender of a noun, just mumble something that sounds like "Duh". This way it could sound like der or die and to a much lesser extent like das.
- ANYTHING ending in -ung is always feminine, so use die or eine. If you you still say das Regierung, sorry but you suck.
- Use the term also (al-zo) a lot when trying to grasp for a word. It's somewhat akin to saying umm... I went to school with a fellow that said also so much I kept a tab sheet on how many times he said it in one day. It was about 110 times. Ach Du Liebe!!


For beginners, I'd buy the following and make sure to use the CDs either in your car or convert them to mp3's for your ipod:




If you have already had some German, go with this (see below), read Der Spiegel, and download Deutsche Welle Podcasts on itunes (or what have you):

Speaking English As a Native Language, Pros and Cons

If you are reading this, congratulations! You speak (read) one of the most widely spoken languages in the history of the world. It is the lingua franca of the modern world due to its many influences thanks to Great Britain during the British Empire, and the United States attaining superpower status following World War 2. To date, it is spoken by up to 1.8 billion people as either a first or second language. This, unfortunately, can be somewhat traurig for native speakers of English, who are dealt a blow when it comes to incentives to learn foreign languages.

What to you call a person who speaks two languages?
Answer: Bilingual

What do you call somebody who speaks only one?
Answer: British

Pros for English learners:
- You are never without access to hearing English, thanks to movies, TV, music, and just about everything else.
- Grammar is relatively simple. Being that it is a Germanic language, English is unique in that it doesn't require different forms for a definite or indefinite article, only "the", "a" or "an". German on the other hand has: der, die, das, dem, den, des, dessen, deren, ein, eine, einer etc..
- There are many people to practice with.

Cons for English learners:
- Many, many words. In fact, the largest vocabulary of any language.
- Due to influx of said languages, English can be quite a pain to spell. Hence, the spelling bee. I am quite sure easily spelled German has few if any spelling bee competitions.
- The harsh "R" sound can be tough, except for say the Dutch, who also have a similar sound in their language.
- One hears the language so frequently that English loses some exotic luster and therefore may lessen motivation to learn. I liken this to learning Spanish in the United States.

Welcome

Whatever your reason for learning a foreign language, be it to pass a class, get by in a foreign country, eavesdrop on your neighbors, or to impress a girl (or guy), you should be commended. Language learning is a very difficult endeavor, but is also a hell of a lot of fun. The most IMPORTANT thing, and I cannot stress it enough, is to be MOTIVATED. You simply HAVE to want to learn it, if you are teaching yourself especially, or you never will. I will mention motivation a lot! MOTIVATION! See?
Over the course of the next few days, months and hopefully years, I hope to give some tips on how to study smartly and how to stay motivated. I also hope to gain valuable insight by contributions from other cunning linguists. Speaking of which, if you didn't catch that play on words, then you may be a linguist, but not a cunning one yet. Don't worry we'll get you there!