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):