Learning German

Learning German (Deutsch) would be an essential task even if the course of study is English. German language skills help not only to melt in the German Culture pot but also to improve job prospects here. Here is some information flow about the language and its skills acquirement:

About the language

The German dialect continuum is traditionally divided most broadly into High German and Low German. With 26 Standard English letters it consists of three vowels with umlauts (Ä/ä, Ö/ö, and Ü/ü) and the letter ß. German vocabulary could be actually countless, with the number of word combinations that can be formed. The longest German word that is published is "Donaudampfschiffahrtselektrizitätenhauptbetriebswerkbauunterbeamtengesellschaft", which is made up of 79 characters. Since legibility and convenience set certain boundaries, compounds consisting of more than three or four nouns are almost exclusively found in humorous contexts. Along with its core vocabulary it has few words from other languages such as Latin, Italian, French and English. Well, words have been adopted from the language too. For example, English has adopted words like angst, blitz, fest, etc. from German language. German texts are easily recognizable by its distinguishing features of umlauts and certain ortho-graphical features such as capitalizing the nouns. As far as literature is concerned Germany has a list of well-known poets and authors such as Lessing, Goethe, Schiller, Kleist, Hoffmann, Brecht, Heine and Schmidt.

Learning the language

There are University courses offered in order to learn this language while taking up an International study program. Apart from this there are several language training institutes offering the language courses, such as VFS, Goethe, Sprachzentrum, etc. Generally, every University will also have their own language learning academy. There are 6 levels while learning German: A1, A2, B1, B2, C1, and C2. Apart from these there are other examinations such as TestDaF, GDS, etc. The minimum language requirement for job is considered to be B1. But, I believe if you can speak and understand German then you can manage a job irrespective of which levels have you reached.

Resources at help

Websites

http://www.mein-deutschbuch.de/index.php?site=home

http://www.livemocha.com/learn-german

Apps

Babbel

Duolingo

Memrise

Pukka German podcasts

Book

Learn German with a Story: Welcome to Switzerland, Stephan Wiesner

Learn German, Nicole Irving

Barron's learn German, Deutsch, the fast and fun way, Paul G. Graves

Learn German in a Hurry: Grasp the Basics of German Schnell! (Google eBook), Edward Swick

Video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=urQYFFMIVJs&list=PL5C7D58D38FADABDE