The Continuing Importance of German on the World Stage

Reference & EducationLanguage

  • Author Jacob Lumbroso
  • Published May 2, 2008
  • Word count 498

Learning German can be a very useful skill. Germany stands as the fourth largest economy in the world and the economic powerhouse of Europe. Germany is known for its manufacturing prowess and its exports continue to buttress the importance of German. German is spoken by more than a 100 million native speakers and by up to an additional 80 million non-native speakers.

German can open doors to employment in a variety of occupations such as in manufacturing, teaching, translation, interpreting, and the growing travel industry. In the United States it can also lead to an increase rapport with German contacts in companies abroad. Learning German greatly improves your chances of success in job market. Learning German can be an entertaining task, as well as an important one.

Most Germans speak English, but even if you're just a casual traveler, learning it can also be beneficial since a little German can go a long way on making a good impression on your hosts or German friends. Studying German to order food, communicate with locals and talk with taxi drivers will enhance the experience of your travels significantly.

Studying German is one step to joining the ranks of the business elite oriented toward the growing German market. German is one of the great languages of the world. Outside of Europe and the republics of the former Soviet Union, large German-speaking communities are found in the United States, Canada, and Brazil and in Argentina. German-speaking communities are also found in Namibia an in lesser numbers in Mexico, Dominican Republic, Paraguay, Uruguay, Chile, Peru, Venezuela, South Africa, and Australia.

German can however be a difficult language to learn for many people and there is no single method can insure that a reasonable proficiency will be achieved without an adequate investment of time. So it's important to vary your resources to insure that you maximize your language learning experience. Learning German can be a more complicated language to learn for most English speakers in contrast to say Spanish.

Choosing the right course is of course critical and that can make learning the language a relative cake walk or much more difficult. Much importance should be given to the accent and pronunciations while learning German.

Studying German doesn't require expensive personal tutors. So you want to be careful not to end up paying more money than is necessary. It is an ongoing and involved process. While you can't learn the language overnight, you can find resources that may give you an edge time wise and simply the amount of effort you exert.

A critical challenge to remember is that of vocabulary. Having used various books and courses to learn to read various foreign languages I found several to be of benefit. The most valuable ones were those who made sure to present new vocabulary first. Then a short story utilizing this new vocabulary in conjunction with previously learned vocabulary was presented. In terms of audio or conversational only programs, a variety of excellent courses are available.

Jacob Lumbroso is a world traveler. He writes articles on history and languages for http://www.ultimatelanguagestore.com and has used Pimsleur courses to learn various languages.

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