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Please log in with your username or email to continue. By using our site, you agree to our cookie policy. How is where trusted research and expert knowledge come together. This article was co-authored by Language Academia.

Language Academia is a private, online language school founded by Kordilia Foxstone. Kordilia and her team specialize in teaching foreign languages and accent reduction. Language Academia offers courses in several languages, including English, Spanish, and Mandarin. There are 9 references cited in this article, which can be found at the bottom of the page. How marks an article as reader-approved once it receives enough positive feedback. This article has been viewed 805,517 times. No language is easy, but if you really want to learn German, you can.

German is a logical language with orderly syntax and few foreign words adopted into its vocabulary. German belongs to the West Germanic family of languages as well as English, Afrikaans, and Dutch. German and English are closely related and with a little effort and time you can learn German too! Read below for some helpful guidelines to learning the language. Start with learning the vowels and consonants. The vowels and consonants sound different in German than they do in English.

Learn these sounds first so that you will have an easier time learning words and pronouncing them correctly. Pay attention to how vowels sound alone, versus how they sound when they are used in conjunction. Much like English, two vowels together sound very different than either of them alone. Similarly, the consonants can sound very different when used in certainly places in a word or when used in conjunction. Learn these variations so that you can pronounce words correctly. Don’t forget that German has a few extra letters that are not present in English.

You will need to learn these, as well as how they’re pronounced, if you want to understand and be understood. Learn the most basic words so that you have a starting framework in which to place the nouns, verbs, and adjectives you will learn later. It is also important to learn some basic words before traveling to Germany or trying to talk to any Germans. Get a basic idea of how sentences are constructed. This will not be too difficult, as German is very similar to English in this way.

There are slight variances but you can learn some now and will learn the more complex ones with time. Germans will generally be able to understand what you are trying to say, even if you get the word order wrong. Pronunciation goes much further towards being understood, so worry about that much more in the beginning. Once you have a basic framework with which to learn and use the language, you will want to start learning words. Nouns are a great place to start. Try to start with the most basic and necessary nouns, the sorts of things and people that you would see and use every day.