I've been thinking of picking up a new language now for a while. English is my native and currently only language I know. I'm thinking of picking up German as I like the sound of the language. Would it be a difficult language for me to pick up?

Would you be learning it for leisure alone? It's probably one of the most useless languages you could learn for practical use.

I think as far as pronunciation goes--barring http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sSVa2UNhOjU (unless you can do a trill, uvular, or guttural R already [for the first, think of the "r" sound in Spanish] and thehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pCrNZRJHK7o])--, it should be easier to take to in some aspects than a lot of other languages. The main things an average English speaker may have to worry about would be:

- Compounding. Germans love compounding, so knowing your vocabulary and root words is very necessary to gain a greater understanding of bigger words you'll see.

- Syllable stress. German, from what I've seen, can be tricky when it comes to knowing where to put the stress on a syllable, similarly to English. There is no set pattern from what I can garner. By contrast, Italian has more or less a pattern--you almost always know that unless there's an exception, you put the stress on the second to last syllable of a word (la nonna, il babbo, etc.). When I was trying to learn German a few years back, I always tripped up on that, personally, 'cause I was used to the pattern in Italian and a relative pattern in Spanish (though that can just be from usage as a kid). When I saw the phrase "guten abend," I would think, "guten ah-bend, not guten ah-bend, for example. But that could just me me.

- Also, get used to cases. Lots and lots of cases. Feminine and masculine and neutral nouns and such, as well as articles (the, an). You use a different 'the' depending on gender as well as if the thing in question is the subject or object of the sentence, to give you an idea. It can get frustrating to a native English speaker since there isn't--from what I can see--a pattern as there is in other more fusional languages. Though a native or fluent German speaker might be able to correct me, there don't seem to be hints in the words as to what gender they are. I'm used to Spanish and Italian (though I have only taken very limited amounts of Italian), where you know--with few exceptions--that a singular word ending in 'a' is female, and a singular word ending in 'o' or 'e' is male.

I'm going back and forth between whether to take German in school, myself, since I find it fascinating and it sounds pretty nice. So, good luck! It's worth it.

I happen tl be German and don't care for your comment.

Now, having said that, I took three years of German in school and I remember very little of it. I would like to take it up again someday as I'd love to learn the language of my heritage.

Not to mention that depending on where you are, it's also incorrect. For example, in my state, many big German corporations are moving in to have an extra footing for their North American divisions. Because of that, my state is looking for lots of German translators to help bolster relations between the two. Yes, a lot of Germans learn English and other languages in school, but that doesn't mean that German is impractical by any means--especially looking at Germany's influence in Europe.

Japanese would probably be more practical for watching their crazy game shows, and Russian is apparently one of the hardest languages to learn, but at the end of the day if your not interested you probably won't end up learning it so go ahead and learn German.

I tried learning the Australian Aboriginal language of my heritage, but then we moved and there aren't really any resources aside from word of mouth on most of those languages.

Well for now it may be lesiure but when I go to college if they require I learn a language that is the one I'm thinking about. I live in Florida, USA so the most useful second language for me would actually be Spanish. But I have taken Spanish in middle school and I didnt like it too much. The good thing is though there does seem to be a bit of European / Russian (and other fractured USSR country origined) population here.

I have started to pick up some (and by that I mean very little) of German as one of my favorite bands is Rammstein and I have started studying their songs translated. I do see a bit of where I may have trouble with the language though as one of their songs Du Hast (You Have) I used to think was Du Hass (you hate) ( I had it burnt on a cd so did not know how it was spelled) which obviously completely changed the meaning of the song and what I thought of it.