The “Awful German Language” or "Deutsche Sprache – schwere Sprache"

“Deutsche Sprache schwere sprache” (German language – hard language) is probably the most common saying exchange students in Germany hear. People always talk about Chinese and Finish being difficult, and don’t get me wrong, they both are, but I don’t think German gets enough credit.

With four cases (nominative,dative, genitive, and accusative), four extra letters (ä, ö, ü, ß), 16 ways to say “the,” and words so long they take up more than one line, German can be really difficult. And that’s just the beginning. German also has 12 different categories for plurals, plus exceptions (as compared to English’s "add s”) and every noun has a gender. People say, “English and German are from the same language family, so that means it must not be difficult to learn German when English is your first language.” Wrong. Not only do the English and German letters have different sounds (for example, “e” and “i" are switched making it difficult to spell without being confused), but as my Sweedish friend once said, “Speaking German with Sweedish as your first language is hard enough, but when English is your first language it’s downright impossible.”

Because German and English both have Germanic roots, the two languages have a lot of similar words… that being said, the words don’t have a lot of similar meanings.

German Word	Sounds/Looks like (in English)…	Meaning (in English)
Pony	Sounds/looks like “pony”	Bangs
Will	Sounds/looks like “will”	To want
Geschmack	Sounds like “schmuck”	Flavor
Menschen	Sounds like “mention”	People
War	Looks like “war”	I/He/She was
Hell	Sounds/looks like “hell”	Light
Damit	Looks like “damit”	With it/With that
Ei	Sounds like “eye”	Egg
Eis	Sounds like “ice”	Ice cream
Foul	Sounds/looks like “foul”	Lazy
Tag	Looks like “tag”	Day
Einfacht	Sounds like “in fact”	Simply
Were	Sounds like “where”	Who
Hausarrest	Sounds like “House arrest”	Grounded
Collegeblock	Sounds/looks like “college block”	Writing Pad
Chef	Sounds/looks like “Chef”	Boss
Portemonnaie Dick	Sounds like “pot money” Sounds/looks like "dick"	Wallet Fat

German also has ‘unique’ names. For example John is “Johannes.” Last week I was talking to a friend and we were trying to remember the last pope’s name, after a moment at the same time I excitedly said, “John Paul” while he said (what sounded like) “Johannes Paule!”

All that being said, German words are almost always spelled just like they sound (assuming you know the German alphabet) and no student of German has ever had to learn “i before e except afer c and in words that rhyme with…’

But I’m not really allowed to talk, English has 1,100 different ways to spell its 44 separate sounds, more than any other language.