For 16 compelling reasons to study German, please see below.
16 REASONS FOR LEARNING GERMAN
German is not as hard as you think.
German and English share many similar structures. Also, many words in German sound or look the same as equivalent English words, because the two languages are “sister languages.” For example, look at these words: Haus = house, Buch = book, Finger = finger, Hand = hand, Name = name, Mutter = mother, schwimmen = to swim, singen = to sing, kommen = to come, blau = blue, alt = old, windig = windy.
Colleges are looking for diversity. With German as your foreign language, you stand out and have an edge over other students with similar ranking.
German has the largest number of native speakers in the European Union (far more than English, Spanish, or French). And as for “all Germans speak English anyway”? That’s a myth.
German is among the ten most commonly spoken languages in the world. It is also a lingua franca of Central and Eastern Europe.
Germans form the largest single heritage group in the U.S.
The German economy ranks number one in Europe and number four worldwide. Its economy is comparable to that of all the world’s Spanish-speaking countries combined.
Germany is the world’s second-largest exporter.
Germany is home to numerous international corporations. Many German companies have business units in the United States.
Knowing German creates employment opportunities.
Direct investment by Germany in the United States is over ten billion dollars.
Germans are world leaders in science and engineering.
German is the second most commonly used scientific language in the world.
92 Nobel Prizes and counting! 22 Nobel Prizes in Physics, 30 in Chemistry, and 25 in Medicine have gone to scientists from the three major German-speaking countries, while many laureates from other countries received their training in German universities. 11 Nobel Prizes in Literature have been awarded to German-language writers, and 7 Germans and Austrians have received the Nobel Peace Prize.
Many of the Western world’s most important works of philosophy, literature, music, art history, theology, psychology, chemistry, physics, engineering and medicine are written in German and continue to be produced in German.
German is the language of (take a breath) Arendt, Bach, Beethoven, Bonhoeffer, Brahms, Brecht, Buber, Einstein, Freud, Goethe, Grass, Hegel, Heidegger, Heisenberg, Kafka, Kant, Mahler, Mann, Marx, Mozart, Nietzsche, Planck, Schoenberg, Schubert, Schumann, Wagner, Weber, and hundreds more great philosophers, writers, artists, scientists, and composers. But these days it’s also the language of choice for writers, filmmakers and thinkers from a wide array of cultural backgrounds, such as Yoko Tawada, Zsuzsanna Gahse, Terézia Mora, Michael Stavarič and Melinda Nadj Abonji. German isn’t just for “Germans” any more (but actually it never was).