Teach English in Woniuhe Zhen - Hulunbei'er Shi — Hulunbuir

In spite of the fact that both English and German are sprouted from the same language family, the differences, in grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation, and content are significant. It is a difficult task for a German speaker to learn English, though perhaps even more so, vice versa. My husband is German, and had to learn English as he grew up; he perfected it when he moved to the United States, with the help of ESL classes. I am learning in the opposite direction; we recently moved from the States to Germany, and I am in the midst of the harrowing process of studying German. We compare notes, sometimes, of the frustrations of learning each language, laugh at the idiosyncrasies of each, and at the confusion sometimes caused by translation. While there are difficulties found in each area of learning English, for a German—vocabulary, pronunciation, alphabet, and grammar—the most vastly different of these categories is grammar. While Germans are used to using only six verb tenses, in English, there are twelve main tenses to learn. As an example of the challenges this might create for an ESL student, in German there is no continuous tense; whereas a German might say (translated into English): “I write an essay,” they must learn, in English, that it is generally more appropriate to say, “I am writing an essay.” Germans also typically use the present simple to discuss the future; while a German student might say, again translated, “I finish the essay tomorrow,” they must be corrected to say, in English, “I will finish the essay tomorrow.” Then there is sentence structure. The German language has rules such as: the main verb is the second element in an independent clause; the past participle is the last element in a dependent clause; and, the main verb is the last element in the subordinate clause—enough to make an English speaker learning German shake their head. Of course English learners are not scot-free, but the rules of English sentence structure do tend to be a bit more relaxed. German students of English can also drop the inflections they are used to—prepositions, pronouns, adjectives, and most parts of speech change according to how they are used in a sentence in German, while in English they keep the same form. Similarly, English uses one form of its definite article “the.” In German, “the” can be masculine, feminine, or neuter (and the gender is often not self-evident); it can be singular or plural; and it can be nominative, dative, accusative, or genitive. When learning English, there is no seemingly arbitrary assignation of the male gender to a cabbage, it is simply “the cabbage,” which should be a relief to any student of English. Due to coming from the same language family, German and English do have a number of cognates in their vocabularies, such as perfect/perfekt or banana/banane. Some of these twin words are false, however, and can be misleading, for example—chef, in German, means “boss,” not a cook. And Kittchen is a prison, not a room for cooking (though this may not always be a false cognate). As in any language, there are differences in nuances of word meanings that can cause confusion, or worse—for example, German uses the relatively cut and dry terms Mann (man) and Frau (woman) for “husband” and “wife,” and Freunde (friend), with a gender-specific ending, to indicate “boyfriend” or “girlfriend.” As far as the alphabet and pronunciation—German has a few sounds that English does not, including the umlauted letters—ü, ä, and ö, and the scharfes, ß. English, conversely, has “w” (м), “ch” (ʧ), and “th,” (θ) sounds not used in German. While “ch” is relatively easy for most Germans to adapt to, “th” can be problematic for many; also, German students of English notoriously overuse the “w” sound, saying words like “wery,” and “wegetables.” Perhaps the hardest thing for a German student to learn, though, is content. Even though my husband has been fluent in both German and English for most of his life, he often has a difficult time translating from one to the other, due to the different ways each language is used to express certain subjects, particularly those revolving around emotions. Trying to use American sensitivities to express condolences to a German cousin, he found he simply couldn’t—German lacked the appropriate sense of emotion. Similarly, Germans have little familiarity with the convention of small talk—trying to coerce a German into talking about nothing for a few minutes before any longer conversation can begin, can be a laughable task. German is a generally a very blunt language; they can get frustrated with the niceties that take up so much conversation time in the United States and in many other countries. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, in Dr. Faustus, wrote that, “When one is polite in German, one lies.” While this may be a caricaturization of the language, there is a basis of truth in it—Germans tend not to beat around the bush. German is generally considered to be a more logical and consistent language than English. There are many idiosyncratic spellings in English, and numerous quirks of grammar that a German speaker must get used to, not to mention a much larger vocabulary. German students have an advantage in learning English though, that many speakers of other languages do not, because of the historical affinity between the two languages. Regardless, learning English is not an easy task for anyone, and English teachers have much to be aware of when teaching German students.