Learning Business German

By Anna Sobell and Irene Hill

Where is German commonly spoken?

German is the most widely spoken language within the EU. It is the official language in Germany, Austria and Lichtenstein, as well as being one of the official languages of Switzerland and Luxembourg.

A little more surprising is that German is also spoken in the province of Bolzano-Bozen in Northern Italy, parts of Belgium, Eastern Europe as well as North and South America, South Africa and Namibia!

How many speakers are there worldwide?

It’s estimated there are currently around 95 million native German speakers in the world today, combined with 75 to 100 million speakers of German as a foreign language makes a whopping 175-220 million speakers worldwide. Think about all those new connections you could make if only you spoke a bit of Deutsch!

If you want to improve your German language skills for business, find out about our business language training courses.

What difficulties typically arise for learners?

As with any language, there are a handful of aspects of the language that learners tend to struggle with. Let’s take a look:

1. Which ‘the’ is the best ‘the’?!

With 4 cases, 3 genders and the plural, that makes a grand total of 16 possible ways to say ‘the’! On top of that, some prepositions actually change how ‘the’ is expressed too. So, clearly this makes mastering German somewhat of a challenge at first! The plus side is that there are lots of handy rules to memorise to help you along the way.

2. Gender

To further add to the difficulties above, the 3 different genders to choose from can also change the meaning of a noun; so extra care is needed! For example:

Die See = the sea

Der See = the lake

Nouns with 2 genders are actually quite rare, so don’t worry, and there are plenty of rules that will help you to decide which gender to use.

3. Looooooooong words!

The German language is full of compound nouns; these are nouns made up of other nouns, all resulting in very long words which can be difficult to remember, spell, use and understand. For example:

Donaudampfschiffahrtgesellschaftskapitan = the captain of a steamship on the Danube

A good tip here is to break the compound nouns down into single nouns, identify the ones you know and then try to guess the others from context.

4. False friends

The nemesis of all language learners: the dreaded ‘false friend’! As English and German are related, there are a number of these enemies to watch out for. Here are just a few:

Word

Chef
Bald
Gift

English Meaning

Cooks in a kitchen
Person without a full head of hair
present

German Meaning

Boss
Soon
Poison

On the flip side, since English and German are related, there are very many ‘friendly friends’(!), i.e. words that are very similar or come from the same origin. This makes German a lot easier to learn then, say, Chinese. See examples below:

German

Haus
Mutter
Zucker
Schule

English

House
Mother
Sugar
School

5. To be formal, or informal: that is the question.

As with many languages, there is a formal and informal version of ‘you’. ‘Du’ is used informally, and ‘Sie’ formally. The best way to deal with it? Use the formal version when you first meet someone and revert to the informal once they say it’s ok to! This is especially important when doing business in Germany: always use the formal ‘Sie’!

The formal ‘Sie’ is actually easier to use, so good news for beginners! Even native speakers sometimes find it hard to get this right, so don’t lose any sleep over it!

6. 2 words:

Word. Order. This is one of the trickiest hurdles to handle when learning German; especially problematic for native English speakers. However, practice, persevere and persist! It’s a bit like driving on the ‘wrong’ side of the road – you’ll soon get used to it!

7. Opportunity to practise!

Funnily enough, one of the issues German language learners come across is actually being able to find someone to practise with, especially if you’re in Germany. This is because many Germans have excellent English skills, and they are always most keen to practise their English!

Languages within languages within languages, AKA: dialects!

There are some German dialects that even native German speakers struggle with, so don’t be surprised if you don’t understand a word a Bavarian says! However, don’t panic too much because ‘Hochdeutsch’, standard German, is used in business, and all Germans should be able to speak it.

On the plus side:

German pronunciation and spelling is not difficult. German, unlike a lot of other languages, is totally phonetic: you get what you see! Once you have memorised a few letter combinations, it’s really easy.
Words are generally literal, they mean what they say! German is much more direct and unambiguous compared to lots of other languages.
German gets easier as you go along. The grammar seems difficult to begin with but you will soon get an understanding of it, and the vocabulary is much less varied and subtle than English.

Top tips for learning

1. Read German media:

Deutsche Welle:

Contains all kinds of topics, as well as language learning activities. Lots to explore, from beginner to advanced.

www.dw.de

Spiegel Online:

Weekly German news and current affairs magazine. Suitable for more advanced learners.

http://www.spiegel.de/

Focus Online:

Similar to Spiegel Online but with slightly less focus on politics. Suitable for more advanced learners.

http://www.focus.de/

Google News:

National and international news online; also, articles about the economy, science, entertainment, sport and health.

https://news.google.com/news/?ned=de&hl=de

2. Watch the news in German:

Nachrichtenleicht:

The weekly review to read in simple language and with podcasts and vocabulary explanations. For intermediate learners.

http://www.nachrichtenleicht.de/

Deutsche Welle:

News reports at a slower pace, with downloadable transcript. For more advanced learners.

http://www.dw.com/de/deutsch-lernen/nachrichten/s-8030

BBC Languages German:

Original news programmes online, to download and watch. For more advanced learners.

www.bbc.co.uk

Jung & Naiv:

Series on Youtube, interviews with lots of interesting politicians in and around Berlin; you can activate subtitles. For more advanced learners, very interesting.

www.youtube.com

Search for: Jung & Naiv

ZDF:

This is the second biggest German TV channel (ZDF=Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen). You cannot watch it live but the section “Sendung verpasst” will let you access various programmes. For more advanced learners.

https://www.zdf.de/sendung-verpasst

3. Get mobile! Check out these apps!

Duolingo:

Particularly good for beginners; works with visuals, audios and exercises.

iOS, Android, Windows Phone

Memrise:

Good for learning vocabulary, works through building connections and images. You can start off simple or go to more advanced lessons straight away.

iOS, Android, Amazon

Busuu:

Good for learning words and phrases in context; uses quizzes to test knowledge.

Some of the content requires a premium account but there are lots of free quizzes.

iOS, Android

AccellaStudy Essential Apps:

Works with flash cards, audio quizzes and spaced repetition; has a hands-free mode for driving. Lets you build your own study sets for those troublesome and hard to remember words.

iOs

24/7 Tutor Apps

Good for beginners. You can choose topics and each topic has a variety of tasks.

iOS

Anki

Designed to help you memorise vocabulary through flashcards. In fact, they claim you can use the app to memorise almost anything.

Android (free), iOS (subscription)

Babbel

Uses a blend of images, sound and text, uses speech recognition. Basic version is free.

iOS, Android

FluentU:

This takes real videos (news, movie trailers, music videos, etc.) and makes them into personalised language lessons. There are 6 skill levels and plenty of annotation and support.

iOS, Android

Slow German Podcast:

Great for listening comprehension practice, transcriptions downloadable. Covers a variety of topics.

iOS

Deutsche Welle:

You can get this as a mobile app and within it there is a Business German course called “Marktplatz”. It is suitable for intermediate to advanced learners.

iOS, Android, Windows Phone