Language Course From Wikibooks, the open-content textbooks collection Contents

The German Language
German (
Deutsch
) is a member of the western group of the 
Germanic languages
. It is spoken primarily 
in Germany, Austria, the major part of Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, the Südtirol (South 
Tyrol) region of Italy, the Opole Voivodship of Poland, parts of Belgium, parts of Romania, the Alsace 
(Elsass) region of France and parts of Denmark. Additionally, several former colonial possessions of 
these countries, such as Namibia in Africa, have sizable German-speaking populations. There are 
German-speaking minorities in several eastern European countries including Russia, and in the United 
States as well as countries in South America like Argentina. Over 120 million people speak German as 
their native language. German is the third most popular foreign language taught worldwide, and the 
second most popular in Europe. Continue reading about the 
German language
.

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German and English
If you are an English speaker unfamiliar with German, you may be surprised to learn that English and 
German are closely related languages and share many words that are very similar. This is particularly 
true for everyday words in English that are Anglo-Saxon (that is, Germanic) in origin. Consider the 
following list of English words followed by their German counterparts:
arm ~ 
der Arm
book ~ 
das Buch
cat ~ 
die Katze
father ~ 
der Vater
finger ~ 
der Finger
wagon ~ 
der Wagen
house ~ 
das Haus
hand ~ 
die Hand
June ~ 
der Juni
man ~ 
der Mann
mother ~ 
die Mutter
mouse ~ 
die Maus
name ~ 
der Name
son ~ 
der Sohn
garden ~ 
der Garten
lamp ~ 
die Lampe
bush ~ 
der Busch
baker ~ 
der Bäcker
net ~ 
das Netz
storm ~ 
der Sturm
hat ~ 
der Hut
fire ~ 
das Feuer
grass ~ 
das Gras
fish ~ 
der Fisch
kindergarten ~ 
der Kindergarten
•
Audio
: 
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 (114KB) ~ 
Hear these words
Of course, even words whose spelling is no different in English and German may be pronounced quite 
differently. But in reading German, you will see the connections between these languages, even in 
many of the "small" words (the above examples are all nouns). For example:
This week, my father is with my brother in the city 
Diese Woche ist mein Vater mit meinem Bruder in der Stadt
. 
•
Audio
: 
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 (114KB) ~ 
Hear these sentences

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Note also the general similarity of sentence structure with English. The only real difference in the 
German is that the verb is moved forward in the sentence. However, there are many German sentences 
in which a verb form is the last word in the sentence.
Unfortunately, while German is perhaps the easiest "foreign" language for an English speaker to learn, 
meanings of words that are spelled similarly are not always identical. These "
false friends
" can be 
confusing for the beginner. Further, German is a more structured language than English, with a more 
complex grammar, and it will become apparent as you learn German that you will also learn more 
about English language structure than you might ever recall from your high school English classes. For 
a quick listing of similarities and differences between English and German, read the 
Introduction to 
Level I
.