which is simpler,French or German?

[loobylou]

While they are not necessarily brilliant linguists, they do all have a reasonable accent and don't just say the words as if they were English, and moreover, they don't have the idea that you can just walk into a restaurant in Spain and start speaking English without first asking in Spanish if anyone understands English and apologising for their lack of ability to speak the local tongue. I think that is really important - if someone walked into Marks and Spencers here and launched into loud, slow German, we would think them rude and stupid, yet English people do this all the time abroad! (Best example - at a tiny bar in Cyprus about 15 years ago - Englishman and woman in replica football kit came in at lunchtime and said 'do you do the full English?' Bemused waitress, having pointed to the shoes they had just taken off (!) just shook her head and they left, mercifully).

That reminds me of the time my dh and I were in a gorgeous fish restaurant on Skiathos and the English couple behind us kept repeating louder and louder "Don't you just have cod and chips?" In the end we had to turn round and explain to them that we were in the Mediterranean so the fish choices were rather different from their local chippie They also left!

[Tinkers]

I think one minor issue is certainly from a personal PoV, is because 'everyone else' in other countries learns English, whatever we choose, it's the wrong one.
I picked French over German as it meant I did history rather than geog, which I absolutely hated with a passion.
German would have been far more useful, both professionally and personally. DHs German relatives would say I picked the wrong language.

Unfortunately I wasn't allowed to take both, or so I was told by the same careers teacher who asked if I was sure I wanted to take all 3 sciences (because that could be quite hard for a girl).

I always make the often to learn a few phrases and carry a phrase book. When we were in a Spanish speaking country some years ago, we arrived at a hotel in a touristy area after spending a week touring around. We went to the bar and asked for 2 beers please in Spanish.
The barstaff broke into a grin, and served us. I though it was my Yorkshire accented Spanish, but I think it was the joy of someone trying to speak Spanish and actually saying please (Americans, Australians and Brits mainly, all speaking English and hardly any saying please).
Whatever it was, we never had to wait to be served for the rest of the week, to the point that the bar staff started pouring drinks for us before we actually got to the bar.

Btw, to anyone who thinks that all Dutch people speak English, I'm sorry to say that's a myth. They don't. Unless in the 7 weeks I spent working there I met all the ones who didn't. From lorry drivers, guys in the workshop and random people in The street asking me the time. If I asked them (in Dutch) if they spoke English, it was usually no.

However I can still ask for two beers please in Dutch.

[ToadMum]

DS1 went to the cinema whilst in Paris at Easter and the only thing I heard about the film was him moaning about it having been dubbed . Which was less to do with 'so we couldn't understand it anyway' (which was not something he mentioned at all), rather a comment about the French not allowing foreign languages to be heard. At home, we watch most of the foreign language imports on BBC4 and increasingly on other channels and the only disadvantage to those of us with good eyesight is the need to look at the screen more than one would watching an English language programme. Blind non-speakers of the original language must feel rather short-changed, though. One thing I have learned from this exercise is that the Scandinavian languages are to an extent much more like English than,say, German when it comes to pronunciation, in that 'what you see' is not necessarily 'what you hear' - for example, the character in 'Wallander' whose surname is written as 'Nyberg'. If you are a native of Sweden, of course it will be obvious that this is pronounced 'Nu - bye', but I would be willing to bet that a French or Spanish person with no knowledge of Swedish would be just as likely as one of us 'terrible at languages' Brits to mispronounce it as they (the French or Spanish person) would the English word 'word' if they had no knowledge of the English language.

[Amber]

One thing I have learned from this exercise is that the Scandinavian languages are to an extent much more like English than,say, German when it comes to pronunciation

Are they? I wouldn't agree with that, with respect. (I know you speak them all too so I do mean the 'with respect' ). Swedish and Norwegian have a very musical rhythm about them which many English people find hard to replicate, and they rely on some sounds being pronounced in a way unfamiliar to English people (Göteborg for example does not contain the hard 'g' sound which English speakers associate with that letter - both are pronounced more like a 'y', as it the example you cite, which personally I would pronounce something like nee- bery (that isn't quite right as the 'ee' bit also has a kind of 'u' in it!) with the 'g' being a single y sound more like in yes than very*); Danish on the other hand is quite guttural and 'flat'. I think German is fairly reliably phonetic. Essentially we have to learn the phonemes of a new language when we learn to speak it. I don't subscribe to the idea that English people are 'terrible at languages'. They are just, as a massive generalisation, unwilling to learn them, and this starts with education policy.

PD- they took their shoes off because they were rude. They left them in the middle of the floor. I have no idea what was going on in their heads.

Tinkers - I think the myth with Dutch people arises from the fact that those who do speak English tend to speak it ridiculously well. OH had a Dutch girlfriend once and she spoke better English than any of his friends - he didn't believe she was Dutch when he met her.

* Sorry, realise this may be a bit niche for an 11 plus forum!

[Stroller]

One thing I have learned from this exercise is that the Scandinavian languages are to an extent much more like English than,say, German when it comes to pronunciation

Are they? I wouldn't agree with that, with respect.

Amber, when she said "like English", I think it was meant in the sense that neither English nor Swedish is a WYSIWYG language?

You're correct about the pronunciation of Nyberg.

I also agree with your comment about the standard to which the Dutch who do speak English learn it. I can still spot their accent instantly though.

[ToadMum]

One thing I have learned from this exercise is that the Scandinavian languages are to an extent much more like English than,say, German when it comes to pronunciation

Are they? I wouldn't agree with that, with respect.

Amber, when she said "like English", I think it was meant in the sense that neither English nor Swedish is a WYSIWYG language?

You're correct about the pronunciation of Nyberg.

I also agree with your comment about the standard to which the Dutch who do speak English learn it. I can still spot their accent instantly though.

Stroller - yes, that is what I meant .

Re English as she is spoke in the Netherlands, so to speak (haha!) - at least in the west of the country, this used to be assisted by the ability to pick up BBC television (obviously, nowadays everyone can access all kinds of channels from all over the place). I believe that Gardeners World was one of the most popular programmes .

[Amber]

Stroller - yes, that is what I meant .

förlåt; entschuldigen Sie bitte; unskyld; lo siento; je suis désolée; прости ;對不起

(no idea if the last one is right...).

Not sure OH's ex was into Gardener's World, and that might seem an odd question at this stage of the game.

[JaneEyre]

A bit of humour for those revising for their German GCSE:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oWGZdYNpaSo" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
(this is an old video, but so funny! )

[inkypinkyponky]

I've never seen this clip, it's soooooo funny!

Thanks for posting the link, Jane Eyre

[doodles]

Much to DH's upset ds2 has, at the very last minute, opted out of German GCSE He was going to do both French and German (as ds1 did) but went and asked to do history instead of German.

Whilst I'm pleased he's doing history I'm not sure his reasons are sound ("it's hard") especially as he's been doing very well at it for the last two years. Mind you being a slightly stubborn young man (his father's son of course ) I'm pretty sure he'd have got very stressed and given up trying