There is no problem with German

Having attentively read the article entitled The problem with German by Heike Krüsemann in The Linguist Vol. 57, No. 5, pp 16-17 a few months ago, I took the time to write a few lines to encourage young language learners to keep an eye on German.

First of all, I am far from being perfect in German grammar but have always learned it. This allows me to be well understood wherever I am in a German speaking environment. Sometimes a bit less in Bavaria, Luxembourg, Switzerland or Austria where differences, peculiarities and dialects are present... I must admit that the lëtzebuergesch Sprooch or Schwyzerdütsch are quite hard to understand!

And even if I do mistakes or sometimes search for my words, I have always been amazed at how happy German speakers feel when I make the effort of speaking their language. "Übung macht den Meister", it has never been so true!

In today's increasingly global economy, learning new languages, especially the ones that are less studied by competitors in the job market, can greatly boost the chances of landing lucrative work. In 2014, nearly 500,000 job postings in the U.S. requested foreign-language proficiency. Many more hiring managers will look favorably upon bilingual candidates in the future. After all, recent studies suggest that bilingual brains process information more efficiently than their monolingual counterparts. I started to learn German (besides Dutch and English -- French is my mother tongue) in the mid-1980s, at a time when the old continent was still divided in two blocks. It was also not long before the collapse of the iron curtain and the fall of the Berlin wall. My teacher Mr. Foret, also an excellent musician, was a man who loved to share his knowledge of the German and Austrian cultures with his students. And I was (and have always been since then) eager to learn German...

The essential and quintessential American writer Mark Twain wrote: “Surely there is not another language that is so slipshod and systemless, and so slippery and elusive to the grasp.” Ultimately, proficiency in German may help capture something even more elusive: a lucrative job. German multinationals such as Siemens, Bayer and Deutsche Bank abound in the U.S. or elsewhere in the world, and many value German fluency in potential employees.

“Given the longstanding strength of German-speaking countries in science, technology and industry, German remains a major language of international trade and investment,” says Jan Eckendorf, deputy head of the cultural section of the German Embassy in Washington, D.C. “Only about half a million Americans are learning German — so what better way to stand out from the crowd?”. Click on the link hereafter for the article Best Languages to Learn to Get Ahead in Your Career by Christian Ruhl of Kiplinger Washington Editors Inc., a publisher of business forecasts and personal finance advice: https://www.kiplinger.com/slideshow/business/T012-S001-best-foreign-languages-for-your-career/index.html.

My feeling is that by learning Goethe's language, you might also start to question a few of the common stereotypes about the cold Germans. Not to mention that German has an enormous cultural heritage (music, science, literature and opera have deep roots in this rich and flexible language), it is a very distinctive language (common use of extremely long compound words), it is beating everyone else online (Germany is the country with the largest number of national domains and German domain names .de being more popular than .net, .org, and .info extensions) and you will always have someone to speak to since German people spend more on foreign travel than those of any other nation. Dr. Sarah Pimsleur tells you more about why German could well make an excellent choice if you are thinking about learning a new language on: https://www.omniglot.com/language/articles/learninggerman.htm.

Mentioning that I can speak German has always made a difference on my CV. German remains a very "technical" and "mathematical" language often appreciated by employers. German has also a reputation for being one of the hardest European languages to learn.

I have worked as an employee for professional associations and committees based in Brussels for over 20 years and very often got in touch with engineers, scientists and experts working for DIN, BASF, Evonik, etc.

I even ended up having lunch with German colleagues in the same place as Angela Merkel and staff members of the German Chancellery one evening in Berlin (at Borchardt, on Französische Straße). She sat just a few places away from us and savoured a huge Schnitzel and other culinary delights that night.

It is also true that my family has always been attracted by Luxembourg, Germany, Switzerland or Austria to spend some enjoying moments during well-deserved vacations. Not to mention Belgium's Ostkantonen (the region of Eupen and Sankt-Vith), a true paradise for those who like the great outdoors... My father was a language teacher (Dutch-German-English) in Southern Belgium and this might explain it all.

I married a lady who also feels comfortable when spending time in Germany. I instilled a taste for Germany and its culture into my two sons too. They love to walk in the alleys of a beautiful Christmas market, ride down a Rodelbahn track, experience the fun in amusement parks like Phantasialand or Movie Park Germany, enjoy an ice hockey game at DEG Düsseldorf, have a good time at a nice wellness resort in Hochsauerland, discover castles and other historical places like the Porta Nigra in Trier, the Pfalzkapelle in Aachen, the Schloss Benrath near Düsseldorf, the Waldecker Land, the Deutsches Eck in Koblenz, the old town of Rottweil, the Kurhaus in Baden-Baden, the banks of the Danube in Neuburg an der Donau, Wartburg in Thüringen, Zwinger in Dresden, etc.

My son, when he was 9 years old and still a pupil in primary school, worked on a project about Germany and the country's culture and traditions.

Most of his classmates did not know much about neighbouring country Germany and my son taught them a lot about it.

Even some of my uncles and relatives who had experienced, gone through atrocities or lived during WWII have encouraged me to learn Goethe's language. It allowed me to travel (to Hochsauerland, Cologne, Aachen, Eifel, Bonn, Bayerisches Wald, Nord-Bayern, Schwarzwald, Moseltal, Thüringen, Bremen, Berlin, Sarrebrücken or Dresden but also to Saastal in Switzerland, Burgenland and Kärnten in Austria, Müllertal in Luxembourg, etc.) and meet many people. Some like my former colleague Jens (who told me a lot about classic writers and philosophers like Thomas Mann, Hermann Hesse or Friedrich Nietzsche), the former ski world superstar Pirmin Zurbriggen (whom relatives and I met a few times during some of his fan club parties organized in Saas-Almagell, Switzerland in the 1980s), the meteorologist and weather man of the main German public broadcaster ARD Sven Plöger (who did a presentation, which I had the chance to attend a few years ago, on the influence of the weather on marketing and consumers' mood), the Swiss key-note speaker and expert in marketing Beat Krippendorf (with whom I had the chance to share the table at a gala dinner of the German association for active feed ingredients and additives at the Hilton Berlin Hotel) or the body language expert Stefan Verra (whom I got the chance to meet at a conference in Berlin where he came as a speaker) inspired me a lot in the past. Others like that former Stasi agent who ended up in Brussels to build a new life and whom I desperately tried to warn that he should quit his old obnoxious habits of trying to control everything, imposing his views, being pushy in all circumstances and spying on people were much less inspiring. No matter what, it has always been very enriching experiences anyway! Practicing German and socializing with German-speaking individuals also made me end up in some unbelievable and unprecedented places like the Newton Bar on Gendarmenmarkt, the Borchardt restaurant, the Panoramacafé on the 24th floor of the Panoramapunkt tower on Postdamer Platz in Berlin, the Heino Café in Bad Münstereifel, the Göbels Seehof Hotel at Diemelsee, the Café Aufwind near the Mühlenkopfschanze in Willingen, the Radeberger Spezialausschank in Dresden, the revolving restaurant Allalin at 3,500 meters above sealevel in Saas-Fee, the great funfair called the Schueberfouer in Luxembourg, etc.

It also allows to travel more easily in Eastern European countries where middle-aged people had often previously been taught German too.

Goethe Institut has a great list of reasons why you should undoubtedly start to learn German. You will find the list at: https://www.goethe.de/en/spr/wdl.html.

So, definitely, avoid viewing the German language as a threat like it has often been reproduced across the public and private domains.

Take time to learn German at the Goethe Institut, at school, in your sparetime, via the internet, etc. Until countries like Germany, Switzerland or Austria play major economic roles, mentioning that you can speak German will always be a plus on your resume.

You can find and read Dr. Heike Krüsemann's article entitled The problem with German also online at: https://www.ciol.org.uk/problem-german.