I am wondering when the last day to sign up for summer school courses would be. I am waiting for a response on a job right now, but if I don't get it, I think I'd like to take a course or two in the summer, especially German 1Z06.

Scratch that! Just got the job No summer school here.

good luck, german is a tough language

I'm informed on the exact opposite... English is based off of German for a very large part. Because I have 40 credits to take next year, I'm deciding on doing Linguistics instead for next year anyways, then taking German next summer or the following year. I think linguistics will help?

German is pretty easy; better than french i think. Not sure what a linguistics teaches you but the better undstanding and appreciation of english couldn't hurt that much.

I'm thinking about taking German, for someone that's never taken it before how do you find the course and is it worth it? Are you actually able to talk in the language, albeit not anything close to an actual German. I just mean can you at least understand a lot of things and produce at least simple sentences that make sense.

Someone told me that with linguistics, you can learn pronunciation of any language. Something I hated when I was learning french, is reading words and saying them one way, then learning they're completely different. And apparently it also helps understand different language/grammar and sentence structures for different languages.

Originally Posted by mattgood9

good luck, german is a tough language

lol, not even. That class is really easy. The prof is also a pretty cool guy.

Originally Posted by EasternHeat

I'm thinking about taking German, for someone that's never taken it before how do you find the course and is it worth it? Are you actually able to talk in the language, albeit not anything close to an actual German. I just mean can you at least understand a lot of things and produce at least simple sentences that make sense.

I'm going to assume you meant "for someone that's ever taken it before...". It's proportional to the amount of effort you put in I think. By the end of 1Z06, you should be able to have a simple conversation and write simple paragraphs.

Beware though, I found that that class contained a disproportionate number of douchebags to okay people. And by douchebags, I mean people that think they're the shit cause they're taking like 10 other languages courses too, and need to mention it whenever possible. lol

Originally Posted by Ownaginatios

I'm going to assume you meant "for someone that's ever taken it before...". It's proportional to the amount of effort you put in I think. By the end of 1Z06, you should be able to have a simple conversation and write simple paragraphs.

Beware though, I found that that class contained a disproportionate number of douchebags to okay people. And by douchebags, I mean people that think they're the shit cause they're taking like 10 other languages courses too, and need to mention it whenever possible. lol

LOL douchebags...and no I meant it in one way, you read it another way.
In this case I meant for someone who's never taken German before, how hard is the class for them, as opposed to someone that has taken German or knows German. And yes I know you can't take the course if you have, but a lot of people conceal it and a lot of people actually only know a little bit. So ya in my case I don't except for nein and das auto and aufedasane (i know thats now how you spell it lol). Oh and ich leibe diche LOL

Ohh, I see what you mean. I didn't know anything going into it; last language course I'd taken before that was French in grade 9. I don't think there are many people that actually already know German in there either, due to there being very few Germans immigrating here in recent times.

I think the issue you're describing though is a big problem with the newer Chinese classes though :p.

Originally Posted by mike_302

Someone told me that with linguistics, you can learn pronunciation of any language. Something I hated when I was learning french, is reading words and saying them one way, then learning they're completely different. And apparently it also helps understand different language/grammar and sentence structures for different languages.

Well, linguistics is the study of language. So you'll be studying phonetics (basically, 'speech sounds' - this is where you'll learn the IPA, so while you may not be able to pronounce every sound, you'll know how it should be pronounced), phonology (the patterning of speech sounds, ie. syllable formation), morphology (patterning of syllables, ie. word formation), syntax (patterning of words, ie. sentence formation), and semantics (meaning). There's other fields within linguistics too, like historical linguistics, which details the 'evolution' of language / language families.

Regarding German: it's part of the same family as English (Germanic), and shares a lot of sentence-structure rules with English as well. In terms of words, however, English shares a lot with Latin-based languages (French and Latin itself).

I've been working on learning German on my own. I got the Rosetta Stone German pack, and it's really good. The package is very expensive... but, as with everything else, there is a way to get it for... less than full price...

Originally Posted by sniderj

I've been working on learning German on my own. I got the Rosetta Stone German pack, and it's really good. The package is very expensive... but, as with everything else, there is a way to get it for... less than full price...

*cough* DC++ *cough*

Also, Rosetta Stone is okay for vocabulary, but it doesn't really do much in terms of grammar.

Thanks Ownaginatios! I only started a few weeks ago, so I can't say a whole lot about the later parts of the course, but I'm sure you're right. It's at least a nice primer, and may help when you finally take the course at Mac.