Any advice for learning German

[Brennus]

Does anyone have any good tips for learning German? I am currently attempting to teach myself via the aid of a "German for Dummies" text book. I don't really have any inclination to attend classes as I have rarely found to be helpful in my previous attempts to learn French.

[HopAlongBunny]

The only thing I can think of is knowing a native speaker.

The subtleties of accent/emphasis are what separates a good speaker from a quaint attempt. My aunt taught me what little Chinese and Russian that I know; the little : no, its an outbreath, lower in the throat, more nasal etc; make a great deal of difference.

[Gaius Scribonius Curio]

Since I suspect you are asking for the sake of reading, I can recommend the textbook - 'Reading German' by Coles and Dodd.

It gives you the basics of grammar then moves you slowly on to a series of actual unmodified German-language articles on various humanities and social science subjects.

Hope this helps. HopAlongBunny is, of course, correct for speaking/listening... classes can be somewhat helpful in this regard, though obviously not as good as one on one conversations or actual immersion in the language...

[Fragony]

It usually just comes to you

[Vuk]

Eat lots of Kraut and meditate on the superiority of blonde hair over all other colours. It will just come to you.

[drone]

Watch Bayern/Borussia with the german commentators.

[Kralizec]

Follow the news: watch German TV channels, read newspapers or magazines like Der Spiegel. This works best if you already have some idea what the news items are all about as you can then infer the meaning of difficult sentences.

[SwordsMaster]

memrise.com. you need about 1000 words

[Kadagar_AV]

Hooking up with a german speaking girl sure helped me...

If you want to work with pronunciation and the language melody, I can strongly recommend Hitler's speeches. Skip the intros where he is more low tuned, and skip straight to the fiery bits at the end.

[Brennus]

Hooking up with a german speaking girl sure helped me....

And likewise in my case for French.

Thanks for all these suggestions guys.

[Fragony]

And likewise in my case for French.

Thanks for all these suggestions guys.

Huh, aren't you French? I thought you were. But learning a language is easy, just speak it. German is pretty complex just like French, people learning it should learn emperative. 'Haben sie' -do you have- is counterintuitive for English-speakers, just like 'excusez moi' is in French. It's really easy to learn both once you get the basics, they will never admit it but German and French are pretty similar, if you learn one of them you will pick up the other really fast

[Brennus]

Huh, aren't you French? I thought you were.

How did you come to that conclusion? No, I'm British. I would describe myself as a Francophile though (or more specifically a Gallophile).

Thanks for the tips Frag.

[Fragony]

I think there's a Brenus (with one "n") who is French. Thus the confusion.

Ah gotcha. German is a beautiful language, grammar may look hard at first but it's very consistant.

[Rhyfelwyr]

I only ever studied French and German for a couple of years, but I always found that German made a lot more sense to me. The whole way that sentences are structured seems to be more similar to English than French is.

Funnily enough I also took a notion to learn some German recently. Unemployment and all that, lol.

I hoped my brother would have a school textbook but he doesn't, so any online resources would be nice.

[Tellos Athenaios]

Well there is the Goethe-Institut to spread the love of all things German, as it were. As it happens, the Institut is happy to help you learn German: http://www.goethe.de/lrn/enindex.htm

[Husar]

Just don't.

I keep hanging out here so I don't have to use it, what a horrible language, almost as bad as french.
Also Fragony, I think you're thinking of Brenus.

Some of the comments here are horrible, really, truly horrible and as a german I feel it is my duty to apologize.