Whatever plans you have for the future, speaking German will open up countless possibilities for you. Learning German means picking up skills that can improve both your professional and personal quality of life.
Know
- German has the highest number of native speakers in the European Union (a lot more than English, Spanish or French).
- German is one of the top ten most-spoken languages in the world. It is also the lingua franca of Central and Eastern Europe. And as for the “All Germans speak English anyway” argument? That’s a myth.
- 92 Nobel Prizes and counting! 22 Nobel prizes in Physics, 30 in Chemistry and 25 in Medicine have been awarded to scientists from three large German-speaking countries, while many of the laureates from other countries trained at German universities. 11 Nobel Prizes in Literature have been awarded to authors who wrote in German, and 7 Germans and Austrians have received the Nobel Peace Prize.
- Germans are world leaders in engineering.
- German and English are similar. Many words in German look or sound the same as their counterparts in English, as they are both Germanic languages. For example, look at these words: Haus = house, Buch = book, Finger = finger, Arm = arm, Name = name, Mutter = mother, schwimmen = swim, singen = sing, kommen = come, Blau = blue, alt = old, windig = windy.
- The German-speaking world has produced some of the most well-regarded filmmakers of the 20th century — from Fritz Lang to Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Wim Wenders and the generation of transnational directors such as Tom Tykwer and Fatih Akin. German and Austrian fillmakers like Lang, Billy Wilder and Ernst Lubitsch have also shaped the history of Hollywood.
Think
- German is the language of (take a deep breath), Arendt, Bach, Beethoven, Bonhoeffer, Brahms, Brecht, Buber, Einstein, Freud, Goethe, Grass, Hegel, Heideggera, Heisenberg, Kafka, Kant, Mahler, Mann, Marx, Mozart, Nietzsche, Planck, Schoenberg, Schubert, Schumann, Wagner, Weber, and hundreds of other great philosophers, authors, artists, scientists and composers. These days, it is also the language of choice for authors, filmmakers and thinkers from a wide range of cultural environments, such as Yoko Tawada, Zsuzsanna Gahse, Terézia Mora, Michael Stavarič and Melinda Nadj Abonji. German is no longer just for “Germans” (not that it ever was).
- German is the second most commonly used scientific language in the world.
- Almost a fifth of all books published in the world are published in German, and few of them ever receive an English translation.
- 68% of all students in Japan learn German. What do they know that you don’t?
- Many of the most important works of the Western world in philosophy, literature, music, art history, theology, psychology, chemistry, physics, engineering and medicine have been written in German and continue to be produced in German.
Earn
- Germany is the world’s second-largest exporter.
- Germany has the largest economy in Europe and fourth-largest in the world. Its economy is comparable to all Spanish-speaking countries put together.
- Germany is home to many international corporations.
- Germany’s direct investment into the United States exceeds $10 billion.
