What Makes German A Difficult Foreign Language To Learn?*

What makes German a difficult foreign language to learn?*

Phonology / Pronunciation & Comprehension

✳️ accent-based language (accent isn't fixed, rhythm isn't as melodic and forseeable)

✳️ 16 vowel sounds (lots more than the average 5-6!)

✳️ complex syllables

Morphology

✳️ Case system (Kasus) - allows for variable word order but requires lots of inflection on articles, pronouns, nouns and adjectives

✳️ Kasus-choice changing the meaning (esp. Akkusativ/Dativ with movement verbs)

✳️ rule-governed fusion of article and preposition (z.B. zur, zum, hinterm)

✳️ 9 plural markers for nouns

✳️ 3 grammatical genders (with mainly only probabilistic rules of which is which

Vocabulary

✳️ very frequent use of

🔅 composite worde (z.B. das Rathaus, die Weltkarte, die Mitternachtsformel)

🔅 derived words (z.B. laufen -> verlaufen, günstig -> ungünstig)

🔅 conversion of words (z.B. laufen -> der Lauf, hoch (adj) -> das Hoch (N))

Syntax:

✳️ word order is very variable, but there's still lots of rules (keywords: Verbklammer, Satzglieder, topologisches Feldermodell)

✳️ the verb is often split in two with stuff in between its parts

Miscellaneous

✳️ localizing verbs

🔅 mode of movement often in verb itself, direction often in separate word

🔅 position verbs vs. contact verbs and static vs. causal location (I sit down & I sit on the chair vs. Ich setzte mich hin & ich sitze auf dem Stuhl)

✳️ variety of prepositions (on the table & on the wall vs. auf dem Tisch & an der Wand))

*Disclaimers:

Furthermore of course difficulties that language learning generally has (like vocabulary as a whole, various registers, dialects, etc).

I'm not saying German is more difficult than other languages, just that these are typical difficulties in German (other languages will have many of these as well).

This is also not only from an English-native perspective! (German has 16 vowel sounds + 3 Diphthongs, English 12 vowel sounds + 8 Diphthongs, but Russian, Greek and Spanish for example have only 5 vowel sounds each! so 16 is a lot more in those cases))