As a German, I have to say learning the grammar is pretty fucking hard. Especially the four cases. It took me years to get it right with few mistakes and I am a native. Sure compared to some Slavic languages, Hungarian, Gaelic and Chinese languages it isn’t that bad. However it is a lot harder than English, Dutch or Romance languages.
I think it was hard because we had to learn all that abstract advanced stuff (Plusquamperfekt Futur II Temporaladverbial Reflexivpronomen, all that shit) that you’ll probably not learn in a language course for non-native speakers and that you don’t need to know to speak the language in normal life.
Still, it is super hard to get basic Deklination right. Of course people will understand you, but they will immediately notice you are a foreigner even when you speak without accent.
If you aim for a high proficiency level like C1 then yes you eventually learn all the “advanced” grammar. Especially the tense system in German isn’t even that advanced compared to basically any Romance language or the English tense-aspect system.
Unfortunately, language learning in schools seems to be firmly in the hands of theoretical literature people. Of course, knowing the formal rules of a language helps with speaking it, and knowing the fancy scientific names for some linguistic constructs might even be entertaining to some, but in order to understand and speak a language, its understanding needs to be on a more personal and intuitive level you can only develop through frequent use of that language.
English isn’t that easy to learn either. Actually I just spent the first year crying because of how irregular the spelling was and I didn’t get a basic grasp until I was about four.
Practically, German has only three cases, though, even if some uptight formalists (who also likely use a pair of pincers to pull up their pants) will greatly bemoan the simple fact of life that the genitive does not exist in the wild.
I use genitive all the time. Only when speaking dialect do I not need to use it “Dem Dibben sei Audo” instead of “Das Auto des Herrn” or “Des Herrens Auto” or stuff like that.
But there are plenty of common expressions that use the genitive:
Trotz des Regens gingen wir spazieren.
Während des Essens hat er angerufen.
Wegen des Staus kam sie zu spät.
Außerhalb des formellen Schriftverkehrs ist der Genitiv selten.
Ich bin mir meiner Sache sicher.
usw.
Using the dative with “von” would just be incorrect here. I certainly use and hear the genitive regularly, at least within these expressions. But maybe I am just one of those uptight formalists 🤷 — I always thought the genitive was rather elegant.
I do admit that there are some everyday situations in which it sounds clunky though…
As a German, I have to say learning the grammar is pretty fucking hard. Especially the four cases. It took me years to get it right with few mistakes and I am a native. Sure compared to some Slavic languages, Hungarian, Gaelic and Chinese languages it isn’t that bad. However it is a lot harder than English, Dutch or Romance languages.
I think it was hard because we had to learn all that abstract advanced stuff (Plusquamperfekt Futur II Temporaladverbial Reflexivpronomen, all that shit) that you’ll probably not learn in a language course for non-native speakers and that you don’t need to know to speak the language in normal life.
Still, it is super hard to get basic Deklination right. Of course people will understand you, but they will immediately notice you are a foreigner even when you speak without accent.
If you aim for a high proficiency level like C1 then yes you eventually learn all the “advanced” grammar. Especially the tense system in German isn’t even that advanced compared to basically any Romance language or the English tense-aspect system.
Unfortunately, language learning in schools seems to be firmly in the hands of theoretical literature people. Of course, knowing the formal rules of a language helps with speaking it, and knowing the fancy scientific names for some linguistic constructs might even be entertaining to some, but in order to understand and speak a language, its understanding needs to be on a more personal and intuitive level you can only develop through frequent use of that language.
English isn’t that easy to learn either. Actually I just spent the first year crying because of how irregular the spelling was and I didn’t get a basic grasp until I was about four.
Practically, German has only three cases, though, even if some uptight formalists (who also likely use a pair of pincers to pull up their pants) will greatly bemoan the simple fact of life that the genitive does not exist in the wild.
I use genitive all the time. Only when speaking dialect do I not need to use it “Dem Dibben sei Audo” instead of “Das Auto des Herrn” or “Des Herrens Auto” or stuff like that.
But there are plenty of common expressions that use the genitive:
Using the dative with “von” would just be incorrect here. I certainly use and hear the genitive regularly, at least within these expressions. But maybe I am just one of those uptight formalists 🤷 — I always thought the genitive was rather elegant.
I do admit that there are some everyday situations in which it sounds clunky though…