Is German hard to learn for English speakers?

How long does German take compared with other languages?

The Foreign Service Institute (FSI), which trains US diplomats, publishes how long its students usually need to reach a professional level of speaking and listening (3 on the ILR scale). Its typical week is 23 hours in class and 17 hours of self-study. German sits one step above the languages closest to English.

So German takes FSI students about a fifth longer than Spanish (36 weeks against 30). With self-study added, its 36 weeks come to about 1,440 hours. That target is professional, though. For everyday goals, the Goethe-Institut gives a rough guideline per CEFR level.

What makes German hard for English speakers?

Cases and the six forms of "the"

German nouns have three genders, and the word for "the" changes with gender, number and the noun's role in the sentence: der, die, das, den, dem, des. These six forms (some double as pronouns) make up about 7% of all the words in the A1 level of the Contos German library. Case is learned in layers: in the A1 chapters, the genitive des does not appear once; at B2 it appears 29 times.

Verbs that split and move

In a main clause the verb comes second, and many verbs split in two, with the prefix sent to the end. Chapter 1 of The Flatshare on Bergmannstraße shows both at once:

Aufmachen (to open) splits into macht … auf, and because the sentence starts with Plötzlich, the verb jumps in front of its subject.

Long compound words

German glues nouns together: Badezimmertür is Badezimmer (bathroom) + Tür (door). Long words grow with the level. In the Contos libraries, words of 13 letters or more turn up about 4 times per 1,000 words in German A1 chapters against about 1 in Spanish A1, and about 13 per 1,000 at German B2 against about 5.5 in Spanish. The longest in the German library run to 23 letters, such as Restaurierungswerkstatt (restoration workshop) at B1.

What makes German easier than it looks?

German and English are both Germanic languages, and it shows in the most common words. Chapter 1 of the same A1 story has Kaffee (coffee), Küche (kitchen), Haus (house, in nach Hause), alt (old), neue (new), Wort (word) and Morgen (morning). Many everyday nouns are identical: Hand, Finger, Name, Butter.

Watch for false friends, though. In the same chapter Herr Krause brings einen Brief: a letter, not a briefing.

• Spelling is regular. Once you know the sounds of ei, ie, sch and ü, you can read words aloud you have never seen.
• Nouns are capitalised, so you can spot them in a sentence before you know what they mean.
• Gender often follows the ending. Nouns ending in -ung are feminine (die Zeitung) and diminutives in -chen are neuter (das Mädchen).
• Beginner German lives in the present tense. Every sentence in that A1 chapter 1 uses it.

How do you learn German by reading?

Reading suits German well, because its hardest features (case endings, verb position) are things you notice on the page long before you can produce them in speech. A plan for the first months:

1. Read one A1 chapter a day. German A1 chapters in Contos average 166 words, a few minutes of reading.
2. Save every noun with its article: der Brief, die Tür, das Wort. Learning the gender later is much harder than learning it now.
3. Look for the second verb part at the end of the sentence before you translate. If a sentence makes no sense, the missing prefix (auf, an, zu) is often why.
4. Review your flashcards daily for 10 minutes, then reread yesterday's chapter. It will feel easier, which is the point.
5. Move up with your vocabulary. Contos moves you to A2 at 500 known words. German chapters grow from 166 words on average at A1 to 356 at B2, so the step up is real.
6. Practise listening and speaking separately. Contos is for reading; pair it with a podcast or a tandem partner.