Although not everyone immediately thinks of German when they think about learning a second language, you would be surprised how useful it is, especially in Europe.
It is spoken in Germany of course, which is one of the largest countries in Europe in terms of population. It is also spoken in Austria and a large part of Switzerland. You will also find that many people in the nations that surround Germany to the east, like the Czech Republic spreading to the Balkans, speak a bit of German.
It is a useful language to understand if you want to travel to some of these countries and do not want to speak English.
It is also a good language to have for business as Germany is an important trading partner with many countries throughout the world, especially in the automobile industry, IT and financial services. Speaking the language can open doors in terms of a career opportunity or potential business partner.
Of course if you want to learn the German language by using learning German software then it may not be a straightforward task to select the right course for your needs. There are many out there and you might find yourself going round in circles trying to get the right one.
It is often very hard to give a definitive answer when it comes to recommending a particular course because everybody learns in different ways and have different objectives.
I would say that you should want this software to be able to teach you the four key skills to learning a language. You want it to be able to teach you how to read, write, speak and understand German.
Of course, learning all these skills takes quite a commitment in effort and time so your objective might not be this all encompassing.
For instance, you may have plans to vacation in Berlin for the summer and only want to be able to communicate. You want to concentrate of speaking and comprehension without worrying about reading or writing.
So the point is that you have to understand your objectives first and foremost.
When you understand your objective, you can then concentrate on what the software offers. This means how it teaches you the language. Some tell you what to say without bothering to explain why you do this. The philosophy behing this is that we are wired to pick up languages intuitively with enough exposure to any language.
This idea is the one that underpins immersion language learning. Immersion is effectively living in a German speaking country without access to English speakers. You have to learn German to communicate with people and you get plenty of opportunity to hear and practice it.
This is good in theory and most people agree that immersion is the best way to learn. So the software that tries to replicate this process is a good idea but it falls down because the person learning has to be self motivated.
They have to use the software often to be suitably immersed in the language. And even if they are fairly self motivated, it is impossible to cut off your ‘real’ life that entails speaking in English.
The more traditional software course will concentrate on the why of a sentence just as much as the what or how of saying it. Thus they will go into the vocabulary and grammar.
This may seem difficult to learn too but some people will get more confidence learning this way. They will understand why they are saying something and this could lead to them speaking to German people. Once you are confident about speaking to German speaking people, your learning will really increase.
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