German

Why choose German? With 6 countries in Europe using German as their only or joint official language, German is spoken in more of Europe than any other language, and next year’s enlargement of the EU to the East will only make it more important. Germany is Europe’s largest economy and the world’s third largest. Students specializing in science, especially chemistry, physics, biology and engineering, will find a reading knowledge of German very helpful (Opportunities in Science & Technology). For seven other reasons.

How to start studying German?

Try to get yourself familiar with the sounds of German which are very similar to English (especially the ‘basic’ words – see http://lc.ust.hk/~sac/advice/european/Dontknow.htm).  The best way to do this is to watch a video with English subtitles or listen to an audio tape from one of the German beginners’ courses available in the SAC.  The language is nearly 100% phonetic so you should be able to pronounce words well very quickly, and spelling will be much less of a problem than for English.  See the section on Pronunciation below. 
2. Meet an adviser in the SAC who will show you the physical materials available and decide which ones to use.  There are currently advisers for German.
3. Decide if you intend to join a course taught by a Language Center instructor or consultant.  Courses currently cost $900 for 42 hours and enrolment for the beginners’ German I course opens in the first week of every semester and sometimes during the summer and winter breaks.  Alternatively you could enrol at the Goethe Institut
4. Browse the websites organised at http://lc.ust.hk/~sac/materials/german/web/index.html
5. Read one former UST student's experience of studying German here"

German pronunciation is basically regular with very few sounds which do not exist in Chinese or English, but there are some differences in sound-spelling matches from English.  For a rough guide to the sounds of German click  HERE

The main problem with German pronunciation (for Chinese learners) is the same as with English, the consonant clusters.  While not as extreme as some Slavic languages, German has many combinations of consonants like ‘ch’ (often pronounced like an aspirated ‘h’, made by expelling air between the back of the tongue and the soft palate), ‘sch’ and even ‘tsch’.  Generally the ‘s’ followed by another consonant is pronounced ‘sh’, so sport is pronounced ‘shport’, and ‘qu’ is pronounced ‘kv’.  The main differences with English consonants are the ‘j’ which is pronounced like ‘y’ in English, ‘z’ like ‘ts’, ‘w’ like ‘v’ and ‘v’ usually like ‘f’’.  For example, the German carmaker Volkswagen (‘people’s car’) is usually written VW and pronounced approximately like ‘fow-veh’!  The ‘r’ sound is guttural (produced in the back of your throat).

Vowels in German can be either long or short (like English also) but with fewer exceptions.  Vowels are long when followed by a single consonant or by ‘h’ and short when followed by two consonants, and all vowel combinations (diphthongs) are long.  The only vowel which does not approximate to English is ‘ü’ or ‘ue’ which is the same as in the Cantonese sound for ‘book’ [書]. 

German words are always stressed on the first syllable, except when it is a recognisable prefix (be-, ge-, emp-, ent-, er-, ver-, zer-), in which case the second syllable is stressed, or in foreign words, when stress falls on the last syllable. 

There are differing varieties of German pronunciation in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, but Standard German (‘Hochdeutsch’) is understood everywhere.