anyone applying for work in germany ?

Well at least you've got the right attitude - complain your way out of it. Always works for me.

Why would you suggest Germany OP?

Don't know about the rest of Germany, but Berlin has a higher unemployment rate than our worst predicted rate for next year. And has done so since reunification.

And you need German for practically every job over there. Yes most Germans are good at English, but in the workplace, it's all German. As it should be.

Gazza22 wrote: »

The OP is going to work for an ethical cleansing firm. Duh

Those ethics seriously need cleansing over there. Man, don't get me started on them ethics...

Gazza22 wrote: »

You have more of a chance of learning German from scratch than Spanish, French etc

I highly disagree with that. Spanish and French are incredibly easy languages to learn. They're quite similar to English other than genderization of everything. German is just a whole other world entirely; their grammatical structure hasn't "grown up," per se. It seems to be stuck in the 1700's and it can be a bit of a head wreck. I can't even imagine what old German is like if today's German is that.. strange.

Plus, native english speakers tend to have trouble with the creating the sounds properly, like their version of "ch" compared to our "sh," and in words ending with "en" sounding sort of like a hum, or just the closing of your mouth on the n. Stunted. It's weird.

Spanish is definitely one of the easiest languages in the world to learn. I grew up learning French (mandatory in Canada) but I know people who found it incredibly easy to learn later on in life. Then again, I learned Quebec french instead of France french, but other than colloquial differences they're pretty much the same.

I know all three languages, and German was definitely the toughest. Plan to learn Dutch next, should be fun.

I'm living here for nearly 2 years. I've picked up a bit of the language purely by listening to sentence structures. You'll be surprised how similar it is to English. I've found my English is suffering though because when I do talk English its with Germans that don't have very good grammer etc.

Its a bit of a culture shock though. Germans, especially in the bit cities can be quite annoying. They have issues with personal space in general and a lot of the time are surly and rude.

Outside the cities though its a different story. The summer is here now after 4 or 5 months of snow and its getting pretty nice out. We had 29 celcius in Munich yesterday and it was a little cloudy.

Come over for a year , if you don't like it you can always go home to Ireland :rolleyes:

http://www.language-learning-advisor.com/easiest-language-to-learn-survey.html

By far the easiest language to learn chosen by visitors (of the choices that were presented) was Spanish by a three to one margin over French. Italian (which had been at the bottom) is now a fairly strong third. German and Dutch follow up.

http://ezinearticles.com/?Which-Is-The-Easiest-Language-To-Learn?-Rating-The-14-Most-Popular-Course-Offerings&id=656519

The 14 most popular courses according to a combination of linguistic ease and accessibility.
1. Spanish. Category One. The straightforward grammar is familiar and regular. It is also ubiquitous in the Americas, the only foreign language with a major presence in the insular linguistic environment of the U.S. Chances to speak and hear it abound. It is the overwhelming favorite, accounting for more than fifty percent of language study enrollment in the MLA study.

Though, maybe Irish is closer in grammatical structure to German making it easier to learn for people here, and perhaps the accent makes it easier, I'm not sure. Spanish, though, is very widely considered to be the easiest language to learn, especially in North America.

Show some initiative. Running away to Germany is not a final solution.

DrumSteve wrote: »

I see what you did there.

Link to a shit image? Fortunately not.