Irish - Language Overview

When people say Irish, they mean the Gaelic language which was spoken in Ireland before English replaced Irish in everyday use. Nowadays, Irish is official language in the Republic of Ireland again, although only part of the population can read or speak it and it is only used as everyday language in some parts, especially Western Ireland around Galway.

Irish

Geographical Extension

Irish is only spoken in some parts of Ireland, called the Gaeltacht regions. Irish is officially the first language in the Republic of Ireland, and an acknowledged minority language in Northern Ireland.

Spoken by

It is spoken by approximately 1.5 million people.

Language Family and History

Irish belongs to the Goidelic language family, like Scottish Gaelic and Manx. First written records of the Irish language date back to the fourth century AD. The early, or primitive, Irish was written in the Ogham alphabet, also called the "Celtic Tree Alphabet", whose letters consisted of certain notches and strokes. It was named "Celtic Tree Alphabet" because traditions attributed tree names to the letters of the alphabet. Primitive Irish was prevalent throughout Ireland and on the west coast of Great Britain. In the fifth and sixth century, Primitive Irish developed into Old Irish, which then used the Latin alphabet. At around the same time, the former Celtic country started to adopt Christian believes through St. Patrick and other Christian missionaries.

Middle Irish, which evolved from Old Irish during the tenth century, was not only spoken in Ireland but also in Scotland and on the Isle of Man. About two to three centuries later, it split into Modern Irish, Scotish Gaelic and Manx. Modern Irish was used both spoken and in literature thoughout the next centuries.

Under British rule, the use of Irish declined and was associated with poverty since the wealthy elite in Ireland spoke English. The Great Famine 1845-1849 caused a further decline of the Irish speaking population due to death or emmigration.

The Gaelic Revival movement, which started at the end of the 19th century, tried to strengthen the use of Irish again. The Irish language became a symbol of a new-found national identity. In 1922, the Republic of Ireland gained its indepence from British rule. 15 years later, in 1937, Irish became first official language in the Republic of Ireland. Nowadays, Irish is taught at schools and is used in journalism and everyday use again, especially in the Gaeltacht regions.

Grammar Difficulty

Irish grammar shows some of the same grammatical characteristics as Chinese (Mandarin) which, quite honestly, surprised me a lot. It also has grammar structures in common with the Romanic languages. For English natives, Irish grammar may be difficult to grasp due to the great differences in sentence structure, the two genders for nouns, two different verbs for "to be" and other differences.

Pronunciation Difficulty

Irish pronunciation is by far the most difficult pronunciation I have yet encountered. All consonants can be pronounced either as "broad" or "slender" version, with different positions of the tongue. This small distinction in pronunciation also brings different meanings with it which makes it a pitfall for non-native speakers.

Special Facts

Since there were hardly any people around who were still able to write in Irish by the time Irish becamse official language in the Republic of Ireland, spelling and grammar are mostly derived from older written records of Modern Irish as used before British rule.

Irish is strongly influenced by the English language nowadays, especially when it comes to modern words which simply didn't exist in the time Irish was still "naturally" spoken. Some simply use the English words, for example for internet, while others create "Irish" words for it.

In Northern Ireland, Irish was exclusively used by Catholics for a long time and was seen as a symbol of a unified nation. Recently, Protestants in Northern Ireland show an interest in the Irish language as well.

Swedish - Language Overview

I chose Swedish to be my first Scandinavian language since my mom was already learning Danish and I wanted to take a different language. I don't know why exactly I reasoned that way, but I like Swedish so I haven't regretted my choice.

Swedish

Geographical Extension

Swedish is spoken throughout Sweden and in parts of Finland as official language.

Spoken by

Swedish is spoken by about nine million native speakers.

Language Family and History

Swedish belongs to the Scandinavian (or North Germanic) languages, and more extensively, to the Indo-European languages (like almost all European languages, by the way). Its closest relatives are Danish and Norwegian, which can be understood so that speakers of either of the three Scandinavian languages are able to communicate with each other.

The Scandinavic languages began to split from the Germanic language during the 8th century. Only a century later, the mutual Scandinavic language called Old Norse divided into Old West Norse (Norway and Iceland) and Old East Norse (Denmark and Sweden). Over the next centuries, each country developed a distinctive dialect which led to the division of former Old East Norse into Old Swedish and Old Danish from the 13th century onwards. During the Middle Ages, the Catholic church with its monasteries brought many loan words from Greek and Latin to Sweden while the Hanseatic Power and the trade through it brought with it a strong influence by Low and High German. Old Swedish had a grammar complexity that resembled the modern German grammar. In the recent centuries, Swedish experienced a simplification of grammar until it reached the form of modern Swedish in the late 19th century. The main reasons for a simplified and unified Swedish language had been the invention of book printing and therefore a wider distribution of written Swedish (especially the Bible), and the industrialization in Sweden which also brought forth new Swedish writers. The last greater reform of the Swedish language to date was the "you-reform" in the 1950s and 1960s when the way in which you address higher-ranking people was changed to a more liberal way.

Grammar Difficulty

Swedish grammar is similar to English grammar in complexity. Although Swedish still has two genders, its overall complexity has been simplified throughout history so that the Swedish language shouldn't be too difficult to learn for English natives.

Pronunciation Difficulty

Swedish has a rather sing-songy pronunciation which might be difficult to immitate. Apart from that, however, it is quite easy to learn.

Special Facts

Old Swedish was written with runes. The runic alphabet only had 16 letters so that many letters were used for more than one phoneme.

Chinese (Mandarin) - Language Overview

Chinese (Mandarin) is a beautiful language. For European and American people with non-Asian background, it will also appear quite exotic due to their signs instead of letters.

Chinese (Mandarin)

Geographical Extension

Chinese is spoken throughout China in various dialects, in Taiwan and Singapore. It is recognised as minority language in the United States and Mauritius. Mandarin is by far the most dominant and wide-spread variation and is mostly spoken in the north and southwest of China.

Spoken by

With 850 million speakers throughout the world, Chinese (Mandarin) is likely the language with the most speakers. The total speakers of Chinese language variations sum up to about 1.3 billion speakers.

Language Family and History

Mandarin is the standard Chinese which is used in school, in government agencies, in the media and as a common language of communication for natives of all the various Chinese variations.

Linguists think that all variations of Chinese and similar languages have developed from an original language called Proto-Sino-Tibetan. The earliest written records of Chinese language date back to the Zhou Dynasty (1122-256 BC). The language back then is now referred to as Old or Archaic Chinese. However, linguists have not been able to come to a consent of Old Chinese pronunciation and language. Even Middle Chinese cannot be fully reconstructed so that all hypotheses concerning the outdated versions of Chinese are tentative.

In contrast to European languages, Chinese has mostly been isolated throughout history. The vast majority of Mandarin speakers can be explained by geographical circumstances. The north of China is easier to travel than the mountains and rivers of the southern parts of China. Most Chinese variations which developed in the southern parts were used for all parts of life until very recently when the government introduced an educational reform and made Mandarin the compulsory language taught at schools in the mid-20th century.

Grammar Difficulty

Mandarin grammar is based on sentence structure and word order rather than on word changes (thus as verb conjugations or plural endings). Therefore, Mandarin is classified as an analytical (relying on syntax) language. However, Mandarin possesses a great variety of particles and classifiers to distinguish different moods and aspects. For natives of non-analytical languages, those grammar structures are very confusing and it takes some time to get used to the completely different approach.

Pronunciation Difficulty

For natives of European languages, the phonetic system of Mandarin is confusing at least. Mandarin has a set amount of syllables since letters can only be combined in a certain way. To increase the amount of phonetic elements, Mandarin uses five different tones to differ between the meaning: four different intonations (high level, high rising, low falling-rising, high falling) plus one unstressed (neutral) tone. For many non-natives, it is difficult to get the different syllables' pronunciation and especially the intonations right, which leads to a great risk of misunderstandings since a slightly altered intonation also alters the meaning of Chinese words.

Special Facts

Most Chinese natives speak at least two or three different variations of Chinese, one of them usually being Mandarin. They often speak their own regional variation, and sometimes other variations as well if they lived in several places. Even in Hongkong, which was English colony until 1997, Mandarin spreads as common language next to English and Cantonese (the Chinese variation officially spoken in Hongkong).

Other languages such as Japanese, Vietnamese and Korean have borrowed a major part of their writing and even vocabulary from Chinese.

Modern Mandarin only knows about 1,200 different syllables (including the different intonations) which leads to many words with the same pronunciation. In writing, however, each word has its own character so that written Mandarin is non-ambiguous where spoken Mandarin might be misunderstood. Therefore, many Mandarin words have developed to consist of two syllables instead of the original one syllable to make words non-ambiguous in spoken language as well. Compare: the English language knows over 8,000 different syllables.

Arabic - Language Overview

Today's language overview is written by my friend Farah Evers. She works as freelance writer and graphic designer and has some awesome design work up on her homepage! Thanks a lot, Farah!!!

Arabic

Allow me to note, before I begin, that I am neither an expert in linguistics, nor am I a historian. I am, however, Lebanese. Arabic is my native language, but my dominant background education was mainly in English. I also studied French, German and Dutch, and I am currently living in the Netherlands. Being exposed to so many languages clarifies a lot of the cultural vagueness most monolingual people face. Language is not just a means for communication. It has a profound effect on how people think and even more profound effects on cultural evolution.

If you think German or Dutch grammar is difficult, wait till you sink your teeth into some Arabic. The Arabic language has its own unique rules, where (in some cases) the alphabet on its own is not enough to interpret the context. The complexity of the language is not only in its pronunciation but also in its conjugation.

Written Arabic:

The original ‘Koranic’ Arabic is what we in the Middle East refer to as “Formal” Arabic. It is mostly used in written form (newspapers, books etc.) and almost never used in speech. Although it never passes as colloquial, written Arabic remains a dominant form of communicating written ideas among Arabs, due to the wide variety of dialects and drastic changes that have evolved around the Arab world over the years. It ensures a certain measure of understanding and a unified interpretation among Arabs from different parts of the world. If you're from Lebanon and you pick up a Saudi newspaper, you would understand every word you read. On the other hand, if you’re a Lebanese who just met a Saudi, you might find yourself scratching your head on more than one occasion. Not to say that it’s a difference between night and day, but yes, even Arabs among Arabs sometimes find dialects hard to decipher and in many cases, extremely comical.

Spoken Arabic:

Here’s where it gets crazy. There are some similarities in pronunciation and dialect among adjacent countries, like Syria, Jordan and Lebanon, or the various parts of the United Arab Emirates, but the dialect varies widely from one part of the world to the other. Countries like Tunisia and Morocco almost have their own vocabulary. Now don’t ask me which country has the closest dialect to formal Arabic, because I don’t have a good answer to that… maybe Sudan?

The Arabic language does not recognize the G sound, which you might hear in words like: go, grape, gospel and so on. It does, however, have the J sounds, pronounced in a soft manner like “beige” or think “genre”. Nonetheless, countries like Egypt never use the soft J sound, instead they pronounce the same words with a ‘Gah’ sound. It is believed that they were historically influenced by the British and German mandates. In some tribal Arabic, the “AH” or “A” sound (think “apple” “ate”) is also replaced with the “Gah” or hard G sound.

Despite all the variations, Arabs around the world have a tendency to understand each other to a certain extent, and we have formal Arabic basics to thank for that.

The Koran and Ancient Arabic

Arabic evolved from an even more complicated and ancient form called Proto-Sematic. There existed some poetry and literature from earlier days, which used odd jargon and hysterical adjectives that would make any Arabic native crack up;(I came across those while taking an Arabic Literature class back in university) of course, those words are extinct nowadays.

Some verses in the Koran use complex wording and are not easily identifiable without proper translation. Those words are not tackled on a day to day basis, but funnily enough, many illiterate Muslims are able to recite the Koran word for word, due to its rhythmical and poetic arrangement.

Fun Facts and Cool Links

Ø The Arabic alphabet has 28 basic letters.

Ø Arabic goes from right to left.

Ø There is no IT in Arabic; it’s either a HE or a SHE, no matter what you’re talking about.

Ø Each letter can be pronounced in 3-4 different ways, depending on the conjugative UMLAUT or its Arabic equivalent.

Ø The countries that use Arabic as their official language are Algeria, Lebanon, Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Western Sahara, Libya, Djibouti, Somalia, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Chad, Qatar, Oman, Yemen, Bahrain, Kuwait, Palestine, Sudan, Comoros, Jordan, Mauritania, Morocco, Tunisia, and Eritrea. (Hope I didn’t miss any.)

Ø There are about 255 million Arabic speakers around the world.

Ø There are two forms of G like letters: ġ - It’s like the French R. The other one is a soft J. (See example above.)

Ø There’s an odd sound of a Q, which comes from deep within the throat. The same applies to the D sound, where another version is spelled out by placing your tongue along the upper part of your mouth. For more about pronunciation, here are some fun youtube videos I found:

http://www.youtube.com/user/arabic4beginners

http://www.youtube.com/user/LearnArabicMe

Dutch - Language Overview

Dutch is very closely related to German, both in vocabulary and grammar. One of the northern German dialects is even closer to Dutch than to German. I started learning Dutch just for the fun of it and soon found out that I indeed have found another language I really like, and one which is pretty easy to learn for me due to the fact that I'm German native speaker and speak English (another related language) fluenty too.

Dutch

Geographical Extension

Dutch is spoken as official language in the Netherlands, part of Belgium and Suriname. These three countries form the Dutch Language Union. Apart from that, it has official status in the Carribean nations Aruba, Curaçao and Sint-Maarten.

Spoken by

Dutch is spoken by approximately 23 million native speakers in the EU. I didn't find figures for the other countries, sorry.

Language Family and History

Dutch belongs to the Western Germanic languages and is thus closely related to both German and English. It emerged from its preceeding languages Low Saxon, Frisian and English at around 450 AD. The Dutch language development is divided in three epochs: Old Dutch (450-1150), Middle Dutch (1150-1500) and Modern Dutch (1500-present).

The first process of standardisation began after 1477 and was mostly influenced by the dialects of Flanders and Brabant. At the beginning of the 16th century, the urban dialect of Antwerp became the strongest influence. When the Spanish army invaded Antwerp in 1585, many of its inhabitants fled to the Netherlands, especially to Holland (a northern province). The greatest step of standardisation, however, did take place in 1637 when the first Dutch translation of the Bible was created. It was mostly influenced by the Holland dialect but used elements of other dialects as well. The goal was to create a translation everyone from all the Dutch provinces could understand.

Grammar Difficulty

For German natives, the Dutch grammar is very easy to grasp as it is closely related to German grammar. For English natives, however, it will be more difficult as the English language has a completely different syntax, only one definite article (compared to two definite articles in the Dutch language) and doesn't inflect adjectives and adverbs. The Dutch grammar is only slightly easier to learn than the German one.

Pronunciation Difficulty

The Dutch language presents quite some pronunciation difficulties for English native speakers. It contains some sounds which are non-existent in English and can have consonant clusters of up to six or seven different consonant sounds in a row. German native speakers usually have it easier as the Dutch sounds exist in the same or at least a very similar version in the German language.

Special Facts

The language spoken in South Africa, Africaans, is a daughter language of Dutch. It has been brought there by Dutch invadors and has developed into a different yet still very closely related language; Dutch and South African people can usually understand each other if they speak very slowly and clearly, similar to Spanish and Portuguese people.

Italian - Language Overview

I started learning Italian back when I was in 9th grade. It was the first language I started on my own, with a language course for self-studies, instead of at school. Later, in vocational school, I joined an Italian class for one and a half year but soon noticed that I was already ahead of the class. Still, it gave me an opportunity to study and use Italian once a week at least (as I was very busy with all my other school stuff too at home).

Italian

Geographical Extension

Italian is spoken in Italy, Switzerland (as one of four official languages), San Marino and the Vatican City as well as by minorities in Malta, Croatia and Slovenia as official language.

Spoken by

Italian is spoken by about 62 million native speakers.

Language Family and History

Italian belongs to the Romance languages. Among all Romance languages, Italian is the closest to Latin in terms of grammar, vocabulary and even the distinction of short and long vowels.

The first records of what might be called "modern Italian" date from 960-963 and are legal papers from the region Benevento. The actual development of today's Italian came through writing. It was a poet from the Florentine region, Dante Alighieri, who standardized the many different Italian languages through his epic poems known as the Commedia in the early 14th century. Thus, his dialect became the basis of Italy's official language.

Even though Italy was ruled by foreign powers in the past, their languages didn't leave many traces in the Italian language. The various dialects of the many Italian cities, though, differed (and still differ) greatly. However, with Dante's poems in the 14th century and Florence gaining political and cultural relevance over the next centuries, a refined version of the Florentine dialect became a standard throughout Italy.

Finally, after a heated debate between different factions, the idea of an Italian language based on the great literary classics became prevalent and led to the publication of the first Italian dictionary (1612). Already 30 years before that, however, the Accademia della Crusca in Florence was founded as official legislative body of the Italian language.

At last, it was the influence of two other Romance languages which brought a more regular grammar (through Spanish invaders in the 16th century) and a unification of Italy as one country with one Italian language as a result of Napoleon's invasion (early 19th century).

Grammar Difficulty

Italian grammar is similar to Spanish and French grammar as those languages are closely related. It is more complex than the English grammar. Italian conjugates all verbs, for example, and changes adjectives depending on number and gender of the corresponding noun. It has both male and female nouns (and different articles for male and female). Like the Spanish language, the Italian language doesn’t need the personal pronouns and only uses them for clarification or stressing. The subject is usually clear from the conjugated verb.

Pronunciation Difficulty

My greatest issue with Italian pronunciation is the rolling "r". I simply can't get it right. For me as a German native, the other sounds aren't really difficult; it's only this one which doesn't exist in German. The spelling vs. pronunciation is quite easy to learn. Unlike English, the Italian language usually spells their words in accordance with their pronunciation, meaning that you can derive the pronunciation directly from the spelling.

Special Facts

What we know as Italian nowadays is a mixture of various Italian dialects from different cities. Although the Florentine dialect became the base for modern Italian, many words come from different cities. Civil servants and soldiers from all parts of Italy enriched the standardised Italian language with words and idioms from their homes and helped forge the language we know as Italian. At the time the various city-states unified to one nation in 1861, only about 2.5 % of Italians speak the "standard" Italian language.

Spanish - Language Overview

I started learning Spanish in 9th grade, two years after French. That way, I had both an advantage and a disadvantage for learning Spanish. On the one hand, I recognised many words and grammar structures from French, but on the other hand, I sometimes mixed up vocabulary too.

Spanish

Geographical Extension

Spanish is spoken in Spain, parts of central America and all but one countries in south America (exception: Brazil where they speak Portuguese).

Spoken by

Spanish is spoken by about 300 million native speakers.

Language Family and History

Spanish is a Romance language. It is closely related to Portuguese and Catalan as all three languages come from the Iberian peninsula.

The Iberians were the first inhabitants of the Iberian peninsula. At about 600 B.C., the Celtic moved there and mixed with the Iberians. When the Romans conquered the Iberian peninsula about 300 B.C., Latin became the main language but was influenced by the former languages. The Romans probably even brought the Germanic influence with them. Between about 700 and 1500, so for a period of almost 800 years, Spain was ruled by the Arabic speaking Moor. Due to that, Spanish is the Romance language which has the most words with Arabic origin.

From all the Spanish dialects, the old Castilian (Spanish) became the prominent one when Castile became a kingdom in 1085. During the next 200 years, Castilian became the official written language and replaced Latin. Over the time, the Castilian language expanded over most of the Iberian peninsula and replaced the other dialects and Arabic.

Grammar Difficulty

Spanish grammar has about the same difficulty as French. It is more complex than the English grammar. Spanish conjugates all verbs, for example, and changes adjectives depending on number and gender of the corresponding noun. It has both male and female nouns (and different articles for male and female). In contrast to English, the Spanish language doesn’t need the personal pronouns and only uses them for clarification or stressing. The subject is usually clear from the conjugated verb.

Pronunciation Difficulty

The Spanish language has certain sounds which may prove difficult to pronounce for English natives. On the other hand, especially the European Spanish tends to “build” their words as they are spoken. The English word “football”, for example, is written “fútbol”, thus imitating the pronunciation.

Special Facts

After Mandarin Chinese, Hindi and English, Spanish is the language with the fourth most native speakers throughout the world. Only English is learnt by more people as a second language.

In Spain, Spanish is only one of four languages but all Spanish people know it. The Spanish spoken in various countries varies slightly in pronunciation and vocabulary.

The United States have more native Spanish speakers than even Spain and are in second place worldwide after Mexico.

French - Language Overview

French is my third language. I started learning it two years after I started with English as French was my second foreign language of choice at school (I started English in fifth grade and French in seventh grade).

French

Geographical Extension

French is (one of the) official language(s) in more than 30 countries all over the world. Apart from France, Belgium, Luxombourg and Switzerland in Europe and parts of Canada in northern America, it is mostly spoken in Africa due to France's history as colonial power in many African countries.

Spoken by

French is spoken by about 110 million native speakers.

Language Family and History

French is one of the Romance languages which have their roots in ancient Latin. However, many Celtic words have found their way into modern French as well as Latin only slowly became the overall language. The French way of counting is supposed to be a relict of the Celtic language as well. Early trade and Germanic soldiers in the Roman army are responsible for the first Germanic words. Starting with the Franconian victory over the Romans in the 5th century, many Franconian words have found their way into the French language. It is remarkable, however, that the Franconian conquerers blended their language with the French (Latin) language instead of imposing their language upon their new territory.

In 842, the first documents were written in French (as opposed to Latin as before). Still, Latin stayed dominant in official writing for many centuries. Over time, Paris became the political centre of France, and thus, the French dialect spoken in Paris became the main language. While England was conquered by Normans, French was influenced by the English language. From the 17th century on, French became the language of the gentry all over Europe.

Grammar Difficulty

French grammar shows many similarities to German grammar, mostly in the declension of verbs, the tenses and the use of adjectives (matching the noun in gender and number). Thus said, the French grammar is more complex than the English grammar which makes it more difficult for English natives to learn it.

Pronunciation Difficulty

French pronunciation might look strange and difficult at first but once you get to know it, it is really easy. Unlike the English language, the French language only has one pronunciation for each set of letters. That means, once you know it, you are able to read aloud texts with completely unknown words as you can easily see the pronunciation. However, some of the specific sounds are difficult for non-native speakers.

Special Facts

French is official language in many international organisations like the European Union and the United Nations, and is still considered the lanugage of diplomacy. It is the second most learned foreign language worldwide behind English.

English - Language Overview

English was the first foreign language I learnt, and the first one I gained fluency in. Thus, it is only fair to talk about English second.

English

Geographical Extension

English is official language in 52 countries worldwide. It's spoken in England and Ireland, northern America (USA and Canada), most of the Carribean countries, Australia, New Zealand and others.

Spoken by

English is spoken by about 310 million native speakers and a vast majority of people around the world as second language.

Language Family and History

English belongs to the Indo-Germanic languages and is related to German and Dutch, among others. The history of the English language goes as far back as to the middle of the fifth century. The old English grammar is much closer to modern German than to modern English as it differed between three definite articles and four cases just like modern German does.

The old English language has been influenced by three different languages: the Celtic language which had been prevalent in Great Britain before the English language got there, the Latin brought to England by the Romans, and the Scandinavian language the Vikings brought with them when they invaded England. During time, the old English language changed gravely and lost about 85 % of its vocabulary due to the influences of other languages. Later, when French invaders came to reign the country, the English language "imported" many French words into their vocabulary. When literacy began to spread and books became known and common goods, many new words with Latin roots were "imported" to serve the needs. Nowadays, words from the old English, Scandinavian languages, Latin, French and the Celtic languages blend together to form the modern English vocabulary.

Grammar Difficulty

English grammar is quite easy compared to, for example, German grammar. There is only one definite article, there are no cases for the nouns except the genitive...however, the tenses give English learners constant headaches. If you take the progressive tenses and passive voice into account, English has a total of 28 tenses to learn!

Pronunciation Difficulty

The greatest difficulty for non-native English speakers is the fact that many letter combinations have several pronunciations. Even the same written word can be pronounced differently depending on its meaning or part of speech (e.g. read [ri:d] (infinitive/present tense) - read [red] (past tense/past participle).

Apart from that, due to the great geographical extension of this language, there are many variations of spoken English nowadays. The two main variations are British English (BE) and American English (AE), both of which have many different accents.

Special Facts

With BE and AE, next to lesser known varieties, there is no such as THE English language. All those varieties have the vast basis in common while some parts of the spelling and vocabulary may be different. Even some books are "translated" from BE to AE or vice versa, especially MG books set in a school environment like Harry Potter, because the vocabulary related to school between both varieties differs greatly.

German - Language Overview

Today, I'm going to start this new series about different languages. Each week, I will give an overview of one of the languages I speak (and maybe extend it to languages I don't yet speak later on). I will start with German as it is the first language I ever learnt. Watch out for English next week, followed by French, Spanish, Italian, Dutch, Chinese (Mandarin) and Swedish for sure.

German

Geographical Extension

German is spoken in Germany and Austria as well as in Luxembourg, Liechtenstein, Belgium, some parts of Switzerland and even Namibia and northern Italy as official language. Brazil, the United States and some parts of France as well as many other countries have a huge population of German speakers as well although German is no official language there.

Spoken by

German is spoken by approximately 90 million native speakers.

Language Family and History

German belongs to the western Germanic languages. It is very close to Dutch and shares quite a few words with English and the Scandinavian languages as well. German has developed a whole bunch of dialects due to the fact that Germany was split in many independent parts throughout the Middle Ages. Some of the dialects, especially in northern Germany, are closer to Dutch than to German. The German language has been influenced by Latin, Greek, French, Jiddish, and lately English, and has quite a lot of foreign words from any of those languages included into the German vocabulary.

Grammar Difficulty

German grammar is difficult to learn for English native speakers. First of all, German has three different definite articles (male, female, neutral). Adjectives are changed due to gender and number of things they define and due to the case in which the noun stands. German knows a total of four cases, each of which comes with different endings. Word order and sentence structure can differ greatly from English sentences.

Pronunciation Difficulty

German can be tricky to pronounce for English native speakers as the German language has certain sounds which simply don't exist in English. Other than that, German isn't that difficult. Most combinations of letters only have one way, or two ways at most, to be pronounced so once you get the hang of pronunciation, you will be able to pronounce even unknown words.

Special Facts

German spelling and punctuation have been changed twice in the past decades. The last changes came into effect in 2006 and were a try to fix the mess they had made with the first changes. Even now, five years later, many Germans are confused by the old and new rules. Some things have been made more logic while others just lost all logic there might have been. Some newspapers even went back to use the old spelling and punctuation altogether.