GermanLinx :: German and Careers :: Choose German

Going to choose German at school and wondering what it will be like?

Why do I have a headstart?
What will I do in German in school?
How can German take me out of the classroom?
What could I do with my German?

Why do I have a headstart if I choose German?
German and English are very similar in some ways, because the two languages share the same grandparent. Look at these words: Haus (house), Buch (book), Sand (sand), Sturm (storm), Finger (finger), Hand (hand), Nase (nose), Name (name), Mutter (mother), Bier (beer), schwimmen (to swim), singen (to sing), trinken (to drink), kommen (to come), waschen (to wash), warm (warm), blau (blue), jung (young), alt (old), windig (windy).

You'll quickly get use to the German letter combinations and their sounds. You can rely on the way Germans pronounce their letters and words and you will be able to correctly pronounce any German word you haven't seen before. Here are some German words you may use already!: Kitsch, Rucksack, Poltergeist, kaputt, Blitz, Diesel, Nudel, Delikatessen, Quartz, Kindergarten.

What will I do in German in school?

Early on you'll learn to speak about yourself, about what you like, your friends. You will do and learn this on your own, in pair-work and in group-work. You'll learn how to say and write basic information about yourself, and how to understand the same information that others write or say to you.
You soon will be able to play games with the language, do quizzes, create and perform short plays with class-mates, and read simple magazines written in German for learners like you.
You'll play with the language on CD-ROMs and on German quizzes created on the Internet for you. You'll be able to create your own German quizzes for other students too! You'll use the computer to create presentations in German about your interests, and you will later be able to communicate with a penfriend in a German-speaking country via email (or through normal letters).
You'll learn about cultural differences and lifestyle in the German-speaking countries by watching recent videos featuring cities, sports, music, TV, etc. You also have to learn something about grammar, but this will help you with other languages and even to understand the English language better.
When you go on learning German you will learn more about how Karneval and the Oktoberfest are celebrated and, for example, what is done in Germany about protecting the environment. Perhaps you will learn about a topic from history, geography, social studies or other subjects in German. In any case you will soon be able to talk in German about many things you are interested in.

How can German take me out of the classroom?
Teachers of German work together and organise all sorts of activities where you can share your learning of German with students from other schools.

Poetry Comp place-getters For example, there are: regional poetry-reciting competitions (and a big State Final); German Days; film excursions (where students attend a student-screening at a Melbourne cinema of a film showing as part of the German Film Festival); a German Student Film Festival, where students in three different age categories submit short films in German made by themselves; excursions to German restaurants to enjoy great food; and biggest of all, the opportunity to participate in student group-exchanges with students in Germany!

The top two pics show: At left - students from Bright Secondary College at the annual Learn-Geman-Forum held at the Town Hall and at Federation Square in Melbourne. These two girls are participating in the German newsreading competition run by SBS Radio's German program using theri outdoor broadcast unit. At right - students having BBQ lunch at the Year 10 Camp. The picture below them shows the three Year 7 place-getters with the judges at the Poetry State Final.

What could you do with your German?

Backpack through the German-speaking parts of Europe, as heaps of young Aussies do, but with a big advantage!;
Order food in a restaurant in a German-speaking country (and get what you want);
Travel and speak the local lingo in beautiful Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, and Northern Italy;
Drive a Porsche, Mercedes, Audi or BMW on the Autobahn (no speed limit);
Speak to Arnold Schwarzenegger, Steffi Graf, Michael Schumacher, Tommy Haas, Rammstein, Claudia Schiffer etc. in their own language;
Travel in Eastern Europe, where masses of people are learning German;
Travel and communicate with the many German tourists around the world;
Have better chances of getting a job with the numerous German companies in Australia such as BASF, Miele, Siemens, Stihl, Bosch, VW or in tourism.

After finishing school with a good knowledge of German you can study for some time in Germany, which is not very expensive and there are quite a number of scholarships you can apply for. German engineering has a very good reputation; music and sciences have a great tradition to live up to - German is the language of Beethoven, Einstein and Freud (e.g. the year 2000 Nobel Prize for Physics was won by a trio of information-technology researchers that included Herbert Kroemer, a German, and the MP3 music compression technology was developed by Karlheinz Brandenburg and two partners based at the Fraunhofer Institut).