Learning German - Video games

I’ve recently decided that I want to start learning german. And I’d like to make this as enjoyable as possible. I’ve gained 90% of my english language knowledge and skills, as a child, through cartoons. So I’d like to try something similar with dubbed movies & tv series in german, but I’d also like to add video games to that. Do you think it’s worth doing? Am I just lying to myself, and I’ll end up gaming more than actually learning? I guess I ‘ll have to only go with story heavy games that are ideally also voice acted. The one I’m excited to try is Gothic.

If you don't mind me asking, what nationality are you? I always thought you were German.

I would actually recommend Adventure Games by German Companies.

First and Foremost Book of Unwritten Tales 1 and 2 by King Art (not KING)
Adventures by Daedalic are usually also mostly quite well.

The reason?
Germany has a big tradition of dubbing everything and extremely good voice actors. However if you save money and don't give them proper instructions and so on, even they can only do so much.

King Art in particular has awesome voice acting.
And who can say no to such a trailer?


Some actual german voices (including the voice of spongebob):


If you want to play an RPG I'd recommend "Drakensang: Am Fluss der Zeit" (not just "Drakensang"), also extremely good voice acting.

Oh…and…erm…if you want to check out some German reviews, feel free to check out www.ndnw.net

Originally Posted by JDR13
If you don't mind me asking, what nationality are you? I always thought you were German.

I'm from Romania, from Eastern Europe.

I guess the most difficult thing will be, with regards to learning German, is getting to a decent level of vocabulary knowledge and some basic grammar. Man, it's really daunting, just thinking about it.

I guess my question would be, why do you want to learn German in the first place…it's a pretty awful language, in my opinion. I mean in the way it sounds and how words tend to be ridiculously long with a lot of letters and so on. If I wanted to learn a foreign language, something like French or Spanish would be the first ones I would pick. Those are elegant, pleasing to the ears type of languages, especially French.

Originally Posted by Arkadia7
I guess my question would be, why do you want to learn German in the first place…it's a pretty awful language, in my opinion. I mean in the way it sounds and how words tend to be ridiculously long with a lot of letters and so on. If I wanted to learn a foreign language, something like French or Spanish would be the first ones I would pick. Those are elegant, pleasing to the ears type of languages, especially French.

I'd rather learn German than French, although the latter would probably be more useful. To me, French sounds arrogant and pompous… like many of the people who speak it.

Originally Posted by Arkadia7
If I wanted to learn a foreign language, something like French or Spanish would be the first ones I would pick. Those are elegant, pleasing to the ears type of languages, especially French.

Maybe he wants the challenge and French would be to easy? Romanian is a Romance language and has much in common with Italian (danutz can probably understand some Italian at least) and has many grammatical and lexical similarities with French, Spanish, and Portuguese. On the other hand, German is a Germanic language like English and Dutch.

Long words are a feature not a bug of the German language:

Example:
Autoführerscheinprüfung

is a compound word:

Auto: Car
Führer: Operator
Schein: Certificate
Prüfung: Test

It means:
A test to get a certificate that allows you to operate a car.

German speakers can invent these compound words on the fly.
That means no dictionary can ever contain all possible German words.

As for the OP, I'm with Kordanor on this -- adventures are a safe bet. I remember having learned lots of English words in Monkey Island. I suppose soap operas will help too, but I personally went with Star Trek TNG for my daily dose of English. Either way, watch lots and lots of movies or TV shows in German with subtitles, to get a feel for language patterns.

Ok, not trying to be mean or offend any Germans, but to me, the French language wins in a complete rout over the German language. There are very good reasons that the French are considered the ones who are the highest culture masters of the world in terms of art, food, movies, etc. And their language also sounds very musical and pleasing, unlike guttural and harsh sounding German.

I'm not saying German is totally without merit though, as I get that English is also Germanic in origin. And (of course) English is my favorite language, as it is my native language. I'm glad English has other influences as well though, like Latin and French.

I can't wait until the human race figures out that a single common language would carry a ridiculous amount of advantages - to such a degree that any perceived disadvantage of "lost culture" will be laughed at eventually.

Originally Posted by Darth Tagnan
I can't wait until the human race figures out that a single common language would carry a ridiculous amount of advantages - to such a degree that any perceived disadvantage of "lost culture" will be laughed at eventually.

I can to some degree see the rationale in your point, and can even to some degree agree with you (although this is a question where I may change my mind). At the very least I would like to get rid of our special nordic characters.

Anyhow, the wait we'll be loooong, it won't happen in my lifetime, and probably not in yours.

pibbur

Originally Posted by pibbur who
I can to some degree see the rationale in your point, and can to some degree agree with you (although this is a question where I may change my mind).

Anyhow, the wait we'll be loooong, it won't happen in my lifetime, and probably not in yours.

pibbur

It will probably take hundreds of years, yeah.

But it will help save lives and it will help prevent conflict and misery to a degree that I struggle to articulate.

So, I'm always a little sad to hear people actively supporting the misery that comes with the language and communication barrier.

Reason for wanting to learn German? Multiple.

It's a very good language to know in Europe, from what I know. And should work as a nice complement to English. There might also be the possibility that I might try to work in a German-speaking country. And I might be able to half-ass it with English, but you really do need to know German to be taken seriously. Especially with regards to interaction with the state.

I'd love to be able to get around with only English, but alas that does not seem to be the case.

With regards to French, while I do like hearing people speak it, as it's quite musical in style, I don't really fancy putting in the effort to learn it.

To be honest, I'm not feeling very encouraged to learn German either, as I find it very daunting. Seems quite difficult to learn. And when you hear that, at least in Germany, there are multiple dialects and some even have difficulty understanding each other, it's growing ever more daunting.

These are the moments when I curse my wasted youth years spent in school where, technically I did learn German for a couple of years, but I did not really bother with it. And forgot even the little I did know. Damn.

A bit of the local language always works miracles in my experience, people tend to be friendlier when they see you took the effort of learning some words or even sentences.
I find it astonishing that most tourists with English as the mother tongue when travelling abroad seem to expect the locals to understand English. Quite the arrogant attitude, at least that is how it is perceived in some places, an annoyance to which the American tourist sometimes add by speaking with a loud voice.
Even if locals understand your language, you’ll get a smile when saying small things like ‘thank you’ in the local language.

Originally Posted by Darth Tagnan
It will probably take hundreds of years, yeah.

But it will help save lives and it will help prevent conflict and misery to a degree that I struggle to articulate.

So, I'm always a little sad to hear people actively supporting the misery that comes with the language and communication barrier.

Ha! Even when all speak the same languages there are plenty of conflicts thanks to miscommunication. Partly due to the fact that exactly the same words have a different meaning to different people, or come with a different emotion. But is easier to have fun with each other, I guess, which is good.

Edit.
German words are not the problem I think, it is what yo are supposed to do when having prepositions in a sentence, if you ask me. But hey, the French do weird things to ‘le’, ‘la’, ‘les’ etc too.

Originally Posted by Eye
A bit of the local language always works miracles in my experience, people tend to be friendlier when they see you took the effort of learning some words or even sentences.
I find it astonishing that most tourists with English as the mother tongue when travelling abroad seem to expect the locals to understand English. Quite the arrogant attitude, at least that is how it is perceived in some places, an annoyance to which the American tourist sometimes add by speaking with a loud voice.
Even if locals understand your language, you’ll get a smile when saying small things like ‘thank you’ in the local language.

Definitely, people are stupid like that - thinking better of strangers because they've incidentally bothered to learn another language

Like, being closer to themselves makes a stranger more compelling. I find that notion nauseating.

Not that I'm not guilty of it myself, but there's plenty of nauseating things about me.

Personally, I would consider myself extremely self-centered if I actually expected other people to know a language they don't speak, natively.

Ha! Even when all speak the same languages there are plenty of conflicts thanks to miscommunication. Partly due to the fact that exactly the same words have a different meaning to different people, or come with a different emotion. But is easier to have fun with each other, I guess, which is good.

There's a difference between fewer conflicts and no conflicts.

If you want to suggest that speaking different languages is the same as speaking the same language - in terms of potentially understanding each other - so be it.

I don't agree, obviously.

I speak German, but try my best to never have to write it. The biggest problem is when to capitalize words and when to use der, die, das or dem. Mostly I know from memory or that it just sounds off, but when speaking it, it is not such a big deal when I mix them up and you don’t hear capitals, so that is no issue
Anyway, I learned German as we were watching a lot of German TV when I was a kid, on top of that I had it at school as well. These days I read a number of German magazines, which helps to maintain that language skill.

Originally Posted by Darth Tagnan
Definitely, people are stupid like that - thinking better of strangers because they've incidentally bothered to learn another language

Like, being closer to themselves makes a stranger more compelling. I find that notion nauseating.

Not that I'm not guilty of it myself, but there's plenty of nauseating things about me.

Personally, I would consider myself extremely self-centered if I actually expected other people to know a language they don't speak, natively.

A small word in the local language does not make a stranger more compelling. That is not what causes the difference in behavior.

When returning something you borrowed without saying a word, and returning it with a smile and saying ‘thank you’, is de facto no difference. It is the extra effort taken, though small of nature as it may be, that people appreciate, it is the extra effort that causes many people to think better of others, including strangers.

I do not think politeness and showing appreciation has anything to do with nausea.

Originally Posted by Eye
A small word in the local language does not make a stranger more compelling. That is not what causes the difference in behavior.

When returning something you borrowed without saying a word, and returning it with a smile and saying ‘thank you’, is de facto no difference. It is the extra effort, though small of nature as it may be, that people appreciate, it is the extra effort that causes many people to think better of others, including strangers.

I do not think politeness and showing appreciation has anything to do with nausea.

Again, I think a single universal language would be a big step towards mutual understanding - which is a big factor in avoiding conflict.

Most people are polite because it's the easiest way to participate in the theater of social graces.

It's very often counter to the true opinion or the real intention. I assume we all have families and gatherings where this is supremely evident.

So, politeness in itself is mostly worthless. Of course, I don't think the opposite is any better.

I value honesty and truth above both to a very significant degree. So, when there's no conflict between a polite statement and honesty - I have no problem with it

But when politeness replaces what you really want to say - or what you really mean - I find it destructive and nauseating.

But I believe we've been through something like this at least once before.