Be me

>be me
>25
>average intelligence
>reading comprehension and aptitude for linguistics, however, slightly above average
>want to learn German

I'm torrenting Rosetta Stone right now. Is this a decent starting point? I know it's better to learn a second language at a much earlier age, when the brain is still developing, but I also understand that if I'm dedicated enough I can do it.

Literally the only reason I want to learn German is so I can read Rilke and Goethe (possibly even Neitzche, though I don't care much for philosophy).

Thoughts? Advice?

>Judge Holden

Disturbingly accurate, 5 star post

Ist eigentlich ziemlich leicht, besonders wenn man in Deutschland geboren wurde.

Der der das lesen kann, kann auch die Zeilen, die die ich hier schreibe, lesen. Die die die vorherigen Zeilen nicht lesen konnten, können kein Deutsch.

you could just use duolingo. It's as decent of a start as anything.

If you're going to actually learn a language, you're going to end up using dozens of different sources to do so.

So...anything is really a good starting point.

As someone who doesn't know anything but English and an intermediate amount of spanish, I'll try to give you some advice based on what works for me.

First of all, it is beneficial to learn grammar or have a language text book that is going to attempt to teach you grammatical rules and special circumstances since getting into actually reading any language will confront you with certain idioms or specific cases which won't seem to make sense to you based on the general rules of the language. But for learning vocabulary, text books and language software don't seem necessary. You could just as easily look up "top 100 verbs in german" on google and begin building a practical vocabulary for free.

On that, your next best step is to get flashcards or maybe a flashcard app on your phone. Doesn't really matter what it is, many people suggest Anki because it has premade decks for free through its website. I haven't used Anki in a long time though and from what I remember, there was some kind of monetization that was going on at some point which may have compromised its utility a bit. Either way, with your flashcard app you can make a deck for new or unfamiliar words and practice it regularly. Try to touch it every day.

Next, I'd say that you should also try to write regularly. It doesn't have to be much, but you can just write a couple of sentences about something. If you're especially dedicated, you can attempt to occasionally think in German. Like if you want to get in your car, you try to form a sentence like "I'm going to my car" or "I need to drive to the store". If you don't know how to say it, you can try looking it up. There is some new, practical vocabulary.

I'd also recommend, if you wanted to speak, that you could listen to some german podcasts or something like that, but it may be superfluous since you just want to read. In that case, the final thing is that you may want to attempt reading. This may just be frustrating and not worth it to you till you have built up a sufficiently basic vocabulary, but reading can be a nice way to feel purposeful and interested in your language study. At a certain point for me, I think vocab acquisition is a bit dry. Reading helps contextualize vocab for me, and I like to try to write little reviews in spanish of the thing I was reading. You also come across new idioms and stuff. Heinrich Schliemann, who knew several languages, claimed to have learned a lot of them by reading a book both in english and the foreign language. I assume that isn't all he'd do, he'd probably write and try to memorize vocabulary, but the reading of the translated work and the original was the basis for his vocab and grammar.

>Der der das lesen kann, kann auch die Zeilen, die die ich hier schreibe, lesen. Die die die vorherigen Zeilen nicht lesen konnten, können kein Deutsch.
Even being a German myself I can barely read your convoluted sentence ...

user, congrats on your decision. Learn all the nouns with their correct gender (f/m/n) right from the beginning. Using a noun with the wrong gender sounds pretty retarded to Germans. Should you get disheartened now and then read Mark Twain's "The Awful German language."
Some easy German books are in the public domain, like the famous "Biene Maja" by Waldemar Bonsels. There is lots of stuff on youtube too.

Btw it's "Nietzsche", prnounced "Neechay"

If you stare long into German, German will also stare into you.

Rosetta Stone is shit.

Find a grammar book, that's where you start.

>I can barely read your convoluted sentence and I am a German myself

or

>Even as a German, I can barely read your convoluted sentence
fixed that for you

Well this is just nitpicking.