On Monday I uploaded a video in which I re-enacted an all too often heard conversation
between a naive person, who believes that you don’t need German, because the entire world speaks English,
and a well-educated person, who knows that many people should learn German,
because German is important and useful in today’s world.
Today I will expand this conversation in order to give you a lot of information.
With that you can convince your friends to learn German.
B1/B2 Video of the Week #40: Why you should learn German!
It is self-explanatory that you should learn German if you travel to Germany or study in Germany.
If you are studying in Germany as a foreigner, you usually don’t have to pay very much.
In Baden-Württemberg it costs €1500 per semester,
but in other federal states it doesn’t cost so much.
There are also a lot of opportunities to get money from organizations in Germany and in your home country.
I, for example, received a scholarship in 2009 from the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD).
Thanks to this scholarship, I studied for a month in the summer at Humboldt University in Berlin.
There are, of course, requirements that you have to meet in order to study in Germany.
If you just want to study in Germany for a short while,
you may not have to be able to speak so much German,
but normally you have to reach at least the B1 level.
There are a few exams that the German universities accept.
If you master the B1 level, you are allowed to study at a German university.
If you haven’t mastered this level, you can still study at some universities.
There are links in the description, where you can find more information about that.
If you want to prepare yourself for these exams, you should try Lingoda.
Every lesson is taught by a German native speaker.
You can take group or private classes.
These lessons are especially made for people, who have to or want to prepare for these exams.
You can get a certificate for every level from Lingoda.
These certificates are accepted at many institutions including universities.
As I said in the other video, Germany is the most densely populated country in Europe
and has the fourth largest GDP (gross domestic product) in the world.
There are a lot of people on the earth, who speak German
and these people buy products that are produced in your country.
You also often buy German products, although you may not notice it.
For example: There are almost 2000 Aldi branches in 35 states in the USA.
Aldi employs almost 100,000 people worldwide.
Adidas employs over 60,000 people in more than 160 countries.
Many of the people that work for these companies don’t need any German,
but if you want, German can be very helpful in order to do business with these companies.
Germans spend more money while on vacation than almost all other people in the world.
I even found an article from 1995 in which an interesting trend is seen.
Back then the Germans spend 3.6% of their income on travel,
but the average expenditure for Europeans was only 2.9%.
In 2009 the Germans spend $90 billion on travel.
In 2014 Germany was number 3 on the list, but they still spent $92 billion on travel.
If so many Germans are traveling, some people have to speak German with them.
In 2013 Germany produced 93,600 new books.
That is 5th place on the list of the most printed books,
but it is noteworthy that the top 3 (China, the USA, and the United Kingdom) include not only new books,
but also reissues of old books.
In short: If you want to learn German, there is a lot to read.
It doesn’t matter why you are learning German, there are a ton of opportunities to learn German online and offline.
YouTubers like Dominik from Get Germanized or Katja from Deutsch für Euch can teach you a lot of German.
Lingoda is also another great option.
If you want to try out this option, you can save some money when you use this voucher code (ANTRIM4).
If you want to learn German with me every week, you should subscribe to this channel.
I also have worksheets and other materials for my Patreon supporters.
For just $2 per video you can get these things, too.
Follow me on Twitter and other social networks, where I share other information about the German language.
Until then. Bye.