@_elena Viel Erfolg! I'm one of the few people here who've learned German as a foreign language. Now I realize that I've been taking for granted that I can read basically half of the content here 😅
If you have questions or need help you can hit me up. I'm a linguistics student in Germany who's been studying the language for years and used to moderate one of the biggest German-learning communities online.

@_elena Will do that.

@_elena German is very high on my languages to learn list because I keep encountering so many german-speakers online. Sure it's usually written by folks who are bilingual but how much cooler is it to learn another language than to translate or make more work for others?

But first I need to get up to a better level of Italian comprehension before I start on another language

@_elena

German is a fabulous language.

One can express oneself SO precisely, and the language can be so very beautiful.

I am glad I don't have to learn it as a 3rd language as I would be too lazy (if not too stupid), it is very complicated.

My English teacher at the High School told my mom that I would never learn English well enough to have a conversation.

That's when I gave up doing my Engl.homework and my 'Vokabelheft' remained blank.

@_elena what really made it natural for me, after I did a few courses across 1,5 years was to be forced into a work environment where I was the only English speaker. So find some environment where you have to use it and that will definitely help. Viel Erfolg und viel Spaß beim lernen!

@_elena

I have been slowly resuscitating the part of my brain that took a few years of French in the early 90s because I see lots of interesting French-language posts.

@_elena My experience is that these accounts are worth the translation click.

@_elena do learn German and/or any other language. Every extra languagge you learn will open up new perspectives and will give you more understanding of how language and culture are connected.

@_elena As someone from Germany I don't get it, but I still wish you good luck on your journey. Honestly I'm ready to face the fact that I might have to leave Germany in the future if shit hits the fan and if that happens I would rather forget my native language. Might be a bit cynical, but oh well.

@_elena I don't speak it, but I understand some basic Te Reo, because of all the awesome New Zealanders one of my alts follows - they have a habit of using a lot of names from the indigenous people of those islands, as well as other words.
I also speak Doric, a variant of Scottish, which oddly pronounces "wh" as "f", something it shares with Te Reo.

@_elena ❤️

@_elena

However I’m happy that the Fediverse seems to be a "German thing". ;)

(Taking into account the other current "German Things" …)

@_elena I'm right there with you! Every time that I look at my Fediverse feed I want to learn German, not only to read the posts here, but because of all the cool events that I see happening in Berlin.

I was complaining to a friend the other day that I cannot find any in-person Free Software, BSD/UNIX, etc. meetups in my area (there were several regularly scheduled ones pre-COVID, but now, none), and concluded that I need to move to Germany.

@_elena

estoy en la misma...