Language

Is the morning hour perhaps just unhealthy? Photo: maxxyustas © 123RF

Proverbs – do they make sense anymore?

In his book Morgenstund ist ungesund, author and journalist Walter Schmidt shows us how many of our common proverbs are not as wise as they sound. So why do we use them at all?More ...
Klaus-Dieter Lehmann | photo: Goethe-Institut/Loredana La Rocca

International Mother Language Day: An interview with Klaus-Dieter Lehmann

Today, some 6,000 languages are spoken worldwide. We put three questions to Goethe-Institut president Klaus-Dieter Lehmann to mark International Mother Language Day.More ...
Kommando Elektrolyrik on tour in South Africa © Kommando Elektrolyrik

Kommando Elektrolyrik on tour in South Africa

Kommando Elektrolyrik facilitated workshops at South African schools, where German learners blended literature with electronic music. The resulting tracks, themed around “nature” and “social media”, are “wunderbar”.More ...
Photo: Jummai

Goethe-Institut deeply saddened by the passing of Neville Alexander

Dr Neville Alexander, who opposed the Apartheid regime and later advanced multilingualism in South Africa, passed away on 27 August 2012.More ...
Since 2005 immigrants have been required to participate in German courses. Photo: Matt Jeacock © iStockphoto

The demand is huge – literacy for German as a second language

If illiterate immigrants learned German at all it was mostly in an unstructured and informal oral environment. Things have changed dramatically since immigration law reforms were introduced in 2005.More ...
Is it true that children learn foreign languages better than adults? Photo: Catherine Yeulet © iStockphoto

The role of age in learning foreign languages

“If you’ve gone through puberty already, you’ll no longer be able to speak a foreign language perfectly.” This and other blanket statements are not the only thing disputed. But they agree on one thing: Children learn languages differently than adults.More ...
German is being increasingly displaced by English in the world of science. Photo: Tomas Skopal © iStockphoto

German as a Language of Science: German Language, Whither Goest thou?

For years there have been heated discussions about the diminishing importance of German in the science world. But what are the disadvantages being debated?More ...
In 2010 the number of people in the world learning German totaled 14,042,789. Photo: Marek Uliasz © iStockphoto

The world is studying German – current statistics on the 2010 learning curve

In 2010, Netzwerk Deutsch carried out a statistical analysis of the position the German language enjoys in the world.More ...

Navid Kermani: “I experience multi-lingualism as a great resource”

The writer and journalist talks with Klaus Hübner about his linguistic homeland, multi-lingualism and ‘literary patchwork identity’.More ...

The Power of Coded Communication

Secret languages have a thousand-years old history. Today encoding is a firmly fixed element of our everyday life: without encrypting, modern data communication would be unthinkable.More ...
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The Language as it is Spoken: a Library of Spoken German is Kept in Mannheim

The Archive for Spoken German in Mannheim boasts over 15,000 recordings so that future generations can hear how different German sounded in different regions and parts of the earth.More ...