If you want to say “I love you” in German, you have some options. Here’s how to express your love, with a few variations:
- “Ich liebe dich” = the classic version of saying “I love you.”
- “Ich mag dich” = the German equivalent of “I like you.”
- “Ich hab’ dich lieb” = loose translation of expressing love to your child or family member.
And, as the case with other languages, there are many more ways to say “I love you” in German ––whether with slang or by using regional variations on the phrase.
German is widely considered one of the most straightforward languages for English speakers to learn. That’s because these two languages are direct linguistic siblings––stemming from the same earlier language. In fact, eighty of the hundred most common words in English speaking countries are of Germanic origin. That’s why the English “and” is “und” in German or why “brother” in English is “Bruder” in German. Plus, there are an incredible number of German words we use in English that aren’t just related, but completely identical: angst, nickel, kindergarten, sauerkraut, kitsch, lager, and many more.
Rosetta Stone’s immersive approach will teach you the language, not just the words.
What makes it effective is that we prepare you to use your new language in your everyday life. So it’s not just about the features, but what you’re able to do because of them. That way, you’ll be ready to handle any situation with ease and confidence.
Learn German Words and Phrases
German is the second-most widely spoken language of the European Union. German comes just after English in its popularity in the EU. This makes sense when you take into consideration that German is one of the official languages of a number of European countries, including Austria, Belgium, Germany, parts of Italy, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Poland, and Switzerland. Around the globe, there are more than 229 million German speakers. The worldwide use of the German language makes it one of the most popular and practical languages to learn for reasons of business and travel.
Rosetta Stone German language lessons help beginning learners focus first on needed foundational language concepts. Every Rosetta Stone German lesson provides brief and practical exercises that help you learn to speak German with correct pronunciation, from the start. Language lessons begin with helping you understand and say everyday phrases like; nice to meet you, good day, how are you, pardon me, and excuse me. Then building on these basics, Rosetta Stone lessons will help you learn to understand and be understood in German. The language lessons are designed to help you learn to speak in German with confidence. So whether you have plans to travel across Northern Germany, ski through the Alps, or experience city life in Munich and Berlin, learning German with Rosetta Stone will serve you well.
One notable characteristic of German is its tendency to combine multiple words into one word. So in English where you might use two or even three words, in German you might combine those two or three words into a single, compound word. As an example, the single word for orange juice in German is Orangensaft. Orangen + Saft = Orangensaft. And what’s more, these compounded German words also have a gender. Here’s how you determine a word’s gender: the gender of the word which comes last in the compound word (e.g., der, die, das) determines the gender of the compound word. For example, “die Orange” is feminine, but “der Saft” is masculine, so the resulting compound word “der Orangensaft” is also masculine.
The German language does include vocabulary that can be challenging to learn. Mark Twain is said to have famously taken issue with the “clumsy” German language practice of creating overly complicated, compound, multi-syllable words. As one example, let’s look at the German word Freundschaftsbezeugung. This lengthy word means “demonstrations of friendship.” Yes, the word is quite long, but it might help to try to break it into its recognizable and understandable parts. You can see that the compound word starts with the single word “Freund.” The word “Freund” is what is called a cognate, a counterpart with the same meaning of the English word “friend.”
Getting The Pronunciation Right
Polishing your German pronunciation will depend on your receipt of immediate and accurate feedback on your German pronunciation attempts. Precise and immediate feedback will allow you to make any needed corrections to your German pronunciation . And if you are preparing to say “I love you” in German to someone, you definitely want to make sure you get it right. Once your pronunciation is correct, you’ll want to practice until you can readily reproduce the sounds that make up the spoken German language. Good news: Rosetta Stone embeds TruAccent, our patented speech-recognition engine, into each and every German language lesson. The powerful engine provides you with immediate feedback, so you can fine-tune your pronunciation. It was developed by first carefully scanning and then closely analyzing the speech of native and non-native German speakers. TruAccent can be an extremely helpful tool for you to use in learning to understand and speak the German language.
After you have developed the ability to understand and speak the basics of the German language, you can move onto learning the longer phrases that commonly come into play in everyday conversation. Rosetta Stone’s digestible, 10-minute German lessons are built to lead you along the path of learning to confidently understand and correctly speak German. Rosetta Stone language lessons will help you learn German vocabulary and proper pronunciation for everyday, real-world situations.
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