Why study German?

No matter what you study at university, your knowledge of German will open doors to your future. Consider the advantages you will have in almost any endeavor if you can speak German.

Business & Employment Opportunities | Politics & International Relations

Science & Technology | The Arts: Culture, History, Literature

Understand American Culture | German is Similar to English

Graduate Study and Scholarship Opportunities | Career Advantages

What are you waiting for? Start now, and learn German today!

Enrollment Information

Write or Call for further Information: Dr. Louise Stoehr 936.468.2167
Department of Modern Languages, Dr. Ann Doyle-Anderson, Chair 936.468.4303
Stephen F. Austin State University, Nacogdoches Texas

•	A reading knowledge of German is valuable for studies and careers in finance and economics.
•	Germany has the third largest economy in the world and is the economic powerhouse of the European Union.
•	Germany is the number one export nation in the world.
•	The United States is the third largest importer of German goods and services, making the United States one of Germany's most important trading partners.
•	In science and technology, the United States is Germany's most important partner outside of Europe.
•	German-speaking countries comprise the third greatest source of foreign direct investment for the United States.
•	The bulk of United States' investment is in Europe. The total of United States' investment in German-speaking countries exceeds the total invested in all Spanish-speaking countries and is greater than the total for any other language group.
•	German multinational corporations provide 700,000 jobs in the United States; US multinational corporations provide roughly the same number of jobs in Germany.
•	Multinational business opportunities exist throughout the European Union and in Eastern European countries, where German is the second most spoken language after Russian.
•	Germany is second in the world in automobile production.
•	Two-thirds of the world's leading international trade fairs take place in Germany.
•	Germany is one of the three largest music markets in the world in terms of both retail music sales and royalty collections.
•	Interested in tourism? Germans are the biggest tourism spenders in the world. Learn German today and double your opportunities in the tourism industry.
•	Germans are the third largest nationality of tourists who visit the United States.
•	Travel agencies, tour companies, hotels, airlines, and car rental agencies that can communicate with Germans in their own language will win their business. Floridians know this: In that state there are at least two travel magazines published in German: Florida Journal and Florida Sun Magazin.
•	The Japanese, who have the second most powerful economy in the world, understand the business advantages that a knowledge of German will bring them: 68% of Japanese students study German.

•	24% of the residents in the European Union speak German as their native language.
•	31% more Europeans can speak German as a second language.
•	Germany is a powerful and influential country in Europe. Learn German if you are interested in Foreign Affairs, International Trade, Communication, National Defense.
•	German is becoming an important lingua franca in Eastern and Southeastern Europe. The Balkan parties to the General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia-Herzegovina used German as a lingua franca during their negotiations.
•	Given Germany's key role in NATO, German is becoming more and more useful in military communications. In the 1st German-Netherlands Corps, German and Dutch are used for internal communication, whereas English is reserved only for communication with headquarters.
•	Students in Easten European countries are learning German in higher numbers than they are learning English.
•	Nearly 130 million people claim German as their native language.
•	Eleven thousand German businesses do business in the United States and that number is growing.

•	A reading knowledge of German is valuable for careers in chemistry, biology, engineering, and medicine.
•	The German language is important for scientists and students as German is in second place in the field of scientific publications.
•	Germany is the world’s largest contributor to research and development in science and technology.

	Sciences
•	The newest elements in the Periodic Table were discovered by a German scientist.
•	Scientists from the three major German-speaking countries have won dozens of Nobel prizes in physics, chemistry, and medicine.
•	Medical reserach continues to thrive in Germany and many American companies have affiliates in German-spekaing countries.
•	Germany is active in environmental protection and has make tremendous strides in pollution control, oceanography, forestry, agriculture, fisheries, and wildlife management.
•	Texas A&M is one of the American institutions collaborating on an international reserach project with German scientists: the Joint Oceanographic Institutions for Deep Earth Sampling (JOIDES), part of the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program (IODP) is an international nonprofit organization that manages scientific research programs.
•	Cooperation between NASA (the American National Aeronautics and Space Administration) and ESA (the European Space Agency) enabled the SPACELAB project, where American and German engineers worked cooperatively to create the international Nautical Almanac.

	Technology
•	Germany is on the frontline of new technologies.
•	Germany is a leader in development of alternative energy sources, topping all other nations in wind energy production and in the use of photovoltaic cells to produce electricity.
•	Germany employs 50,000 people in the wind power industry, and 120,000 work in alternative energy.
•	10% of Germany's entire energy supply comes from renewable resources.
•	There are more than 600 companies active in the cutting-edge field of biotechnology. 115 of these are located in Munich alone.
	Daimler-Chrysler Aerospace merged with French and Spanish companies to form the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company.

	Telecommunications and Computing
•	Germany is the largest telecommunications market in Europe, and the third largest worldwide.
•	The eastern German city of Dresden, the microchip center of Europe, is home to more than 765 semiconductor firms.
•	CeBIT, the world's largest trade fair for information and communication technologies, is held annually in Hannover in northern Germany.
•	Germany's capital city, Berlin, is home to IFA is the world's largest Consumer Electronics trade fair with 1,202 exhibitors from 40 countries and 245,849 participants.
•	German is the second most frequently used language on the Internet after English. In fact, Germany has the world's most websites per capita.
•	German and Japanese are the pilot languages for new Microsoft products before they are brought onto the market.
•	With 8 million Internet domains, Germany's top-level country domain .de is second only to the extension .com. That makes German domain names even more popular than those with .net, .org, .info, and .biz extensions.

Music

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Germany and German-speaking countries are well-known for their long history of outstanding composers including Heinrich Schütz, Johann Sebastian Bach, Franz Schubert, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Ludwig van Beethoven, Karl Maria von Weber, Johannes Brahms, Johann Strauss, and Richard Wagner.

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More modern German composers include Gustav Mahler, Karl Orff, and Kurt Weill.

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Germany is home to 141 professional orchestras.

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Musicians can continue their studies and further their professional careers by attending any of Germany's 34 music academies or 65 universities.

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The German music scene is not limited to classical music. Would you rather hear German Pop, Rock, Hip Hop, Electro, R'n'B orPunk? Take a closer look at German Music Today!

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Berlin is the host city for Popkomm, the world's largest pop music festival.

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Germany is one of the three largest music markets in the world in terms of both retail music sales and royalty collections.

Literature

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Germany is often referred to as the land of "Dichter und Denker" -- of poets and thinkers.

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Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Friedrich Schiller, Franz Kafka, Bertolt Brecht, Franz Werfel and Erich Maria Remarque are just a few authors whose names and works are well-known interntionally.

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11 Nobel prizes for literature have been awarded to German, Austrian, Swiss-German, and German-speaking authors.

1902 - Theodor Mommsen 1908 - Rudolf Euken 1910 - Paul Heyse 1912 - Gerhart Hauptmann 1929 - Thomas Mann	1946 - Hermann Hesse 1972 - Heinrich Böll 1966 - Nelly Sachs 1981 - Elias Canetti 1999 - Günter Grass
• 2004 - Elfriede Jelinek

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Now add another author to the internationally-known German writers: Frank Schätzing, author of the international best-seller, The Swarm, soon to be a major motion picture.

Film

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Germany is second in the world in feature full-length film supply and distrubution.

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Germany is third in the world in film production.

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The Berlinale is one of the world's most important international film festivals. The 57th annual Berlinale is scheduled for February, 2007.

°	If you are really into film, you probably know of Rainer Werner Fassbinder and Werner Herzog.
°	Have you seen Air Force One; The Perfect Storm; Troy? How about Poseidon? Planning to see Ender's Game (announced for 2008)? Then you know the works of Wolfgang Petersen.
°	Film afficianados the world over know Volker Schlöndorff.
°	You've probably enjoy more that just this selection of films by Wim Wenders: Wings of Desire; Far Away, So Close; Paris, Texas; Buena Vista Social Club; Land of Plenty; Don't Come Knocking.

Art, Architecture and Design

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From the magnificent architecture of medieval buildings to the avant garde Bauhaus movement, from Dürer's woodcuts to the expressionist masterpieces of Nolde, Kirchner, and Kokoschka, Germans have made substantial contributions to world art and architecture.

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Germany is at the forefront of architectural, industrial and automotive design.

History and Culture

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The philosophies of Immanuel Kant, G. W. F. Hegel, Karl Marx, Friedrich Nietzsche, and numerous others have had lasting influences on modern society.

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Seven times, the Nobel Prize for Peace has been awarded to an outstanding German or Austrian citizen:

1905 - Bertha von Süttner 1911 - Alfred Fried 1926 - Gustav Stresemann	1927 - Ludwig Quidde 1935 - Carl von Ossietzky 1952 - Albert Schweitzer (born in Alsace)
• 1971 - Willy Brandt, then Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany

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The psychologists Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung forever changed the way we think about human behavior.

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Our understanding of education and the liberal arts is indebted to Wilhelm von Humboldt, foreign diplomat, linguist, philosopher, founder of the Humboldt University in Berlin.

°	He is credited with being the first European linguist to identify human language as a rule-governed system, rather than just a collection of words and phrases paired with meanings. This idea is one of the foundations of Noam Chomsky's theory of language.

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Max Weber is credited as one of the founders of the modern study of sociology and public administration.

A knowledge of German significantly enriches a person's understanding of fundamental works so influential to the development of today's society.

The World of Publishing Houses

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Eighteen per cent of all books world wide appear in German. Over 60,000 new books are published in Germany each year, making Germany the third largest publisher of books in the world.

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German publisher Bertelsmann is the world's largest publisher.

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The annual Frankfurt Book Fair is the world's largest book exposition.

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As prolific researchers and scholars, German speakers produce nearly 80,000 new book titles each year.

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In number of books published, Munich is second in the world only to New York.

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Since just over 5% of German books are translated into English, only a knowledge of German will give you access to a vast majority of these titles.

•	Germans form the largest single heritage group in the U.S.
•	German immigration to the United States spans nearly four centuries.
•	The democratic ideals of the 1848 German revolutionaries, such as Secretary of State Carl Schurz, have helped shape the social and political landscape of America.
•	Family names and names of thousands of towns and cities indicate the German heritage of their ancestors or founders. German immigrants to Texas arrived in waves throughout the 19th centurn. Initially, many settled in the Galveston and Houston area, while many travelled to San Antonio and beyond in Central Texas. ° New Braunfels, Boerne, Fredericksburg, Kerrvill, Castel, Luckenbach, Westphalia, Muenster, New Baden, Westphalia, Fulda, Windhorts, Rosenberg, Rhineland, Schulenburg, and Wiemar are just some of the many towns where German immigrants to Texas have made a lasting contribution.
•	Germans brought with them many customs and traditions that have become so ingrained in American ways that their origin is often forgotten. Such cultural mainstays as the Christmas tree, hot dogs and hamburgers were introduced by German immigrants to America. Germans founded numerous breweries. Levi Strauss, German immigrant, founded Levi's jeans. It was German immigrants who invented ketchup and who created Hershey's chocolate. Germans had such a fundamental presence at the time of the founding of the United States that a German language version of the Declaration of Independence was printed only a few days after it was adopted. Our American image of a jolly Saint Nick, or Santa Claus, dates back to a 19th century picture done by the German immigrant Thomas Nast.
•	Preschool programs, and the Kindergarten program, were introduced in German immigrants in the 19th century.
•	German immigrants have made major impacts on American economy, establishing such brand name companies as Fleischmann's, Heinz, Steinway & Sons, Weyerhaeuser, and Oscar Mayer.

•	If English is your native language, or if you already know English, then you already have an advantage when it comes to learning German. Because modern German and modern English both evolved from the common ancestor language Germanic, the two languages share many similarities in both vocabulary and grammar.
•	You are already familiar with quite a few German words. For example: Winter, Finger, Kaffee, Hand, Ring, Knie, Garten are all German. So are Sport, Ball, Papier, Computer, and Plastik.
•	Are you intelligent? Do you read books that are interessant? Are you idealistisch?
•	Do you know somebody who wants to study Medizin? Do you like singen?
•	Then you already know some German!
•	In addition, German is spelled phonetically. Once you learn the system of sounds, it is easy to predict how the spoken word is written and how the written word is pronounced.

•	2,000 grants are awarded annually to students and professors in the United States to study and research in Germany
•	Germany is the 3rd most popular country in the world for studying abroad
•	200,000 foreign students are currently enrolled in German universities. That's 10% of the entire student population in Germany.
•	Germany financially sponsors over 60,000 international exchanges each year.
•	The German Academic Exchange Service is currently looking for qualified American students who would to gain professional experience at German industrial enterprises and research institutions.

Remember, no matter what you study, your knowledge of German can help you find a job!
Here are just a few of the many opportunities open to German speakers:

International Transportation

Flight Attendant - Pilot - Travel Agent - Tour Guide - Hotel Manager

Communications

Foreign Correspondent - Reporter - Film Maker - Translator - Interpreter
Publisher - Literary Agent - Overseas Operator -Public Relations Agent

Foreign Trade and Banking

Banker - International Lawyer - Export Manager - Fashion Buyer - International Consultant
Overseas Sales Representataive - Bilingual Secretary - Marketing Analyst - Stock Broker

Government

Foreign Service Officer - Armed Forces - Librarian - Nurse - Doctor - Agricultural Advisor
UN Translator or Interpreter - Customs Official - Intelligence Analyst

Science and Technology

Nuclear Engineer - Oceanographer - Chemist - Geologist - Cartographer - Geneticist
Bio-Physicist - Biochemist - Energy Research - Astrophysisicist - Computer Specialist

Teaching, Library Services, the Arts

Language Teacher/Professor - Literature Teacher/Professor - Science Teacher
Historian - Sociologist - Research Librarian -Professional Musician - Musicologist

The question is: Can you afford not to learn German?

Check out the Urban Underground scene in Germany!

Department of Modern Languages
Stephen F. Austin State Univerisity, Nacogdoches Texas
last updated: 02-Jun-2006 9:25