Extra GCSE- Spanish or German?

(edited 7 years ago)

In two years or one year?

It's a language GCSE- all of them require some amount of work. Accordingly, you should pick the language that you feel most excited about taking. Seriously.

In a year's time, do you want to be able to say "I can speak basic Spanish" or do you want to say, "I can speak basic German"?

If that doesn't help you pick, see how many people have picked Spanish at school, and how many have picked German for next year. Then, go for the one that's going to have a smaller class! It means you'll be able to get more help with it.

Next suggestion: borrow Michel Thomas Spanish tapes and Michel Thomas German tapes, and see which language you prefer.

Spanish.

As a person who is studying both at AS, yet never been taught a word of French, i'd say that Spanish is the (I think at least) more approachable language as the grammar's not as horribly nasty. German's more difficult for most people to grasp the grammar as it will screw your mind. Having said that, I started German halfway through year 10 and got an A* at GCSE, so if you work... it can definitely be done. It also gives you so much satisfaction when you actually kinda know what you're doing and can write a nice sentence or two that's perfectly accurate. :wink:

Viel Glueck / Suerte!

Reply 4

Marianufc

Octopus_garden & stanners95

Thanks. It's 2 years and my head says spanish but my heart says German!

Reply 5

Octopus_Garden

Original post by Marianufc

Octopus_garden & stanners95

Thanks. It's 2 years and my head says spanish but my heart says German!

Go for German then. If it helps, I did GCSE German from scratch in nine months and got an A. It was hard work, but I did do it.

Reply 6

Stanners95

Original post by Octopus_Garden

Go for German then. If it helps, I did GCSE German from scratch in nine months and got an A. It was hard work, but I did do it.

I completely agree... and if you have semi-competent teachers it's fine. You can generally get through language GCSEs without much knowledge if you have a teacher spoon-feed it. Of course, you should also actually try and learn some German too...

Reply 7

scott18044

Original post by Marianufc

Octopus_garden & stanners95

Thanks. It's 2 years and my head says spanish but my heart says German!

I do both of them at AS, and have just started French. It's true that Spanish is quite similar to French, but I know some people get slightly confused by that. German grammar for GCSE isn't awful (I don't find it that bad at AS either), so if you heart says German, do it. :smile:

Reply 8

Stanners95

Original post by scott18044

Ah, there's someone else who does German and Spanish at AS. I'm definitely more of a Spaniard, but German seems to be coming a bit clearer now... i've finally got to grips with the grammar. I was dreadful at the start of the year and found the step up from GCSE absolutely horrible :P

Reply 9

tomj45

If you were asking me I would say Spanish.

Having said that I have never studied a word of German. I did the Spanish GCSE as an extra from scratch in 9 months and walked away with an A and now I am studying it at AS so it is definitely do-able and that was without any lessons in school.

Kudos for taking up the extra language though

Reply 10

scott18044

Original post by Stanners95

I tend to favour German a bit more, mainly because I started it a year before Spanish, so my German was always slightly more secure than my Spanish. I find learning the grammar in both to be so much easier than learning the vocab (seriously a nightmare sometimes :P), but I guess that's not necessarily a bad thing. :smile:

Reply 11

Stanners95

Original post by scott18044

See, I started Spanish in Year 7 and German in Year 10 so ofc that's quite a big gap between the two. I found it really strange how I dropped Spanish for a year to do Italian, came back to it and still found I was miles ahead of my German :P I'm starting to think German, as before I kept approaching it with my Spanish hat on (you must know what I mean, in Spanish you can generally guess things and they're there or thereabouts, but you really can't in German) and it's really helped

Reply 12

scott18044

Original post by Stanners95

Yeah- that's definitely true. Some of the words in Spanish you're able to guess or work out a lot easier, but I think you can translate from English a bit more too. German doesn't really work like that, but I think once I kind of got that in my head, it's easier to speak German. All of the compound nouns and then prefixes on verbs (aus-, auf- etc.) are sometimes where I struggle a bit. :P

Reply 13

Ajh724

Same situation as me
Spanish with out a doubt
Very similar to spanish
German easy to forget and complex rules will muddle up your french

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