Union University
Union University Dept of Language
students take notes during a language class

German

German

Union offers German 111 (taught during the fall semester) and German 112 (taught during the spring semester).    The German courses are taught by Professor Betsy Pingen. The courses are designed for beginning German students (although students with previous German experience are invited to take the courses, as well). We plan to begin offering German 211 in the Fall Semester 2013.

Please see the syllabi below for a more detailed description of the courses:

 

 

Why Study German?

Business

  • Germany is the world’s second-largest exporter.
  • The German economy ranks number one in Europe and number four worldwide.
  • Germany is home to numerous international corporations (companies like BMW, Daimler, Siemens, Lufthansa, SAP, Bosch, Infineon, and BASF).
  • Two-thirds of the world's international trade fairs take place in Germany.  These include CeBIT, the world's largest trade fair for information and communications technology, and the IFA consumer electronics trade fair.

People

  • German has the largest number of speakers in the European Union (more than English, French or Spanish).
  • German is among the ten most spoken languages in the world.
  • German is the official language of Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Luxembourg and Liechtenstein.  It is also the native language of a significant portion of the population in northern Italy, eastern Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark, eastern France, parts of Poland, the Czech Republic, Russia, and Romania.
  • Germans travel.  They spend more on foreign travel than any other nation in the world.
  • Germany has a huge presence on the web. The pages available with the top-level country domain .de is second only to .com.
  • One out of every 10 books published worldwide is published in German.

Language

  • English is a Germanic language, meaning that many English words are easily recognizable in German words. 
  • German has far fewer words than English.  Rather than create totally new words, Germans usually just form compound words out of shorter ones.  (i.e. krank = sick, so Krankenhaus = hospital, Krankenwagen = ambulance, Krankengymnastik = physical therapy, Krankenschwester = nurse)  This also allows you to make really fun long words like Krankenversicherungskostendämpfungsergänzungsgesetz (an amendment to control the cost of health insurance).
  • The German government actively supports international exchanges and offers students many opportunities to study in Germany.  There are many, many opportunities for scholarships and financial assistance available. And foreign students enrolled in German universities are not required to pay tuition fees.

Science and Culture

  • Germans have always been and continue to be great innovators.  Think of Gutenberg's printing press, Hertz' discovery of electromagnetic waves, Ehrlich's development of chemotherapy, Einstein's theory of relativity, and Brandenburg's creation of the MP3 format.
  • Germany is often referred to as the land of "Dichter und Denker"--poets and thinkers.  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Thomas Mann, Franz Kafka, and Hermann Hesse are just a few authors whose names and works are well-known internationally.
  • The world of classical music is inseparable from the names of Mozart, Bach, Beethoven, Strauss, and Wagner--to name only a few renowned German-speaking composers.
  • Philosophy and the sciences would also be unthinkable without the contributions of German speakers. The philosophies of Kant, Hegel, Marx, Nietzsche, and numerous others have had lasting influences on modern society. The psychologists Freud and Jung forever changed the way we think about human behavior.