Reading in German

German and English are cousins, and it shows on the page more than in conversation. Wasser, Haus, Buch, Hand, Finger, Sommer — the Germanic core of English is sitting right there, and a surprising amount of simple German is legible on sight.

German spelling is also far more regular than English. Letters map to sounds consistently, so pronunciation follows from the page without the guesswork French demands.

What makes German feel hard is grammar you can see: three genders, four cases, and a habit of sending the verb to the very end of a subordinate clause. That last one is the real reading skill — you sometimes have to hold a whole sentence in your head before it resolves.

Every noun is capitalised

This looks strange and is actually a gift. Capitals tell you where the nouns are, which makes a long sentence far easier to parse than the equivalent in English.

Long words come apart

Handschuh is hand-shoe, a glove. Geschwindigkeitsbegrenzung is a speed limit. German compounds are intimidating until you start splitting them, then they become clues.

The verb may be at the end

In subordinate clauses the verb moves last, so meaning arrives late. Reading trains this patience better than drills do.