Good reasons for studying German:

Business
German is a key language in the European Union and the
new economies of Central and Eastern Europe. Learning German
improves your chances of success on the job market

Or you have German relatives and friends you want to
converse in German.

Academic research
German is the second most commonly used language in which
to write a work of scientific research - especially engineering,
chemistry and physics. This is why more than 40% of American
scientists recommend that their students should learn German.
In Hungary and Poland the figure is even higher, at over 70%.

Culture
Many of the founding document of European culture have been
written in the German language.

Literature: Goethe, Schiller, Thomas Mann, Kafka

Classical music: Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Strauß, Schubert ...

Art: Kollwitz, Dürer, Klee, Kaninsky

Psychology: Freud, Jung

Philosophy: Kant, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Benjamin, Adorno

Science: Einstein, Kepler, Röntgen, Planck, Virchow

Reading or hearing them in the original language is the only
way of appreciating their full power. Germany itself is the world's
third biggest producer of books:

60,000 new German-language books are published every year.
Every tenth book published in the world is written in German.

Tourism
It goes without saying that you gain more from a visit to a
country if you can converse in their language and actually get to
know the people rather than just conversing in English with your
tourguide. And as the Germans, Austrians and Swiss are well-known
for their love of foreign travel, it makes sound commercial sense
for people working in the tourist industry to meet them in their
own language.

Language similarities
German and English belong to the same West Germanic language
family and share thousands of similar words and phrases, particularly
in terms of computer, telecommunications and medical vocabulary.

Countries where German is the mother tongue
	Germany	82.1 million
	Austria	8.1 million
	Switzerland	4.5 million
	Liechtenstein	32,426