Vienna?

Austria is fabulous

It means nothing to me.

Good for you. And no, you're not too old to learn a new language. Once you master the articles and the declension, German makes perfect sense, unlike English. Vienna is fine, but might be too hectic and international. I'd go for Salzburg, personally. Love me some peace and quiet.

[quote]Because it was created by their genius ancestors.

Gurl... they were the most savage of barbarians. You ought to brush up on the history of this region. Also, Vienna only looks this nice because the Habsburgs gobbled up so much of Europe.

OP thinks Germany is Frankfurt and Berlin

OP congratulations on a plan. Please stop being negative about your capacity to learn and speak German. Learn 500 words as soon as possible - you can then communicate even if you won't have much grammar.

Vienna is great for any age person. Also if this interests you, Vienna is relatively flat so you could bike to school AND touring around.

Try the schnitzel with strudel!

Watch The Third Man, OP, you'll find that quite a bit of Vienna was destroyed. Moreover, German cities were destroyed by Allied bombing, which wasn't always necessary .

Personally, I love Vienna. It's also close for day trips to Slovakia and Hungary.

R3 is a bit ignorant. So much of Central and Eastern Europe is so beautiful and culturally refined because they ended up as part of the Austrian Empire through marriage alliances and political deals.

Vienna has world-class museums.

Vienna is really beautiful, and very visitor friendly. It has great rail links to surrounding countries so you will be able to explore comparatively easily.

Austria is beautiful. Salzburg Innsbruck Vienna tons of little towns. The people are generally friendly, go and enjoy every moment.

I'd study in Switzerland, not Germany or Austria.

Also, in public in both places if you try to speak German, they'll probably reply in English. Most everyone in large cities are more fluent in English than you'll ever be in German.

They'll be too impatient to deal with your basic, halting German. You'll get more use from it if you visit small, rural towns. Vienna is beautiful, Salzburg more so,

Vienna is also so beautiful because of its "left-wing" social housing policy, which means great, affordable housing for all, with renting also being very common and acceptable, ameliorating any drive for increasingly expensive home ownership, with the result that there no ugly, rundown districts and everyone has decent housing, regardless of income.

OP, you probably know this, but immersion in crucial and is so easy to do now. Listen to German music, audio books, podcasts, movies, etc. not even trying to understand or learn it. I think in some ways German is easier for an Englush speaker to learn because the are so related and sound very similar, French, not so much, which sounds like an incomphrensible bouillibaisse of nasally vowels.

R14: You're making a common error. German, like English has complicated grammar and lots of exceptions to the various rules. Not to mention the sentences that go on for a page or longer.

They have these little baby sausages there.

Vienna is gorgeous, mysterious and beautiful. Watch “The Third Man”, especially the ending, to get into the mood.

Good luck trying to learn German in that city because they have a super thick accent there (it's similar to the Bavarian one). Though these days the city is filled with people who aren't originally from Vienna and their German is actually easier to understand.

You misunderstood what I said, R15. I'm speaking from experience. I know German is a very difficult language, quite different in structure and other ways, but it sounds much closer to English than French.

If one wishes to learn German, one should focus on learning German. Austria does not speak what can be called standard German. Austrian German is quirky and does not convey the spirit of "German" German.

Much better to stop making it an excuse for being a tourist.

Munich believes it is the center of the language. It's also centrally located and would be a good place for a weekend or two in Austria.

Personally, I'd head to Berlin. Where you could replace Sally Bowles' exuberant use, in her own German lessons, of the word [bold]Bumsen[/bold].

Language schools are going to teach standard German. The language on the streets will be recognisable.

If you’re serious about learning German, go to a Goethe Institut in Germany. Pick one in a smaller city that won’t be filled with English-speaking tourists. Stay for a few months if you’re really serious and you can afford the time.

Screw Munich for German. The most attractive German for the ear is the high German spoken in Northern Germany.

But a German school in Munich or Vienna is just as good for starting German as one in Hamburg.

OP, if you go to Vienna, you will always have the temptation of speaking English, as there are always thousands of other English-speaking tourists around, and people are used to communicating with them in English.

I’d opt for a smaller city, such as Freiburg, Luneburg, Schwerin or Weimar. These places are all historic, with beautiful Old Towns.

If you are really committed to learning German, I’d start in North Germany, where people speak standard German (Hochdeutsch) as a matter of course. Most German-speakers speak Hochdeutsch when they have to, but communicate with one another in their regional dialects, which are impenetrable even to fluent German speakers. Austrian and Swiss accents can be especially difficult, as can the Leipzig (Saxon) accent.

Same ethnic mix as Czech but unlike Prague boys the Viennese are too high and mighty to whore themselves.

R22, if OP is serious about learning German he can go to the Goethe Institut in his own city or, if there isn't one, do the Goethe Institut online course. I think they even have blended courses, half online/half in person, so travelling for the occasional in-person class while doing the rest online is also an option.

Plenty of whores in Vienna, R25. Check Romeo.com.

Went to high school in Germany and speak pretty good German and I can hardly understand the Austrians. I agree with others that the Northern German accent is the clearest and easiest to understand. Try Hanover or Bremen.

OP might have an opportunity to hook up with Falco.

Sachertorte and Christmas markets

Falco's corpse? He died a long time ago.

A small point of vocabulary: it's not "German culture" in Vienna but "Austrian culture". Describe Austrian anything as German and the locals won't hesitate to set you straight. In that way, Austrians are like Germanic (this word is safe) Canadians.

There's fabulous art to be seen in Vienna, but I did find the city itself very pretty. Much more of the pre-War city survives than of the big German cities like Berlin and Hamburg, but it's an ugly place, with this dark grey Hapsburg architecture. I found the people arrogant--I spoke to them in German, and yet I remember a few times having my pronunciation harshly corrected.

Sorry, that should read "I did NOT find the city itself very pretty."

You will not refer to Austrians as German if you know what’s good for you. Anyway, Vienna is very easy to navigate. Overall quite lovely with amazing art. We found the people to be pleasant but not overly friendly.

If you're a fat whore, Vienna is the world capital of cake.

When were you in Vienna last time, R33? The "dark gray" Habsburg architecture was cleaned up in the 1990s and has not darkened since, since nobody heats with coal anymore. Vienna looks cream-colored and light now.

Wieners galore!

Lipizzaner horses at the Spanish Riding School. They have displays every day. It might seem the height of cheesy tourism, but they are so beautiful.

Do the men have big sausages? I didn't partake when I visited, unfortunately.

Of course, R40. Both the Austrians, and the Balkans and plenty of Turks.

I used to like their sausages until I found out about pink slime.

I am committed to learning as much German as is possible(which as I said will most likely not even bring me to competency but if I can read it well enough while of course having a dictionary handy it will make me happy. And yes I know even in the past they were savages but like Russia their art was stupendous. But I would also like to play a bit of the tourist on weekends as I've never been to these countries.

After reading these these responses maybe I should think of Northern Germany but I do not want a modern city. I have all of them here in the US. I want to immerse myself in another time as well as another culture. And yes the needless bombing of Dresden is a tragedy. But what is more of a tragedy the glorious architecture lost or the loss of so many civilians? I also read Heidelberg was going to be needlessly destroyed but a general(perhaps American ) had studied there and prevented it from happening. Like the German officials at the end of WW 2 when Hitler wanted Paris decimated prevented it from happening.

Many cities chose reconstruction rather than renewal. For example, Munich chose to reconstruct while Frankfurt chose to renew.

Make no mistake, OP. Vienna is a "modern city." You won't be able to "immerse yourself in another time" there.

Austrian men are hot, but it's like hooking up with a robot. They are very emotionally cool.

German men aren't exactly hot with passion either, but it's the difference between a 25 watt bulb and total darkness.

R3, Vienna is only hectic to other Austrians. To everyone else it’s a calm decent sized city. The last time Vienna was hectic, the Communist Russians were ran out of town. Saving the nation from the occupation Germany endured under the communist regimes. Since then, Austria and Vienna kept a low profile.

Hectic, give me a break, lol!

Op, be warned that Austrians German is like the low class version of German. It’s be like learning English pronunciations from Colonel Sanders.

There are so many variations of German it's mindblowing.

High German, Low German, Swiss German, Schwabish, Bavarian.....to name just a few.

r49 just like English. See how many ways they changed up the language in the UK and Americas.

Vienna's art museums are great. The rest of it is a reminder of an imperial period that bores me.

The impereal reminders are enchanting. Only issue is that the Hapsburg's main palace in Vienna is made up of. various add ons with vero cohesion. They were slowly getting it together by the the late 19th century just before the monarchy was sadly toppled.

But what makes up the royal palace is equally majestic.

r51 this is also why I adore Paris. Seems so regal and impossing. Make you feel small and broke looking at the Parisian and Viennese formal government building.

zero*

[quote] the monarchy was sadly toppled

!!

Great report on the social housing in Vienna, which is largely the former Habsburg estates.

I didn’t care for Vienna. I prefer more modern cities.

Vienna waits for you.

There are far more varieties of English, r49.