Advantages and challenges in learning German as a second foreign language after English

Abstract

Abstract: The article examines the specific features of learning German as a second foreign language after English, focusing on linguistic, psycholinguistic, and methodological factors that determine learning efficiency. The study analyzes the influence of cross-linguistic interference, which, in the case of positive transfer, facilitates faster acquisition of vocabulary and grammar due to lexical cognates, similar grammatical structures, and previously developed language strategies. At the same time, the main difficulties encountered during the learning process are identified: phonetic peculiarities of the German language (umlauts, specific sounds ch and r, stress and intonation), morphological challenges (cases, gender and number, strong and weak verbs), and syntactic differences (verb position in main and subordinate clauses, complex constructions). The article also addresses psycholinguistic aspects such as motivation, cognitive resources, the level of metalinguistic competence, and cross-linguistic awareness, which directly affect the success of second foreign language acquisition. Special attention is paid to didactic approaches that help optimize the learning process: contrastive analysis of English and German, integration of communicative and task-based methods, learning strategies that consider learners’ prior linguistic knowledge, as well as the use of digital and multimedia resources. The findings demonstrate that conscious utilization of learners’ existing language competencies contributes to faster and more meaningful acquisition of new structures and vocabulary, fostering linguistic flexibility and cross-linguistic competence. The obtained results can be applied in the methodology of teaching German as a foreign language, in the development of teaching materials, and in further linguistic research on multilingualism. Keywords: German as a second foreign language, interference, contrastive analysis, foreign language learning, didactics, cognates, psycholinguistics, multilingualism, language competence.