Following a folk linguistic approach, this investigation of first-, second- and fourth-year learners' accounts of German found that (1) few had held pre-conceived notions about German prior to language study; (2) most pre-conceived notions concerned German pronunciation; (3) pre-conceived notions about vocabulary were most likely to influence the decision to study German; and (4) among current perceptions of German, learners (a) believe German to be more "systematic" than English; (b) are virtually exclusively concerned with rules of "accuracy" (not appropriateness); (c) tend to judge the "merits" of German rules in comparison with English but also the Romance languages; (d) consider grammar more different between English and German than vocabulary and pronunciation; and (e) register no observable differences across different years of study or between German and non-German majors.