I am starting undergrad this fall, so I'm far away from this really mattering but I was still curious since my university has german courses from the 100 to the 400 level.

As you can suspect I don't know a lot about philosophy and haven't read very much, but from the very shallow readings I've done I seem to be interested in Hegel, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Marx, Sartre, Camus, Critical Theory, Political Philosophy, and Social Philosophy.

I would like to go the grad school for phil, but since I have 4 years before I get my bachelor's I have a lot of time to think about that, and who knows, I may change my mind by the end of it.

I guess I'm asking two questions.

1. How important would knowing german be for the german philosophers I've listed above as someone doing graduate level or higher work on them.

2. Do you think it would be worthwhile, considering these interests, to take the german courses at my university, or would this be unnecessarily preemptive?

I also suspect that it would take a long time of learning German before I'm able to comprehend the work of philosophers in German. Does that make it more appropriate for me to start now?