Typo or am I missing something? 「ドイツ語も勉強しないとですね。」?

Question

Context: I have been chatting with a Japanese girl who is going to move to Germany, and I asked if she had any experience with the German language and told her I had been considering learning German recently. Her response went along the lines of, "I'm very enthusiastic about learning German..." and then... > 素晴らしい。ドイツ語も勉強しないとですね。 Am I right in thinking that means... > Wonderful, if you **aren't** learning learning German too. Am I missing something with the grammar/context here? Surely she would rather say "Wonderful, if you're learning German too."? Could it be a typo? I am not advanced enough in the language yet to know whether something is an obvious mistake or not!

Answer 1

In Japanese, it is common to ask a question in the negative form to make it more respectful. A good example of this is, ”たべませんか？”. This in the negative form means, "do you want to eat?" or more literally, "wont you eat?" In this case, your friend is saying, "Wonderful. Aren't you studying German too." but the way they say it is less of a question and more of a matter of fact. It is simply a respectful way of putting it.