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James’ German adventure! | ||
Tags: German | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Jimjam Newbie Australia Joined 3978 days ago 19 posts - 22 votes Studies: Japanese, German | Message 1 of 12 28 October 2014 at 1:23pm | IP Logged |
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Hi, seeing as this is my first ever post, I feel as though I should introduce myself a little.
My name is james, and I am a 19 year old australian university student (starting next year, sort of). I am majoring in Japanese, and will also be minoring in mandarin, and French. I have previously studied Japanese for several years, though not very consistently, so I am still at a very high beginner/low intermediate level. Japanese was definitely my "first love", but recently, German has snuck into the picture and is trying to take the top spot. I'm not too sure how it happened, seeing as a few years ago, I had no intention of studying it at all, and even thought of it as a rather ugly language, but one day I decided to learn a little bit, and that changed it all. I realised that it is actually an amazing language, and I have definitely fallen in love with it as well. Now, I have decided to get serious with it, atleast until I start uni next March, and I hope this log will help me keep on track and not get too lazy (which I have proven many times in the past to be a very likely outcome). So, my resources for German so far are fairly limited, though I will be buying more this week as I will be in Sydney for a few days and plan to visit abbeys bookshop and kinokuniya (I shouldn't be allowed in these places, for my bank accounts sake). As of now, my main resource is assimil German with ease. I am currently up to lesson 15, and am really loving it! I'm remembering the words fairly easily, and my listening is improving rapidly! Today, I was able to listen to lesson 15 and understand a large amount first go! The lessons are still easier, of course but it is definitely a confidence booster! I am also using duolingo, and am up to nominal pronouns, I believe. To solidify my grammar, I am using berlitz essential German. It's not the greatest book but it was cheap and it was there. It was an impulse buy, but I don't regret it at all. It's what made me want to start learning German in the first place. Though I do hope to find a better resource in sydney. I also have teach yourself German but I don't use it. It was a real disappointment. It only touchs on grammar points, instead of actually explaining them. Ok that should be enough for my first post but I plan to report back tomorrow with an update. Tschüss! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| patrickwilken Senior Member Germany radiant-flux.net Joined 4525 days ago 1546 posts - 3200 votes  Studies: German | Message 2 of 12 28 October 2014 at 1:30pm | IP Logged |
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Good luck from a fellow German learner!
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| CheChe Groupie United States Joined 3958 days ago 41 posts - 45 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German | Message 3 of 12 28 October 2014 at 2:44pm | IP Logged |
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Good luck! And yeah we are pretty close in what we are learning.
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| clmns01 Diglot Newbie Austria Joined 3681 days ago 22 posts - 23 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: Portuguese, Italian | Message 4 of 12 28 October 2014 at 10:40pm | IP Logged |
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Viel Glück! And if you ever want to ask a native anything, you can write me!
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| Jimjam Newbie Australia Joined 3978 days ago 19 posts - 22 votes Studies: Japanese, German | Message 5 of 12 29 October 2014 at 3:49am | IP Logged |
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Thank you all for your nice comments! It makes it so much better knowing that there are
others out there to talk to about learning German, and sharing our experiences. And I might have to take up that offer clmns01! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Mutant Groupie United States Joined 3903 days ago 45 posts - 60 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French, German | Message 6 of 12 29 October 2014 at 12:50pm | IP Logged |
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Good luck! I'm also learning German with Assimil (I'm on lesson 34) and so far it's a blast. I had pretty good results with Assimil New French With Ease, so I'm hoping things go as well for German. I've also been using German Made Simple, and it's a nice, inexpensive book.
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| Jeffers Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4901 days ago 2151 posts - 3960 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German | Message 7 of 12 30 October 2014 at 8:54am | IP Logged |
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Good luck, and check out Deutsche Welle for a mountain of free, quality resources.
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| Jimjam Newbie Australia Joined 3978 days ago 19 posts - 22 votes Studies: Japanese, German | Message 8 of 12 06 November 2014 at 8:07am | IP Logged |
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That turned out to be a very successful weekend for my German. In sydney, I bought all
my new language resources, such as several Japanese books, 2 new German grammar books (german demystified to use alongside assimil, and Schaums outline as a review after finishing demystified), and harry potter in German. I like to give myself something to work towards. But the best thing was that i got to spend almost a whole week with a good friend of mine, who is an austrian exchange student, and the first few days with a German exchange student, so I was able to ask a lot of questions about different things, and they helped me work on my pronunciation a little. I'm still at a stage where i cant form many sentences that would actually be useful in conversation, so I didn't get much speaking practice, but I learned some new vocab, so i'm still happy. I seem to remember words much easier when a native speaker teaches them to me. So, overall i am very happy with how it all turned out! I am very happy with the books I bought, especially German demystified. I got it after it was recommended in Maria Athena's video on youtube. It is exactly what i was looking for in a beginners grammar book, such as that it explains the grammar points in a clear concise fashion, and in an organised order. It works very well alongside assimil grammar-wise, in that I am able to work through assimil and pick the grammar apart, and then read demystified after and solidify that knowledge. On the other hand, I have Schaums outline, which I find to be much more intense. It covers roughly the same amount of material, but it teaches in a less user friendly fashion. Where demystified teaches in a smooth progression, Schaums groups things together, such as all the different verb forms and conjugations. So, unless someone likes to learn in this way, it would probably be better off as revision. As for my studies, the weekend put me a little off track, so i've only done up to lesson 17, though I have been reading through German demystified, and caught up to where I am in assimil. Tonight, i'll get back into assimil. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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