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B1 German by September?

  Tags: German
 Language Learning Forum : Advice Center Post Reply
leroc
Senior Member
United States
Joined 4297 days ago

114 posts - 167 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: German

 
 Message 1 of 4
27 March 2015 at 7:43am | IP Logged 
I'm going to Germany at the beginning of September to do a month long intensive German course. Do you
think that it is possible to reach B1 before then with my current work rate? I've been learning since the
beginning of January and completed Pimsleur 1 before starting Assimil.

-SRS everyday
-Listen to German news 3 hours a day 5 days a week
-Work on German without toil everyday

I plan on being finished with Assimil by July (just started the active phase)
2 persons have voted this message useful



chaotic_thought
Diglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 3528 days ago

129 posts - 274 votes 
Speaks: English*, German
Studies: Dutch, French

 
 Message 2 of 4
27 March 2015 at 11:53am | IP Logged 
For learning German news I'm a fan of the Deutsch lernen section on Deutsche Welle:

http://www.dw.de/deutsch-lernen/s-2055

I especially like the daily newscast which is given in three formats (transcript, normal speed, and slow speed). You can use these every day to learn new words, pronunciation, listening practice, and of course to keep up with current events.

Not sure about your "3 hours a day" goal for news. For me I have a certain limit on how much news I can listen to per day, regardless of the language in which it's delivered. For me it was more helpful to follow a TV story drama series. Look for online German TV stations if you have access to them and find a story that is easy to follow and watch/listen to that. After a while the characters' speech will become easier to follow because it's the same people episode after episode.

3 persons have voted this message useful



obsculta
Newbie
United States
Joined 5806 days ago

36 posts - 83 votes 
Speaks: English*

 
 Message 3 of 4
28 March 2015 at 2:12am | IP Logged 
According to Guided-learning-hours">Cambridge, it requires 350-400 hours of guided instruction to
reach B1 in English. I imagine this would be about the same for German. This doesn't
include out-of-class work, so if a student spends an hour studying for each hour of
class, that would be more like 700-800 hours to get from nothing to B1. Of course, it's
very possible that a self-study method would be more (or less) efficient than the
classroom model.

It looks like you're putting in enough hours; my only question would be how you're
spending your 3 listening hours daily (that is, are you only passively listening, or are
you actively mining sentences, vocabulary and grammatical structures, or are you doing
something else?).
2 persons have voted this message useful



soclydeza85
Senior Member
United States
Joined 3893 days ago

357 posts - 502 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: German, French

 
 Message 4 of 4
31 March 2015 at 4:20pm | IP Logged 
I started studying German intensively last February (2014). I studied a little here
and there before that point, but last Feb is when I started
with Assimil with Ease, studying grammar and really started taking it seriously. I
studied on average probably about 2-3 hours a day, 7 days a
week (with the occasional day off). I finished Assimil sometime in the Summer, I
forget exactly when.

I took the DW language test sometime around the end of the Summer and it said I was a
solid B1. I'm not sure how accurate the DW results are
(probably inflated), but the point is that I came a long way during that time period;
from only knowing "stock" phrases to being able to freely
converse (on a somewhat simple level) with natives. So I think it's not only
possible, I don't see how you could NOT get to B1 (or at least pretty
close) given your current routine, as long as you are consistent. And you're
including more native materials (the news) than I did. I would just
maybe add in a good grammar source (more than what Assimil provides) and have
something lined up for when you finish Assimil.

Edited by soclydeza85 on 31 March 2015 at 5:24pm



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