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German Vocabulary | ||
Tags: Vocabulary learning | German | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Advice Center |  | |
| zekecoma Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5279 days ago 561 posts - 655 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish | Message 9 of 17 16 June 2010 at 7:09pm | IP Logged |
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@wraith That is really interesting. I guess I am not one to think the obvious at first.
Flashcards alone will not help. But other methods like unscrambling words, etc.. I tend to try and memorise every word I come across, because I don't always like just rushing back to the same thing over and over. While my memory doesn't always work the way I want (selective memory I guess you say). I'm studying the grammar and basic sentence structure right now. Just learning the verb steming like "Ich brauchen ...." etc.. Yes, I want to become bilingual in English/German. Edited by zekecoma on 16 June 2010 at 7:10pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| NorseRonin Pro Member United States youtube.com/user/NorRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5213 days ago 47 posts - 55 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Icelandic Personal Language Map | Message 10 of 17 18 June 2010 at 6:26am | IP Logged |
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hey, just to add my 2 cents, i started learning German fairly recently as well, about 3 and a half months ago or so. it can be quite frustrating especially dealing with this so called "grammar" haha, but trust me it gets a lot better, just keep pushing (but don't fall over). to be honest i haven't actively tried to learn the plural to words yet, to me that seems to be the hardest part since even if you mess up on the gender you will always be understood, it's not so if you mess up on the plural to words. that's not to say that i don't know how to make some words plural, i just haven't tried to learn them. is there some kind of "trick" to learning them, i'm sure there's a hell of a lot of exceptions, but just a few basic guidelines should suffice.
also, i'm sure this was a typo, but the example you gave "Ich brauchen...." should be "Ich brauche...." like i said, i'm sure you know this but just in case :-) also, thanks LanguageSponge and Slovak anglo for those great explanations and examples, that helped me a great deal! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| zekecoma Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5279 days ago 561 posts - 655 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish | Message 11 of 17 18 June 2010 at 9:46am | IP Logged |
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Yeah it was a typo ;P. I spell words sometimes wrong when I type too fast. The Germans
created a crazy language in a way. the way the sentences are done and the genders. But I'm assuming over time it will get better the more I get used to it and having native speakers that I talk to daily that have enough patience to listen to my broken sentences in German and willing to help correct them and explain as helped a lot. Also, this forum has helped a lot too. I'm glad to have came across it ^_^. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| doviende Diglot Senior Member Canada languagefixatio Joined 5921 days ago 533 posts - 1245 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Spanish, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Hindi, Swedish, Portuguese | Message 12 of 17 18 June 2010 at 11:38am | IP Logged |
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I haven't paid much attention to genders at all, or grammar. I've caught on to most of the sentence-structure stuff just by reading and listening a LOT and watching lots of TV. After a while, German word order just feels natural.
Currently I'm also just using whatever gender "feels right", but I tend to have an ok intuition for a lot of them due to all the reading I've done. I never had any luck trying to memorize lists, or to memorize the lists of rules listed above. What those rules tell me is that there are some general patterns to recognize, so if you just get exposed to them enough then you'll have a "feeling" for it. I guess if I want to pass some sort of test, then I might try and study some lists more, but until then I'll just keep building my intuition by reading. One thing that's helped, though, is if I go look up one little rule, and then go read 50 pages of a book. I try to notice examples of the rule that I looked up, in order to get used to them more. Try looking up what endings adjectives take in front of masculine nouns in the accusative case or something, and then try to find examples of that as you read. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Rout Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5647 days ago 326 posts - 417 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Spanish Studies: Hindi | Message 13 of 17 05 July 2010 at 10:39pm | IP Logged |
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I'm in Doviende's boat when it comes to learning German. After while it "just makes sense." But I also knew about those lists (which helped a smidge in the beginning) and after I actually had a few hundred words safely under my belt, I revisited them and it just cemented everything I was intuiting. After some experience you'll just need to learn the exceptions. So, just try your best to remember the articles (and the endings), and then try using them and reading a lot. If it doesn't stick sooner it will stick later - mach dir keine Sorgen. Just learn as many words as you can - and remember, nouns are the bricks and verbs are the mortar! You don't need to know articles with verbs (unless you're using the verb as a noun, which is always "das"), so try to learn as many of those as you can if you're having problems. Keep on learning and don't be afraid of mistakes - they're you're best friends.
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| zekecoma Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5279 days ago 561 posts - 655 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish | Message 14 of 17 05 July 2010 at 10:50pm | IP Logged |
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Yeah, I found some words a little difficult, because some don't even look like the
English version or there is no concatnation of words like for example Frei + Tag = Friday Also, sometimes writing the words and using them in a sentence does help also. But sometimes Google Translator doesn't really help in that department. Like take for instance. I know this might not make sense but it's just for example. If I enter this in to google: Ich liebe die Sommer. == I love the summers. But it actually renders I love the summer. Der Sommer is non plural while the plural is also spelt the same minus the der which goes to die in the nominative case. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Rout Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5647 days ago 326 posts - 417 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Spanish Studies: Hindi | Message 15 of 17 06 July 2010 at 12:26am | IP Logged |
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That doesn't really make sense even in English. You love the summers? You love which summers? I believe (correct me if I'm wrong):
you can say "Ich liebe den Sommer." (it would be Akkusativ not Nominativ) or "Ich liebe Sommer." as in you love summers in general. There's a little bit of flexibility like in English, but it may be different for different speakers. These are those little nuances where you might want to consult a good book on usage or pass it by a native speaker, but I believe both could be used, the first being more common. Here is some sample writing where both are used. Ich liebe die Natur und die Nacht. Ich liebe den Herbst und den Winter. Ich liebe Regen und Schnee, Schneestürme, Stürme und Unwetter. Ich liebe Friedhöfe, den Wald und stürmisches Meer. Ich liebe meine "Schwarze Seele". I'd generally try to stay away from google translate before you imprint anything bad in your head. Better to submit it on lang-8 or a native speaker if you know one. If you're going to translate or produce, have a key (by using a book) or some other source (a tutor/pen-pal) to correct it. This is why some people focus more on comprehension in the beginning. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| NorseRonin Pro Member United States youtube.com/user/NorRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5213 days ago 47 posts - 55 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Icelandic Personal Language Map | Message 16 of 17 06 July 2010 at 2:02am | IP Logged |
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great advice Rout, but i think google translate is great to get the gist of things, and especially for just single words. if you're at an intermediate level in German, it wouldn't hurt to use google translate like i do. as long as you know it isn't perfect and you're aware you need to see the word(s) in context many times later on then it's fine. i wouldn't try and form sentences from it however, it's there just for comprehension (at least to me).
the other day this woman who knew i was studying German tried to speak to me in German from notes that she had. i couldn't understand a single word. i corrected her, and tried to explain that google translate isn't perfect, she couldn't grasp that concept for some reason. She thought she was right and that i just didn't know enough German :/ edit: it was only after i spoke in German and said what she was "suppose" to say that she knew i wasn't just pulling her leg, but still for some reason thought google translate wasn't wrong. figure that :P Edited by NorseRonin on 06 July 2010 at 2:05am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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