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Fluent German by the end of the year | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| valkyr Triglot Groupie Romania Joined 5183 days ago 79 posts - 112 votes  Speaks: Romanian*, EnglishC1, GermanB2 | Message 33 of 70 17 March 2012 at 3:38pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I started recording the amount of time spent studying / practicing German and what type
of activity I'm spending time on - e.g. reading, listening, studying flashcards and so on. I have a goal of getting in 100 hours of study before my B2 exam, which is about a month away. Yesterday I did a little more than two hours. Today I studied about 2 hours so far. I caught up on my flashcard reviews for one hour and did another hour of speaking. It wasn't a real conversation, but rather a monologue, where I would talk in German about different themes, all the time checking vocabulary and grammar when in doubt. I find that this sort of activity helps a lot with fluency. I found some rough evaluations on how long it takes to get from one level to another on the CEFR scale. (www.languagedirect.net/en/cefr-grading-corporate.php) Although it should be taken with a grain of salt, I find that ~200 hours from B2 to C1, give or take, are quite doable in a shorter time frame than what I had in mind. Goethe will hold another exam session in September / October. I would have about 5 months to prepare after the B2 certification test, which sounds reasonable ... I guess I'll have to see how well I do in the test before taking a decision. Edited by valkyr on 18 March 2012 at 11:18am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| valkyr Triglot Groupie Romania Joined 5183 days ago 79 posts - 112 votes Speaks: Romanian*, EnglishC1, GermanB2 | Message 34 of 70 19 March 2012 at 1:56pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I managed to put in a lot of work over the weekend.
Yesterday I squeezed in over 5.5 hours for a total of 12.5 hours over the last 3 days. Looks like my 100h goal till April 20 is not at all far fetched. I did the reading comprehension part of a mock B2 exam. It's devided into 4 parts. I coasted through the first 3 with a score of 14/15 but stumbled on the 4th where I only managed 4 out of 10 for a total of 18/25. This part is a 'fill in the blanks' exercise and tests your vocabulary, grammar, knowledge of expressions and Funktionsverbgefüge and correct use of prepositions. An important role in this exercise is played by Funktionsverbgefüge - expressions usually containing a noun and a verb which behave as a single verb like "in Kraft treten" - to come into force -, "eine Entscheidung treffen" - to make a decision - and so on. if you need to practice these you can find a whole bunch of them here: www.dietz-und-daf.de/FGD_DkfA/FGramminfo/Ftxt_MII2/FFVG-List e2.pdf (if you want the link to work erase the white space introduced automatically by the forum software) I started adding lots of FVG flashcards in Anki and as a result my deck just exceeded 3000 facts. I plan on going through the other parts of the mock exam by the end of this week to identify my weakspots. So far it's more or less what I expected. I don't anticipate any problems with listening or speaking, but might have issues with Sprachbausteine (reading part 4), Schriftlicher Austruck and also that exercise which asks you to find the 10 mistakes in a letter could be tricky. Edited by valkyr on 19 March 2012 at 1:57pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| valkyr Triglot Groupie Romania Joined 5183 days ago 79 posts - 112 votes Speaks: Romanian*, EnglishC1, GermanB2 | Message 35 of 70 21 March 2012 at 12:12am | IP Logged | |||||
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I finished going through the mock exam.
It's pretty much what I expected: Reading 18/25 Almost all mistakes were made in the 'fill-in-the-gaps' exercise, which is not entirely reading comprehension anyway. It has more to do with grammar and correct use of prepositions and expressions. Otherwise, I made only one mistake in the reading part. Listening 24/25 No problems here. Writing 5/10 Only did the letter correction part and, as you can see, it turned out pretty badly. Granted, may errors were due to lack of concentration rather than lack of knowledge. Speaking ??/25 I only use German at work, so I don't expect this to be a challenge. Actually, I'm hoping for a maximum score here. So, there are two things I have to improve on: Grammar - improve on fill-in-the-gaps exercise and get used to spotting errors in other people's text. Writing - I haven't even tried writing before, with the exception of short e- mails at work. A few weeks on lang-8 will probably take care of the above issues and ensure a good grade overall. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Majka Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic kofoholici.wordpress Joined 4656 days ago 307 posts - 755 votes Speaks: Czech*, German, English Studies: French Studies: Russian | Message 36 of 70 21 March 2012 at 12:59pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I can recommend transcribing audio (where you have the transcripts available to check against) for improving your writing by yourself alone, without native feedback.
It doesn't cure all the problems but the glaring gaps you have will be spotted pretty easily. All these spelling errors in words you know, the errors in "im/in" etc. And it ingrains correct phrases as bonus as well. As for the speaking - can you get a list of possible topics? I was completely surprised on my C1 test by "Speak about common illnesses of childhood" - meaning chicken pox, measles, mumps... It was very unfortunate that I would have a problem to speak about it in my native language and couldn't steer the conversation away from it. 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| geoffw Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4687 days ago 1134 posts - 1865 votes Speaks: English*, German, Yiddish Studies: Modern Hebrew, French, Dutch, Italian, Russian | Message 37 of 70 21 March 2012 at 2:54pm | IP Logged | |||||
Wha??? How long ago was this test? With the exception of chicken pox, I have never heard of anyone in my lifetime having any of those diseases, and the only reason I've even HEARD of them is because of childhood "MMR" immunizations. Did you get a follow-up question about describing your experiences with polio? 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| manish Triglot Groupie Romania Joined 5545 days ago 88 posts - 136 votes Speaks: Romanian*, English, German Studies: Spanish | Message 38 of 70 21 March 2012 at 3:10pm | IP Logged | |||||
From my experience, very few people in Europe get the MMR vaccine, so a lot of us do end up having these diseases. I was fortunate to only have chicken pox, and then I moved to the US and got a mandatory MMR shot... Edited by manish on 21 March 2012 at 3:42pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| valkyr Triglot Groupie Romania Joined 5183 days ago 79 posts - 112 votes Speaks: Romanian*, EnglishC1, GermanB2 | Message 39 of 70 21 March 2012 at 4:15pm | IP Logged | |||||
Did you pass? This is indeed a problem with Goethe that some people have complained about. For example, when I took the B1 exam, one of my colleagues had to talk about "Verschiedene Typen von Brot" :| Another thing that I've observed so far, is that many exam topics focus on food! And not general stuff either ... if they ask you to compare different types of bread at B1, god knows what they'll ask you to do at C1. To this purpose I'm preparing a big list of food-related vocabulary to cram before the exam. Anyway, you have to remember that the purpose of the exam is to test your language skills, not your knowledge of the subject. The conversation topic is just an excuse to start talking! Nobody gives a rat's ass about childhood illnesses, types of bread or whatever they ask you to talk about. Your goal is to leave no doubt in their minds, that you have a good command of the language and that you can hold your own even in complex and unfamiliar situations. My strategy is to plow ahead and avoid any weird pauses. If they see that you are articulate and fluent, you'll be fine. Edited by valkyr on 21 March 2012 at 4:16pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Majka Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic kofoholici.wordpress Joined 4656 days ago 307 posts - 755 votes Speaks: Czech*, German, English Studies: French Studies: Russian | Message 40 of 70 21 March 2012 at 5:35pm | IP Logged | |||||
Yes, I did pass. But partly only thanks to the native speaker among the examiners who allowed talking about health generally. It was a Czech national exam (before the international certificates were known here). It is still widely used, the next level up are separate tests for certified translators and for certified interpreters. In all levels they test the "realia" too, presuming that to be real fluent one needs to have strong factual background as well, not only the vocabulary. Meaning - you should know about the same in humanities in the target language as at least a native high school graduate, not only understand it. The factual part was roughly as hard as for my high school diploma and took about the same time. And 30 minutes for an oral exam is pretty long, when all you hear from the Czech examiner is: "Could you please go back to the given topic and speak about it more in detail?" 1 person has voted this message useful |
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