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Learning Method?

 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies Post Reply
26 messages over 4 pages: 13 4  Next >>
daegga
Tetraglot
Senior Member
Austria
lang-8.com/553301
Joined 4532 days ago

1076 posts - 1792 votes 
Speaks: German*, EnglishC2, Swedish, Norwegian
Studies: Danish, French, Finnish, Icelandic

 
 Message 9 of 26
16 June 2013 at 8:16pm | IP Logged 
Cavesa wrote:
The rest of FSI is quite good as well but there was a huge ortograph reform since it was made.


Just wanted to add that the orthography reform shouldn't matter much to a language learner. It's good to know that it exists (so you can expect some different spellings in books), but in practice, it only matters for school kids and editors (well, if you want to take a language exam, it probably matters too). Lots of native speakers still use the old orthography.
2 persons have voted this message useful



g-bod
Diglot
Senior Member
United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 5993 days ago

1485 posts - 2002 votes 
Speaks: English*, Japanese
Studies: French, German

 
 Message 10 of 26
16 June 2013 at 8:33pm | IP Logged 
EnglishEagle wrote:
I think I will buy Assimil and see if I can get MT at the local library.
How much time do you roughly have to put into studying to get to a B1 level. People say that
around the B1 that is when you can start to communicate and that is truly my main purpose.


Forget about the CEFR grades for a moment and think about what it is you want to communicate
(and who with). It is perfectly possible to communicate with an A1 level and a bit of
bravado, however as your level improves you'll obviously widen the range of things you can
talk about and situations you can comfortably deal with.
4 persons have voted this message useful



Cavesa
Triglot
Senior Member
Czech Republic
Joined 5020 days ago

3277 posts - 6779 votes 
Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1
Studies: Spanish, German, Italian

 
 Message 11 of 26
16 June 2013 at 10:57pm | IP Logged 
g-bod is right. I know people who can communicate surprisingly efficiently with the little they've got and on the other hand, I know people formally (and in may ways trully) well beyond B1 who just aren't able to speak with someone as they are shy, think too slowly in the language and so on.

Just put in the time, follow the path you choose and enjoy the pieces of progress.
1 person has voted this message useful



EnglishEagle
Senior Member
United Kingdom
Joined 4586 days ago

140 posts - 157 votes 
Studies: English*, German

 
 Message 12 of 26
16 June 2013 at 11:04pm | IP Logged 
g-bod wrote:
EnglishEagle wrote:
I think I will buy Assimil and see if I can get MT at the local library.
How much time do you roughly have to put into studying to get to a B1 level. People say that
around the B1 that is when you can start to communicate and that is truly my main purpose.


Forget about the CEFR grades for a moment and think about what it is you want to communicate
(and who with). It is perfectly possible to communicate with an A1 level and a bit of
bravado, however as your level improves you'll obviously widen the range of things you can
talk about and situations you can comfortably deal with.


I think I've got fixated on the grades because 'conversation fluency' and 'fluency' have so many different meanings
to so many different people. Therefore I've decided to use the CEFR grades to give an idea of what I am trying to
aim for.

Thankyou to everyone who has commented, the information people have given me is invaluable!
1 person has voted this message useful



Serpent
Octoglot
Senior Member
Russian Federation
serpent-849.livejour
Joined 6608 days ago

9753 posts - 15779 votes 
4 sounds
Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese
Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish

 
 Message 13 of 26
17 June 2013 at 12:44am | IP Logged 
It's more important to be able to express complicated ideas in simple ways and to understand orally everything you would understand in writing.
The Deutsche Welle course probably takes you damn close to B1 if you do it thoroughly, but again it will take time.

Another tip: have access to a variety of activities at any given moment. If you don't feel like doing what you planned to do, you should always have alternatives available so that you don't skip your session altogether. What matters more is not what you do when you feel like studying, but what you do when you DON'T feel like studying.
4 persons have voted this message useful



EnglishEagle
Senior Member
United Kingdom
Joined 4586 days ago

140 posts - 157 votes 
Studies: English*, German

 
 Message 14 of 26
19 June 2013 at 11:11pm | IP Logged 
Serpent wrote:
It's more important to be able to express complicated ideas in simple ways and to understand
orally everything you would understand in writing.
The Deutsche Welle course probably takes you damn close to B1 if you do it thoroughly, but again it will take time.

Another tip: have access to a variety of activities at any given moment. If you don't feel like doing what you planned
to do, you should always have alternatives available so that you don't skip your session altogether. What matters
more is not what you do when you feel like studying, but what you do when you DON'T feel like studying.


I will definitely start the Deutsch Welle course at the weekend and purchase Assimil German with Ease, I am looking
forward to it! :-)
1 person has voted this message useful



Cavesa
Triglot
Senior Member
Czech Republic
Joined 5020 days ago

3277 posts - 6779 votes 
Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1
Studies: Spanish, German, Italian

 
 Message 15 of 26
20 June 2013 at 11:33am | IP Logged 
daegga wrote:
Cavesa wrote:
The rest of FSI is quite good as well but there was a huge ortograph reform since it was made.


Just wanted to add that the orthography reform shouldn't matter much to a language learner. It's good to know that it exists (so you can expect some different spellings in books), but in practice, it only matters for school kids and editors (well, if you want to take a language exam, it probably matters too). Lots of native speakers still use the old orthography.


I don't agree that it doesn't matter.

1.Do you ever start learning a language and know that you'll never want/need a language exam or any similar thing?

2.The language will keep to change and there may be more reforms in the next twenty or fourty years. So, unless you plan to leave the world next week, it might be good not to keep behind for too much. After all, the old ortograph is surviving with the older speakers but will slowly die out in a generation or two.

So, if you know German with the old ortograph, that's great, you know German. And your ortograph won't matter in most situations. But why should you newly learn German with old ortograph? That's like buying a computer with 15 years old tiny hard drive.
1 person has voted this message useful



daegga
Tetraglot
Senior Member
Austria
lang-8.com/553301
Joined 4532 days ago

1076 posts - 1792 votes 
Speaks: German*, EnglishC2, Swedish, Norwegian
Studies: Danish, French, Finnish, Icelandic

 
 Message 16 of 26
20 June 2013 at 10:07pm | IP Logged 
If you happen to like FSI more than other courses, the orthography shouldn't stop you from using it. You will get exposed to the new orthography anyway when you start using contemporary native material. It also works the other way round: if you learn German with new orthography, you will get exposed to the old orthography later, because you don't want to limit your reading to books from the last decade.
Somehow you will have to deal with this 'double information' anyway, restricting yourself to new material doesn't seem to be the best solution to me. But if you need this restriction, that's of course fine too, everybody has their priorities.


2 persons have voted this message useful



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