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I feel so demotivated | ||
Tags: Loss of confidence | Motivation | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| ericblair Senior Member United States Joined 4712 days ago 480 posts - 700 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 25 of 34 27 February 2013 at 2:04am | IP Logged | ||
Maybe try a book for reading German? There are many around, but it I've read that German For Reading by Sandberg is the best of all of them. It is out of print and quite pricey on the used market, but if you poke around on here, I think there are readily had links to PDFs. That could maybe get you to where you need to be for reading higher level texts. Has anyone used the Sandberg book and know what level you can read at by the end of it? B1? B2? For that matters, I guess that would be a good question for any of those reading books (I think another that is well-regarded is April Wilson's "German Quickly"). I've never used any, so I honestly couldn't tell you how high any would get you. Hopefully someone can chime in and help you :) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| dbag Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5023 days ago 605 posts - 1046 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 26 of 34 27 February 2013 at 8:26am | IP Logged | ||
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I have the Spanish one, its good, but I would say low B1, maybe high A2. No one resource will get you to B2, that takes hundreds of hours of hard graft!
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| Antanas Tetraglot Groupie Lithuania Joined 4813 days ago 91 posts - 172 votes Speaks: Lithuanian*, English, Russian, German Studies: FrenchB1, Spanish | Message 27 of 34 27 February 2013 at 4:32pm | IP Logged | ||
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Being able to understand what they say on German radio requires a very good if not excellent (passive) knowledge of German. For instance, in order to understand almost everything what they say on Leonardo (on Westdeutscher Rundfunk WDR5) one has to have, I believe, at least C1 (if not C2) knowledge of German. Even simple news are very difficult to understand, unless you are already really good at German (or already know what is being said).
I believe that (if we simplify things a little) there is a simple rule of a thumb: If you don't know the word, you won't understand it when it is spoken to you. If that's the case then it seems that you have to enrich your (passive)vocabulary. How to do that? Both of the books mentioned by ericblair are very useful. I used them both and enjoyed them both. They would refresh your grammar, too. In "German for Reading" there are more extracts of original German literature than in "German Quickly". The latter focuses more on translating individual sentences which usually are funny German proverbs or ones taken form the works of German literature (Nietsche, Kafka, et al.). It also has a couple of (very) short stories by Mrozek translated to German. It seems to me that if you could learn every word they give you, then "German Quickly" would teach you more than "German for Reading". On the other hand, I'm not sure if translating isolated sentences is the best way to learn new vocabulary. Advanced German Assimil would also be very useful. I have worked through the penultimate edition of Perfectionnemant Allemand. And listened to the recordings many times. It won't teach you more grammar than the two former books but it will teach you additional words. You don't need to be good at French in order to profit from using it. Then I would read a really silly book. I have read "Das achte Opfer" by Andreas Franz. For our purposes it is really good: it is a Krimi, it is long, full of platitudes, etc. But it was very good for motivation: wow, I have read a real German book! You can choose another author. It does not matter if it was written in German or translated into it. (One can also buy an e-book reader with a good dictionary and begin to read unadapted German literature right from the start. When I started learning German some 7 years ago that was not an option for me, but later I found it very useful for learning other languages.) After you have read a couple of books you can try listening to audiobooks, preferably from the same author. That is also a big motivation boost: wow, I can understand what they say in German! After 10 audiobooks or so you can tackle a little more serious literature. Haruki Murakami has written many books translations of which into German are very easy to understand (in linguistic sense of the word). I have had a good time listening to several of his audiobooks: Mister Aufziehvogel, Kafka on Strand, and others. Interpreters were also very good. Surprisingly, his style is very simple and the language is easy to understand. I have also listened to many German hoerspiele. "Van Dusen", "Der letzte Detektiv", "Dickie Dick Dickens" (the last one is a little more advanced) were among my favorites. You can try also "Die Drei Fragezeichen" that is less demanding. Then you can try reading/listening to Kafka. Then Buddenbrooks by Mann (Westphal is a great interpreter). And then you will be able to understand what they say on the news without much effort. [That's roughly my own story.] I believe that German has a very steep learning curve. Otherwise as learning, for instance, French, one has to put much effort and invest a lot of time in order to get even minimal results. But if you persist, one day you realize suddenly that you already have a very considerable (passive) command of German. I would advise against adapted literature (like readers) in the beginning, since it gives little motivation if you manage to make through it and much more despair if you don't. (But that's my personal opinion.) One last thing. One has to play with the language every day (at least 5-10 minutes) in order to learn it. And try to find pleasure in doing that. Otherwise it may not work. You might end hating it and not learning it at all. So, don't despair and good luck! Edited by Antanas on 27 February 2013 at 7:55pm 6 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Valy Newbie France Joined 4349 days ago 39 posts - 47 votes Speaks: French* Studies: English, German, Spanish, Mandarin | Message 28 of 34 28 February 2013 at 6:23pm | IP Logged | ||
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Great post Antanas. Thanks for the advice.
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| aabram Pentaglot Senior Member Estonia Joined 5534 days ago 138 posts - 263 votes Speaks: Estonian*, English, Spanish, Russian, Finnish Studies: Mandarin, French | Message 29 of 34 17 March 2013 at 10:21pm | IP Logged | ||
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I'm going to give perhaps upside-down advice on this matter, but I've found that it had
helped me to get over some mental blocks. When something seems hard then one way to make it feel easy is to try something even harder. When German reading seems hard, try Mandarin. Pick up a Mandarin textbook and give it a try for few chapters. After you discover than next morning you can not remember not only the meaning of the character but you also can't read it, let alone being able to write it, after that anything in latin script, German/Spanish/whatever seems like a walk in the park instead of insurmountable obstacle. If you can't change your tasks, change your perspective. And then get to work and log those language hours. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| wber Groupie United States Joined 4302 days ago 45 posts - 77 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Vietnamese, French | Message 30 of 34 18 March 2013 at 10:53pm | IP Logged | ||
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For me, when I get demotivated, I listen to one or two of my favorite from the TL so I can be reminded of the fact that this language is actually spoken by real people. Looking at textbooks all day long sometimes makes you forget that.
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| patrickwilken Senior Member Germany radiant-flux.net Joined 4534 days ago 1546 posts - 3200 votes Studies: German | Message 31 of 34 20 March 2013 at 2:18pm | IP Logged | ||
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I am currently self-studying German, and somewhere in the B2 level at the moment. Someone else mentioned the magic of the super-challenge, which basically involves lots TL input via books and tv/movies.
Although I have logged about 120 movies now I still find German Radio difficult. So don't worry that you are having trouble with radio. I strongly recommend TV shows that have been dubbed into German. I still find Tartot (the German crime show) much harder to understand that the dubbed versions of Lost or Breaking Bad. The regional dialects just make it harder. If you don't have one, get a Kindle (with keyboard preferably) and buy the e-version of Collins German dictionary. It makes it much much easier to read German books, than with a more traditional paper book and dictionary side-by-side. I read the German translation of the Hunger Games trilogy at your level without too much trouble; without the Kindle it would have been too frustrating for me to finish. I'd recommend keeping a log of all the books and shows you watch. It's quite motivating to see how much you've consumed over the course of a year. Each time I add a new book or film to my list, I feel a small sense of reward, which helps keep me motivated. Edited by patrickwilken on 20 March 2013 at 2:24pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| pandorabrooks Newbie Japan Joined 6207 days ago 9 posts - 10 votes Studies: Spanish Studies: Japanese, French | Message 32 of 34 24 May 2013 at 7:52am | IP Logged | ||
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I am reading this thread because I lost motivation to study my two languages for over a year. Reading this thread was encouraging and I am glad I came back to get the support I need (and to offer support) to keep studying.
There are many tips here that I can use to help keep me going. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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