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German: where will I be next year? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Avid Learner Diglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4664 days ago 100 posts - 156 votes  Speaks: French*, English Studies: German | Message 1 of 10 01 July 2012 at 4:30am | IP Logged |
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Guten Tag! :)
I've started working with FSI at the end of September 2011, so that makes 9 months already. My desire would be to be able to hold a conversation in German in exactly a year from now. I suppose that would mean a B2 level. I would like to visit German language countries at that time. I don't know what I will manage to do, but I will give what I can to make it happen, and if it can't happen, at the very least I would like to be able to read without much difficulty and understand a great deal! :) In any case, I'm not planning to stop working on German after next year, but my goal gives me sense of emergency for sure! I'm ending FSI unit 15 at this time. It takes me 2 to 3 weeks per unit. My goal is to have completed unit 18 by the beginning of September, and be done with the 24 units before the end of 2012. I've started watching TV about 2 months ago and realized that while FSI was great, I was at a point where I needed more vocabulary, and basically in general much more exposure to the language. At this time I would really like to read a lot, write, watch TV and work on FSI really hard, but I would need basically 4 hours a day to do all that. So that's why I'm planning to end FSI slowly, to allow me to incorporate more and more of these activites in time. At this point, I could probably attempt to speak German, but because of lack of revision, would probably make a string of grammatical errors and quickly fall short on vocabulary... so I've refrained from attempting it, because I'm sure I'd quickly get stucked. I've started working with the Deutsche Welle slow news reports and I'm lacking about 5 words in every sentence, and so that gives you an idea of what I can get when listening to the TV. Depending on the topic however, there are parts here and there throughout a show which are starting to make sense to me. Aside from vocabulary, I realized that I had trouble recognizing verbs on TV and distinguishing in between them when doing the exercises because they looked too similar to me, so I've begun using flashcards with present/preterit/past participle for ever verb in the FSI course I've encountered so far. I started 4 weeks ago and my goal was to be done by July 6. I only have 9 left to learn now (yay!) and will take a few days to review them again and again. It has already worked well, because I can recognize and remember them much better! :) I'm also having a little trouble "translating" numbers and I've worked on that and improved, but I still need more practise. I would not want to be caught trying to break into room 354 instead of my assigned room, 345...! I can't help it, I still really have to concentrate to avoid doing that... I also have a little bit of difficulty distinguishing adverbs for some reason, so when I'm done with my verbs, I'll also use flashcards for that. I have not encountered 213 of those yet so it shouldn't take me too long in comparison. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Avid Learner Diglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4664 days ago 100 posts - 156 votes Speaks: French*, English Studies: German | Message 2 of 10 01 July 2012 at 4:32am | IP Logged |
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I'm trying to study at least one hour every day, and manage to do that most of the time (and when I can't, it's not because of lack of motivation).
Today I've worked on vocabulary drills for unit 15 (exercises 1 to 7), I've watched about an hour of TV, I've added a little bit of vocabulary through that, I've reviewed and learned verbs through my flashcards, and before falling alseep, I'll probably start to watch a show I've recorded and through it add a bit to my vocabulary, and I will review the verbs I'm currently working on. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| neiliog93 Triglot Newbie Ireland Joined 4532 days ago 4 posts - 8 votes Speaks: English*, Irish, FrenchB1 Studies: German, Italian, Swedish | Message 3 of 10 01 July 2012 at 5:26am | IP Logged |
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The FSI say you need about 750-900 hours of learning to reach roughly the level you've
specified, but you know a lot more about German than me so I guess other forum users can answer the question better than. I'm trying to get in 30 mins to 1 hour a day, although bear in mind I'm an absolute beginner. I'm relying mainly on the Michel Thomas CDs, which give you no knowledge of grammar or anything else but equip you to both understand and say the basics with reasonable pronunciation very quickly. From there, I guess I'll need to buy a decent textbook of exercises (once I'm getting near the end of his beginner's course), and when I start exhaustively learning vocabulary use some flashcards. When I'm at your level, I'll move on to German radio/media resources. I think his CDs are an excellent starting point, but to have anything more than a superficial knowledge you have to do a lot of vocabulary learning and 'reading around' his CDs, as well as grammar study. I'm at the beginning of my 'German journey' but very excited for the times ahead! 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Avid Learner Diglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4664 days ago 100 posts - 156 votes Speaks: French*, English Studies: German | Message 4 of 10 01 July 2012 at 7:53am | IP Logged |
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Oh, the topic was a question I was mainly asking to myself, I hadn't realized it might look like I was asking others - but thank you very much, neiliog, as well as to anyone who wants to share his opinion on the matter! :)
I haven't kept a precise log, but let's say I've spent perhaps 260 hours on this so far. If I go with the lower end, 750 hours, that means I'm missing 490 hours, or 1h20 per day for a year. And then of course I might actually need 900 hours or perhaps even more, so I realize I might fall short, but I wouldn't want to postpone the trip for that reason; at least I suppose I would be at a level where I could take advantage of the environment to improve even more. I have never tried Michel Thomas or any other course. Your plan sounds interesting. When I began realizing that I had reached a point at which it would be a good thing to expand my learning beyong the FSI course (basically at the halfway mark), I started wondering if I should incorporate a different course or start to read real newspapers. I realize that with FSI, I have a tendency to essentially read the English sentence and try to translate it, but it's a little bit dangerous in a way because then I can kind of find myself knowing a sentence from memory or successfully translate it element by element, all this without actually improving my reading or listening comprehension of German! There are texts to be read and conversations to listen to, but they aren't necessarily especially interesting. And while the sound quality is good enough to learn to pronounce correctly, it's not so great that I especially enjoy listening to it over and over again. In the end, following another course in parallel didn't seem to be the most efficient way to learn more (for me at least), and the real newspapers are still too intricate for me. I seem to notice as I progress that the reading/listening problem I mentioned above seems to slowly resorb itself. I don't know if it's just because of FSI or also from the little work I did so far with the Deutsche Welle slow news reports/transcripts and the TV I watch despite not understanding too well yet, but at least it gets better. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Avid Learner Diglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4664 days ago 100 posts - 156 votes Speaks: French*, English Studies: German | Message 5 of 10 04 July 2012 at 5:41am | IP Logged |
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Unfortunately, I couldn't do much yesterday. I still tried to read a little bit (a "Tim und Struppi" album or TinTin in English + part of unit 16) just to be able to say I did something and not interrupt my "studying streak", since I can't remember the last day I didn't study at all, but I didn't get much out of it.
Anyway, on Sunday I managed to complete what was left of my verbs flashcards! :D I still want to revise them, but at least I've studied them all seriously. I also watched TV with attention (even listening again and again to some parts), and added a few words of vocabulary in the process. I've been through all the exercises of FSI unit 15, but I have trouble with a few numbers of the vocabulary drills. I think I'm not going to focus on them too much because this time I really have a feeling that I will have forgotten those after a few days. I'll go through them one last time though, I'll still try! I've already started reading the theory in unit 16. I'm still excited to be learning new things. Can't wait until the conditional tense at unit 18!! :D Today I've discovered that there weren't only the slow news reports which were available on text and audio on the Deutsche Welle website, there are other texts as well, even including definitions. I didn't have time to work on that today but I have saved a few and definitely will, it will be a nice change from the news (even if I do like news in general). I'll go to bed reading more of unit 16. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Avid Learner Diglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4664 days ago 100 posts - 156 votes Speaks: French*, English Studies: German | Message 6 of 10 08 July 2012 at 8:38am | IP Logged |
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I guess I just can't leave a unit behind as long as I feel it needs more work, so I kept working on those few exercises that were giving me trouble in FSI unit 15. I finally achieved more success and moved on to unit 16.
I should have been able to get through the vocabulary drills by Monday. Haven't worked much yet on the other exercises. It would be nice if I could be done with it within the next 8-10 days. The sentences get longer however, and it just seems a little harder to get through them. I think I just really need to use the language as soon as possible, that will probably make the grammar stick better in my memory. I think I'm going to try to find a pen pal when I'm done with unit 16 instead of waiting until unit 18 as I had originally planned to. I haven't watched as much TV as I would have wanted in the past week, but I have watched a little. I'm really surprised at what I can manage to understand even if that's still so little. I'm excited at what I can already understand and at the same time, I see all the work ahead and it would be easy to get discouraged, but overall I'm excited when looking at the positive side and very eager to improve! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Avid Learner Diglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4664 days ago 100 posts - 156 votes Speaks: French*, English Studies: German | Message 7 of 10 23 July 2012 at 5:48am | IP Logged |
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Still have not quite completed unit 16, unfortunately. I felt tired last week and had other things to do. The
funny thing is that in the previous days, I seemed to have a hard time learning and remembering anything. It was as if this was just too difficult for me, as badly as i wanted to improve. I read a bit but that was all. Suddenly, today, everything seemed to click again. It looks like the mind works just like the body, it needs a little break once in a while even if the exercise is enjoyable! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| ZombieKing Bilingual Diglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4529 days ago 247 posts - 324 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin* | Message 8 of 10 23 July 2012 at 6:58am | IP Logged |
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Good luck with your German studies!!!!!!!! Unfortunately I'm not at the point in my studies where I can hold long conversations, so I don't think I could be your penpal.
I'm happy to hear that things have clicked for you after going through a bit of a rough patch. I hope you can continue to put good effort into German and achieve your goals ^_^ For listening comprehension, I'd recommend watching movies or tv series that you've already seen in English or French, and then watch them again in German with French or English subtitles. Just be careful not to focus too much on the subtitles and tune out the German audio! :P Or L & R! That's good too hehe 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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