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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 4996 days ago 79 posts - 112 votes  Speaks: Romanian*, EnglishC1, GermanB2 | Message 1 of 70 27 February 2012 at 12:06am | IP Logged | ||
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[UPDATE] I sat the Goethe Zertifikat B2 exam in April and obtained a pretty good grade (89.5%). I am now on track for the C1 exam which I intend to sit later this year or in early 2013. Hello, As the title suggests I am working towards obtaining fluency in German. For me, fluency means C1 level. I would be content to reach this level by the end of the year. Currently, I am somewhere between B1 and B2. I can hold a conversation but I often run into things I can't express in German, I can read a newspaper but have to look up words quite frequently. Listening comprehension is decent. I am in Germany currently on an extended business trip of which I have about 6 weeks left. At work, my colleagues speak to me in German most of the time and I try to use German as well but sometimes need English to get my point across. Unfortunately, my work doesn't involve a lot of interaction with people, so I don't get much practice. As learning methods/materials, I use Anki for vocabulary, currently I have about 3000 cards and I'm trying to learn about 10 new words / day, I watch TV, read newspapers (FAZ mostly) and listen to podcasts. Edited by valkyr on 11 July 2012 at 8:14pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| geoffw Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4500 days ago 1134 posts - 1865 votes Speaks: English*, German, Yiddish Studies: Modern Hebrew, French, Dutch, Italian, Russian | Message 2 of 70 27 February 2012 at 3:12am | IP Logged | ||
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For one, everyone should of course try to learn the genders, but in order to speak fluently, you really need to let go and just give it your best guess. People will understand you--better than if you either hesitate and think or try to avoid words for which you don't have perfect knowledge of the gender.
I can't say that I know how to acquire the BASICS of grammar, as I did that through childhood immersion, and as an adult it's just different. But for finer points, I've found that 1) tons of comprehensible input (reading, listening) and 2) consulting a grammar reference for points I don't understand about the input, have helped to improve my overall command of the grammar. YMMV. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| valkyr Triglot Groupie Romania Joined 4996 days ago 79 posts - 112 votes Speaks: Romanian*, EnglishC1, GermanB2 | Message 3 of 70 27 February 2012 at 8:35am | IP Logged | ||
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@geoffw
Learning grammar passively would be nice (that's how I learned English), but it doesn't seem to work so well for German. At the very least it would require a lot more input, since compared to English, its grammar is much more difficult. Maybe memorizing whole sentences in addition to single words would help? I found an interesting resource http://www.sdkrashen.com/ There is a free book on the left side, under "Books On-Line" called "Principles and Practice in Second Language Acquisition". I skimmed through it and found that, according to their theory, grammar should be used as a "monitor". This means speaking, or forming the sentence according to what feels right, and then using grammar to check yourself and correct any errors. I'm not sure how I would go about doing this ... maybe by recording myself and then looking for mistakes? Edited by valkyr on 27 February 2012 at 12:58pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| valkyr Triglot Groupie Romania Joined 4996 days ago 79 posts - 112 votes Speaks: Romanian*, EnglishC1, GermanB2 | Message 4 of 70 29 February 2012 at 10:46pm | IP Logged | ||
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It's becoming relatively easy to read newspapers. I remember a few months ago reading
an article was very time consuming and required heavy dictionary use. Now I encounter about 10 to 15 new words / article but can usually understand the main points without looking them up. Sometimes I'm missing essential vocabulary though. For example, one article in the FAZ today read: "Nach Ansicht des Bundespräsidialamts steht Christian Wulff der Ehrensold für Bundespräsidenten zu" - From the standpoint of the Presidential Office, C.W. is entitled to receive honorary pay. I knew neither the verb "zustehen" (to be entitled to smth.) nor "Ehrensold", which is the key word in this sentence. I suspected that "Ehrensold" might have something to do with remuneration because of the "sold" part, which resembles the Romanian word "soldă" (the pay of the soldiers) and as I found out, the German word "der Sold" means the same thing. However this hunch was not enough to decipher the meaning without a dictionary. Also from the FAZ: "[...] ähnlicher Ausstattung und Leistung führt zu einer Monokultur. Es fehlen die Geräte zum Träumen und die Objekte der Begierde." which I would loosely translate as "The devices for dreaming(?) and the objects of desire are absent." Here there were two issues: die Begierde, which I didn't know, and the "Geräte zum Träumen" where I didn't recognize that "zum" is supposed to mean "for the purpose of" ... Although there are sentences where grammar is the limiting factor, I find that comprehension is mostly a function of vocabulary (i.e. the more words you know the better you fair), and grammar only plays a minor role. Edited by valkyr on 29 February 2012 at 10:54pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| geoffw Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4500 days ago 1134 posts - 1865 votes Speaks: English*, German, Yiddish Studies: Modern Hebrew, French, Dutch, Italian, Russian | Message 5 of 70 01 March 2012 at 12:47am | IP Logged | ||
Yes, but FWIW there was a lot more context available. The byline of the story was: "Ex-Präsident Christian Wulff wird lebenslang Staatsbezüge erhalten – 200.000 Euro jährlich. Er sei aus "politischen Gründen" zurückgetreten, befand das Präsidialamt." I don't know which words here you did or didn't know, but once you have a hunch that some sort of payment is going to the [former] Bundespresident, you have the byline telling you that this payment is a lifelong 200k/yr payment that was approved by the Präsidialamt. I tend to agree with your main argument, though, that vocabulary is much more important to understanding than grammar. As a general rule I think it's easier to guess at/infer the meaning of unknown grammatical forms than unknown vocabulary. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6251 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 6 of 70 01 March 2012 at 1:23am | IP Logged | ||
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Minor English nitpick: You mean "Fluent German by the end of the year" or ("fluent German this year" if you want something shorter). (Un)til would suggest current fluency that you'd lose at the end of the year. Till is a different word again, and it's part of what you do to soil to prepare it for crops.
Good luck with your German. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| valkyr Triglot Groupie Romania Joined 4996 days ago 79 posts - 112 votes Speaks: Romanian*, EnglishC1, GermanB2 | Message 7 of 70 01 March 2012 at 8:32am | IP Logged | ||
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@geoffw
This is what I saw on the homepage: Nach Ansicht des Bundespräsidialamts steht Christian Wulff der Ehrensold für Bundespräsidenten zu, weil er „aus politischen Gründen aus seinem Amt ausgeschieden“ ist. Mehr Von GÜNTER BANNAS, BERLIN 262 63 There was no mention of the sum. They probably added it later. Of course, I could have read the full article which would have provided plenty of context, but sometimes I just want to browse the headlines first to decide what to read.
Thanks, I just changed it to "by the end of the year". However, regarding "till", are you suggesting that my spelling was incorrect? Webster lists 'till' as the correct spelling for the preposition http://www.merriam- webster.com/dictionary/till with 'til' as an alternative or abbreviated form. Google seems to agree - "till year end” gets over 1 million hits (many of them newspaper articles) while 'til year end' only gets a fraction of that. Edited by valkyr on 01 March 2012 at 8:49am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| valkyr Triglot Groupie Romania Joined 4996 days ago 79 posts - 112 votes Speaks: Romanian*, EnglishC1, GermanB2 | Message 8 of 70 04 March 2012 at 11:39am | IP Logged | ||
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I've taken a few days off to solve some issues at home, but I'll be back in Germany on
Monday. Also my learning process has taken a break. For the last two days I haven't even done my flashcards. Since I only have about 6 weeks left of my stay in Germany, I was thinking of making the most out of it. It's not that learning at home is not possible, but I find being in a country where the language is spoken much more inspiring and motivating. For example I learn a new word and the next day I hear it spoken by some passersby, or use it in a conversation with a native speaker, and get some satisfaction out of knowing that just a day earlier I couldn't have understood it. At home however, I don't get that sort of feedback and consequently find it harder to keep myself motivated. Anyway, I was thinking of sticking to the following schedule: Morning (~30 min) Flashcard review (Anki) + 20 new cards / day (that's 10 new words / day since I also generate reverse cards) During the day Grammar / reading - I'm writing my own grammar tables in a Google doc, with different pages for adjective declension, pronouns, passive voice etc. I'll keep them handy when reading newspaper articles and try to consciously evaluate the grammar (why a specific ending was used etc). Evening & when in public transport / walking Listen to podcasts. Preferably listen at least 2 or 3 times to the same recording to get all the details & remember words / expressions. All the time Try to ruminate / think in German. This does require occasional dictionary use and grammar reference, but seems to have a huge impact on my fluency. I recommend this to anyone trying to improve their speaking. Edited by valkyr on 04 March 2012 at 11:40am 4 persons have voted this message useful |
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