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German study plan to go from A1 to C1 | ||
Tags: Study Plan | German | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Advice Center |  | |
 Betablinx Pro Member United Kingdom Joined 3448 days ago 10 posts - 11 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German Personal Language Map | Message 9 of 20 21 June 2015 at 4:17pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Thanks very much for all the great advice everyone. I'm going to begin my studies
tomorrow. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5010 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes  Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 10 of 20 21 June 2015 at 5:58pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I am now somewhere between the beginner and intermediate stage of learning (there are years between me and the C1) but I'd like to add my two cents:
I agree you should not spread yourself too thin even though it is great to have more than one resource of course. Assimil is really good (if you can, get the audio!) and I second the recommendation of using a grammar book with it. I am currently using Klipp und Klar (published by Klett) and it is extremely useful. There are more options, of course. -Other good quality grammar books are being published, for example, by Hueber. Or there are the English based ones, like Practice makes perfect. As the grammar book won't be your only source, you don't need to restrict yourself to bilingual ones when choosing. For pronunciation, I totally loved the pronunciation chapter of the old FSI course. I decided not to finish the rest of it for various reasons (such as the outdated ortograph) but the pronunciation drills worked like a miracle for me. Fluenz, from what I have read about it, tried demo etc., looks like a really good but expensive program. Could be very useful but I wouldn't buy it on top of a lot of other high quality resources. From the contents on the website, it covers basically the same things like any beginner course but for much more money. The Deutsche Welle resources are really good. About planning all the way to C1: -your plan sounds more or less good but allow yourself the freedom to choose later. You are at the beginning of the journey, your needs and tastes will develop as you progress. Don't buy all the courses up to C1 now, you might want different resources when the time comes. -about the levels noted on book covers: yes, they are not a guarantee. But it's not just about bad estimates of the publishers, it is more about something else. The lower level courses (level A1, A2, to some extent B1) can give you everything you need to get to the particular level. All the vocabulary and grammar you are likely to need in exams, guidelines to the simple texts and situations you'll need to master at that point. But later on, it becomes difficult. A good advanced course will give you the "theoretical base" for the language, such as the grammar, some of the vocabulary, instructions on writing more complex texts, some listening examples, but you need much more than that to master it all and use it. Much more practice, much more other input, many more resources, many different situations to handle. Not a single book by itself can get you across one of the higher level gaps. 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6598 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 11 of 20 21 June 2015 at 7:52pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Yeah, I didn't say they're bad estimates. There are several factors here, for example that the materials are typically used in class at this level, but most teachers also use supplemental materials (sometimes too many) and even with the classes AND extra materials, people are almost never ready to take a CEFR exam right after finishing the course. Some might reach the level in question, but not everyone. There are classes like "consolidation at B2" which assumes you've already taken the course but need to work some more on the difficult topics and nuances.
Also, I used the word estimate in the sense that the levels aren't set in stone and especially aren't consistent between the publishers. It would be neat if you could use the courses by five different publishers at A1, A2, B1, B2, C1 and reach C1 this way, but that's not how it works. (nor with five courses by the same publisher) 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6598 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 12 of 20 21 June 2015 at 8:00pm | IP Logged | |||||
I did that in Finnish. (or do you mean self-study with no travel or native speaker contact either? I spent about 2-3 weeks a year in Finland back then) But it definitely takes more than a year. I passed Finnish C1 after 5.5 years of study. And I actually found Finnish easier than German, much more logical etc. Edited by Serpent on 21 June 2015 at 8:03pm 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| patrickwilken Senior Member Germany radiant-flux.net Joined 4534 days ago 1546 posts - 3200 votes Studies: German | Message 13 of 20 22 June 2015 at 12:01am | IP Logged | |||||
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I will be crushed (and impressed) if you can go from A1 to C1 in a year. I have been learning German now (perhaps not very efficiently) for three years and still am only (perhaps) C1 for listening/reading.
From my own perspective you are loading yourself up with too many courses. I would say something like Assimil (from what I have heard) is sufficient. It's not that you won't get additional things from doing other courses, but that additional courses will take time away from actually hitting native materials. I would suggest: 1. Do some sort of course to get overview of grammar. Assimil will do this, but other courses might as well or just read a basic grammar book. Assimil has the advantage as far as I know of teaching quite a large vocabulary (2000 words?) as well. 2. Do some SRS to learn the most common 2000-3000 words. 3. Once you have a basic vocabulary and basic overview of the grammar, which will take about six months start hitting native materials. Simple readers (e.g., Black Cat series) will get you started, or you can go direct to more complex texts using Kindle and pop-up dictionary to read something like Harry Potter. At the same time start watching TV shows/movies (as far as possible) without subtitles. 4. At some point after you have a good feel for the language via native materials you'll need to fine tune your grammar, in which case you should start regularly writing. Get a better grammar to help you and a tutor (or some other kind person) to correct mistakes. 5. Last, use iTalki or some other method to get into regular conversations, and fine tune your accent. Edited by patrickwilken on 22 June 2015 at 12:03am 8 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| 1e4e6 Octoglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4291 days ago 1013 posts - 1588 votes Speaks: English*, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Norwegian, Dutch, Swedish, Italian Studies: German, Danish, Russian, Catalan | Message 14 of 20 22 June 2015 at 12:36am | IP Logged | |||||
Actually I would find it surprised if one were unable to reach C1 through self-study alone. Self-study can go much faster than a class, and you can skip useless some stuff that classes cover, as well as certain things that are easy to the individual, and spend a bit more time on stuff that seems harder. But the main advantage is that this A1 to C1 thing all of the easy stuff in classes can be skipped, saving much time. 5 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| aokoye Diglot Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5542 days ago 235 posts - 453 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Dutch, Norwegian, Japanese | Message 15 of 20 23 June 2015 at 8:24am | IP Logged | |||||
Of course the flip side of that is also very true. It's completely unsurprising that speakers of any language other than Dutch (and perhaps the northern Germanic languages) wouldn't be able to reach C1 through self-study alone. Pronunciation, being corrected, talking to multiple people at a time are all things that are easier to get/take part in in a classroom environment than on one's own. Also for some, but by no means all, people being in a classroom makes time management and just the general drive to keep learning instead of getting distracted by XYZ is easier to keep up when they have the structure of a class. Also contrary to this site's popular belief, there are such thing as good foreign language classes. To the OP - I would highly suggest making Deutsche Welle a core part of your studies. All of their content is free and the quality is really high. Also whatever you do - when learning vocab, make sure to commit the gender of each noun to memory. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5010 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 16 of 20 23 June 2015 at 2:53pm | IP Logged | |||||
Even the best language classes still suffer from the common troubles and the pros you've mentioned are, from my experience, just wishful thinking and marketing talk. Talking to multiple people is not a feature, it's a harm when all are at the same level or worse than you. You need to surround yourself with natives or learners more advanced than you normally, whether in a real situation or thanks to audio, internet, video, skype etc. I've had many classmates over the years and I can still remember only a few who were helpful practice. Even now, I notice my English worsening when speaking with lower level speakers for too long and that's one of my strongest languages. Pronunciation being corrected: I've already writen elsewhere about my German class experience in Berlin when I had the best pronunciation (or one of the two best pronunciations) having been a self teaching student before (with lots of audio included), compared to people who had been studying together in a class and supposedly corrected. They shared their mistakes from their native languages (as they were hearing each other and not the natives mostly) and weren't corrected that much. Even in the good classes, teachers have too low requirements and expect people to quit if they get corrected too much. Drive and time management? Sorry but a language class has always damaged my drive as the progress is usually quite slow and focuses too much on things that are easier done on one's own. If the classes were more like practice,questions and conversation areas with tons of homework, it would work. But they are not. They are more like primary school, scared to teach too much, scared of scaring the students into not buying more semesters, scared of being too harsh and therefore less popular, scared of progressing too fast (as a slow student pays for more semesters). Sure, some learners may prefer classes but I wouldn't generalize that much about their advantages. Most classes are harmful to learning and even the best classes are not that great compared to the more efficient paths. I think the OP has much better chances on their own or with help of a personal tutor at some point of the learning. 4 persons have voted this message useful |
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