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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 |  | |
| 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 17 of 20 23 June 2015 at 7:15pm | IP Logged | ||
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I once overheard a Spanish class at my university. At first I couldn't understand what they were saying (including the teacher), I wasn't used to the Russian accent.
Also, Germanic native speakers do make many pronunciation mistakes in English. 3 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 18 of 20 23 June 2015 at 7:29pm | IP Logged | ||
Sure, some learners may prefer self-lteaching but I wouldn't generalize that much about their advantages. Not all classes are the same, not all people are the same. I know a number of people who have primarily learned languages through classes who have successfully taken college (bachelors and masters) level classes with native speakers in that language in a country where that language is an official (or defacto) language. It is unquestionable that people need to work on their language outside of classes, but it's a fallacy to say that language classes are, by their nature, bad (which has been said here by a number of people over many years). Additionally denying that classes are better than only learning by themselves for some people is bordering on offensive. It shouldn't be that shocking to realize that a lot of people need structure to be successful in some things. People are different, their needs are thus different - that is ok. We (the general we) would be behoved to provide for or better those needs and not to criticize the fact that those resources are needed. edit: I would say ore about the pronunciation bit but I'm at a conference - more on that tonight (in short - your criticisms are valid but being in a class doesn't mean that you can't somehow talk to native speakers as well (outside of class). Edited by aokoye on 23 June 2015 at 7:32pm 2 persons have 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 19 of 20 23 June 2015 at 8:17pm | IP Logged | ||
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I've been in that many classes that I dare to say most classes are bad without any fear of unfairly offending anyone. And even the good classes have some real flaws because any class of more than a handful of people needs to be a compromise between their needs, heavily influenced by external rules and curricula.
Sure, some learners succeed in classes but the question is whether they succeed thanks to the classes or in spite of them. My whole nation takes language classes, most in two languages, for at least ten years of their education. And the amount of successul learners is not that high. Heh, you are often considered a success if you get to something like A2/B1 after ten years of work. Being in class certainly doesn't mean you cannot find natives outside of it. But the time you spend in the class can harm your pronunciation considerably and it isn't that easy to spend enough extra-class time with natives to counter that. Isn't it better then to just find the natives and stay away from other learners? It was really a weird experience to hear some learners' German with a mix of Spanish-Italian-Portuguese pronunciation mistakes. Those were people who went to Berlin to learn correct German and ended up sharing their faults. Sure, I am making mistakes as well. Actually enough mistakes not to need to learn more. I am not saying there are no people in need of a class. I'm just saying that vast majority of people goes to class only because they haven't realized yet there are more efficient ways. Most people going to classes trully believe the class is gonna do the miracle and that they won't need to work on their own and the schools support this approach, which is simply bad and worth criticising. When they fail, they blame themselves and supposed lack of "talent for languages", not the fact that the methods/courses whatever chosen by their teacher just wasn't for them or that some parts of the information (such as how to learn) was being kept away from them. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Elexi Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5566 days ago 938 posts - 1840 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French, German, Latin | Message 20 of 20 23 June 2015 at 9:32pm | IP Logged | ||
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For pronunciation, I have always found using the oft ignored early parts of language
courses like Hugo or Colloquial explaining the sounds of the language to be very useful. I personally find Colloquial brand courses to be best for this (having used them for Dutch and German), although in German I had the first LP of the 1970s BBC course Kontakte, which has an excellent pronunciation training section. My personal opinion is that just parroting these sections while walking three or four times a day over a month and then moving on to copying phrases in an audio phrase book develops better accent than sitting in a class with your fellow country men/women. And it doesn't hurt to regularly review this exercise. Edited by Elexi on 23 June 2015 at 9:33pm 3 persons have voted this message useful |
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