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B1 German - September 2015 | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| patrickwilken Senior Member Germany radiant-flux.net Joined 4534 days ago 1546 posts - 3200 votes  Studies: German | Message 17 of 31 30 October 2014 at 5:35pm | IP Logged | |||||
Be careful not to get too overloaded with courses. They are helpful, but in the end what will stop you communicating is vocabulary. So if you have a spare hour I'd save it for Anki or reading/listening to native materials. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| EnglishEagle Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4576 days ago 140 posts - 157 votes Studies: English*, German | Message 18 of 31 30 October 2014 at 6:00pm | IP Logged | |||||
Thank you for your advice, I really appreciate it! I've been reading posts from some other language learners and they recommended supplementing Assimil with other resources. I feel that just by doing Assimil alone it's not enough hence me wanting to add in teach yourself to my routine. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| patrickwilken Senior Member Germany radiant-flux.net Joined 4534 days ago 1546 posts - 3200 votes Studies: German | Message 19 of 31 30 October 2014 at 7:12pm | IP Logged | |||||
Different people have different learning styles so my advice may not fit to yours. I have been on HTLAL for a couple of years now and try to follow the different German logs. I have noticed some people who seem to pile up the courses, and never get past a certain point. I think courses are great, but in my opinion should only be seen as a bridge to native materials. My impression (I've never done a proper German course) is that they will cover a lot of grammar, but they won't give you much vocabulary, which is really the thing that will stop you being able to read or watch movies. Once you start reading you'll find a really strong jump in your German. Of course you need some vocabulary to start reading, and Anki can be helpful here. I would recommend putting all the words you learn in Assimil into Anki, plus sentences from the course (that way you'll be reinforcing both grammar and vocabulary as you go). If it slows down your Assimil lessons a little, that's OK because you won't be forgetting any of the previous lessons as you move forward. If you have time to add and do this for a second course great, but I don't think it's as important as getting the vocabulary. To put it another way: You need much less grammar to read, than you need to write. To write you need a fair amount of vocabulary, which you get from reading. So one natural progression is perhaps: 1. Some grammar (Assimil etc) plus some vocabulary (Anki - words from Assimil etc) 2. Stop Assimil, start reading, watching shows, perhaps keep adding words to Anki. Don't worry too much about grammar. 3. Go back and refresh grammar. Start writing. Keep reading more interesting texts. 4. Live in the language, read/write/talk/listen. At least that's one way to do things. I think you can get to #2 in about 3-6-12 months depending how much work you do. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| EnglishEagle Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4576 days ago 140 posts - 157 votes Studies: English*, German | Message 20 of 31 30 October 2014 at 7:26pm | IP Logged | |||||
Thank you, again! I find your advice very helpful considering you have been through (are still going through) the process of learning German. I have made a note of some of your points and appreciate the time you spend giving me feedback. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| patrickwilken Senior Member Germany radiant-flux.net Joined 4534 days ago 1546 posts - 3200 votes Studies: German | Message 21 of 31 30 October 2014 at 7:40pm | IP Logged | |||||
Glad to help, though I am not means an expert learner, and my learning style may not suit yours. Feel free to ask any questions you have on my blog. I guess the main thing, if you haven't already done this, is to work out what your medium term goal is for German. Is it to study in Germany? To read a newspaper? To talk? etc Different goals push you in different directions. If you only want to get to B1 then you don't need to really worry about native materials too much. If you goal is to get to a solid C1/C2 in a few years then native materials are a must. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Gemuse Senior Member Germany Joined 4083 days ago 818 posts - 1189 votes Speaks: English Studies: German | Message 22 of 31 31 October 2014 at 1:35pm | IP Logged | |||||
I dont think Assimil covers too much grammar. The grammar it covers is not that hard (tenses and adjective endings). At least for me, it helps me in the learning process. At the same time, your observation that one needs to build up vocab is also correct, and I'll add that internalising the language does require a lot of input, so Assimil alone wont suffice. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Jeffers Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4910 days ago 2151 posts - 3960 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German | Message 23 of 31 31 October 2014 at 2:30pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I've only gone through about 5 chapters of it (several years ago), but TY German is one of the better books published by Teach Yourself. I understand Patrick's concern with overloading yourself with courses, and I agree that getting onto native materials as soon as possible is important. However, you don't have to choose between them, you can do both. The more grammatical focus of TY German will complement the more text oriented approach of Assimil very well.
Patrick has an interesting thread about the downside to massive input. He is having difficulty with declensions in German. I think he is right that he will solve this by doing a lot of writing with correction, but using courses in his first few years would probably have preventing him from getting so advanced while still missing large chunks of grammar. Edited by Jeffers on 31 October 2014 at 2:31pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| patrickwilken Senior Member Germany radiant-flux.net Joined 4534 days ago 1546 posts - 3200 votes Studies: German | Message 24 of 31 31 October 2014 at 3:04pm | IP Logged | |||||
I am have only been learning for 2.5 years so I am still in my first years :) I certainly agree with your main point at some level, though I am not convinced the heavy early grammar approach helps either. I have seen quite a few people (both here and in Berlin) start this way and ultimately give up because it never gets to a point where they can use the language. I think courses are fine, but we should not kid ourselves that we have infinite time in the day. One more hour of course work is one less hour of Anki or one less hour of reading etc. When I started 2-3 hours per day was sort of my limit so an hour more of a course was a significant chunk of time. I guess the real question is it going to take me more or less or the same amount of time to learn the grammar now or when I was first starting. If it's the same or faster then it's really just a question of preference when you do the grammar in terms of efficiency. Anyway I certainly think learning more grammar at the start is useful, but I suspect Assimil is sufficient, but that's just me. I don't think the language and grammar really comes alive until you start actively using the language via writing, and it takes a while until you have enough vocab under your belt to make that worthwhile. Edited by patrickwilken on 31 October 2014 at 3:14pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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