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My Journey to German | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Dainty Newbie United States Joined 5489 days ago 38 posts - 53 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: German | Message 1 of 17 19 November 2009 at 3:45pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I figured I should start a thread here for notes, milestones, thoughts, and whatever else I want to keep track of and share with you all as I learn my first foreign language.
Currently the main program I'm following is an audio only "Learn in Your Car" program by Henry M. Raymond. I've received a lot of excellent suggestions here already and plan to look into additional programs that have been mentioned soon, but for now I think I have my hands full and just need to buckle down and work. So far I've mastered the first two lessons, I'm working on the third and have listened to the fourth a couple times just to get an idea of where I'm heading next. I had a false start several months ago where I only barely made it to lesson two and I was completely overwhelmed to even hear a small amount of lesson three, so it's amazing to me now that I'm doing well on lesson three and what I've heard of lesson four makes sense to me and doesn't seem confusing at all. I'm tempted to move on to a higher level faster than I should, but I know that'd just be shooting myself in the foot so I'm determined to make sure I lay a solid foundation. Since joining here I have had a huge boost in enthusiasm, and with the help of others here I'm now watching German TV online! Two things in particular have been especially exciting for me as I watch. First, though I don't yet know many words, what I do know is easily recognizable to me. I wasn't expecting this understanding; since the language-learning program speaks more slowly and enunciates carefully I was thinking everyday speech would be harder. And it is, just not as difficult as I thought it would be. Every time I hear a word I recognize I feel a bit of a thrill, not to mention the times I actually figure out the meaning of a word just by context and guessing! The second thing that excites me is that after only two days of watching (and not even watching all day) the language no longer sounds like gibberish to me--it simply sounds like words I do not yet understand. I find it much easier to pay close attention to the sounds with this change of mindset. My plan, for now, is to continue with these two approaches unless or until I feel the need to add on another approach or program. I know this website has a lot of resources on methods of learning, and I plan to explore them all in due time. But for now I'm more focused on just doing it. It sure is fun! :) Edited by Dainty on 19 November 2009 at 3:46pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
 meramarina Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5971 days ago 1341 posts - 2303 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: German, Italian, French Personal Language Map | Message 2 of 17 20 November 2009 at 3:23pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I just want to wish you good luck and much fun with the German study. With the kind of enthusiastic interest you've described, you should be very successful!
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 Jiwon Triglot Moderator Korea, South Joined 6440 days ago 1417 posts - 1500 votes Speaks: EnglishC2, Korean*, GermanC1 Studies: Hindi, Spanish Personal Language Map | Message 3 of 17 20 November 2009 at 6:55pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Good luck with everything. I'll help you in anyway I can on your German journey. After all, we are learning the same language. ;-) But I'm not quite fluent in it yet, so I don't know how much of helping I can offer you..
Ich drücke dir die Daumen (it's ok if you don't understand this now; you will, soon, I suppose). :D Edit - typo Edited by Jiwon on 20 November 2009 at 6:56pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Warp3 Senior Member United States forum_posts.asp?TID= Joined 5539 days ago 1419 posts - 1766 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Korean, Japanese | Message 4 of 17 20 November 2009 at 7:34pm | IP Logged | |||||
I've found the same true of Korean (I'm currently using an audio-only method, Pimsleur, as well). It's rather exciting the first time you watch something not long after starting a course and start picking out the words you know (and then watching the same video again a couple weeks later and noticing all the additional words you can now pick out).
I hadn't really thought about it like that, but that's a good description. Once you get the "flow" of a language in your head, it doesn't really sound like an unknown stream of sounds any longer. Instead, it sounds like several distinct words that you simply don't know yet. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Dainty Newbie United States Joined 5489 days ago 38 posts - 53 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German | Message 5 of 17 20 November 2009 at 11:25pm | IP Logged | |||||
Thank you for the replies, everyone. :) I actually had a little difficulty finding my thread again because I wasn't expecting replies yet. Heh.
Nope, not quite yet, as I'm focusing on auditory learning first, but I'm sure I will be able to understand it sometime in the near future! How long have you been working on German? Now for more general notes on this process, I'm finding that I'm actually learning a lot more than I expected just from the basic words I've learned so far. Rather than just memorizing the correct German words when I hear the corresponding English words, my brain is already automatically starting to make connections. Just today I noticed that the second half of the word for the airport gate was the same as the second half of the word for the train platform, with the first half corresponding with "train" or "plane" respectively. That makes more sense than the way English does it, labeling it "gate" and "platform". I'm guessing that the German words could be more literally translated as something like "plane platform" and "train platform". Anyway, I'm pleased to see that my brain is automatically interactive on these things. It appears to be coming fairly naturally. Another thing I notice is that some of the words are just plain fun. Is it normal to take delight in the sounds of certain words from another language? The word for "bus stop" is particularly enjoyable at this time and I can't say it without a big grin taking up half my face. So far in my studying habits I seem to do well with just a few (5-15) minutes of work at a time a few times throughout the day. Often a German word will pop into my brain when I least expect it and it starts a trail of pondering over everything I know so far, which I think is helpful in making the learning process more natural and less stressful. Edit: fixed grammar error. Edited by Dainty on 21 November 2009 at 6:10pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Elwing Tetraglot Groupie United Kingdom Joined 5512 days ago 43 posts - 51 votes Speaks: Swedish, Finnish*, English, French Studies: Norwegian | Message 6 of 17 21 November 2009 at 12:27am | IP Logged | |||||
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Good luck with learning German! I think I will be following this thread quite actively since I'm very interested in the German language and I've been thinking about trying to learn it next year perhaps. So it will be interesting to see how someone advances from scratch. :)
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| Jiwon Triglot Moderator Korea, South Joined 6440 days ago 1417 posts - 1500 votes Speaks: EnglishC2, Korean*, GermanC1 Studies: Hindi, Spanish Personal Language Map | Message 7 of 17 21 November 2009 at 4:33pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I've been studying German for quite a few years. Yet my German is still quite weak, I must confess.. :(
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| Dainty Newbie United States Joined 5489 days ago 38 posts - 53 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German | Message 8 of 17 23 November 2009 at 5:41pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I'm now solidly on lesson four, and I think this one will go quickly--I'm guessing I'll be on lesson five within two days without feeling rushed. Lesson four is on full sentances of words I've been taught so far along with a few new words thrown in, and as long as I pause it to give myself enough time I can usually figure it out correctly.
In the past few days I've been focusing more on pronunciation than previously. The "mourcht" sound (I'm just guessing at spelling phonetically) is rather tricky, but I'm trying not to get hung up on it because I've found that the more I relax and practice it in context the more the accent falls into place naturally. Still, I plan to look up instructions for how to make my mouth correctly pronounce these unfamiliar sounds sometime soon, after my mouth sores heal up. At this point I'm noticing that I understand slightly better than I can speak, but with practice I expect that to improve. Last night I spent about an hour on my own obsessing over "ich" and as a result my pronunciation of that word seems much improved. I am still finding this process nothing less than enjoyable. Unfortunately I only have a week left of this audio book before I have return it to the library, and while I can check it out again there will be a gap of time without my current program. Since there are other German learning audio books available I plan to use them to fill in until I can get "my" program back, and who knows, I might end up liking another one better! Ah, the joys of free education... Edited by Dainty on 23 November 2009 at 5:46pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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