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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 17 of 17 08 February 2010 at 5:45pm | IP Logged |
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So today I spent about 45 minutes on lessons, reviewing what I had already learned before the break as well as skipping ahead some to get an idea of what's next. I'm discovering that it's very important to first be able to wrap my brain around the pronunciation before attempting to speak a word; otherwise my efforts only lead me in the wrong direction.
I also spent an hour watching German TV channels, and I was delighted to teach myself a new way of listening! Before when I would watch I was basically tuning out most of it and only having a light bulb moment whenever I heard a word I knew or a word that sounded close enough to English that I could figure out its meaning. This time instead if ignoring everything that I could not yet understand I made a conscious effort to listen and identify words by their sound, and then I would recognize that word the next time it was spoken, and the time after that, and so on. It was so much fun and mentally stimulating that I plan to watch like this all the time from now on. My hope is that by familiarizing myself with these words by sound and association then when I get around to hearing what they actually mean it'll stick in my head easily. Another thing I did was I mentally "translated" the words that I knew as I heard them, attempting to speed up my brain's process of understanding to make it more automatic. I realize exact translations are flawed, but it worked especially well with numbers and it seems to be a helpful tool for me at the moment. I also discovered a bit of a personal victory while watching. You see, when I first began watching TV in German I constantly had a nagging expectation in the back of my head that the people who were talking would soon "switch back" to English. While I logically knew this thought process was irrational I couldn't seem to shake it. It was like my mind couldn't fathom a world without English (embarrassing, I know). But today as I watched not only did that thought never cross my mind, but also when the news briefly covered the Superbowl and I caught a few English words it actually startled me to hear them. One faulty mindset overcome; many more to go! Edited by Dainty on 08 February 2010 at 5:47pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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