maydayayday Pentaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5220 days ago 564 posts - 839 votes Speaks: English*, German, Italian, SpanishB2, FrenchB2 Studies: Arabic (Egyptian), Russian, Swedish, Turkish, Polish, Persian, Vietnamese Studies: Urdu
| Message 1 of 4 29 September 2010 at 6:38pm | IP Logged |
This is the routine I am following to relearn German.
I have never had a German lesson my life, even having dodged it at school against all the advice.
One of my jobs in the past meant I had to go and work in Germany many years but I only got two weeks notice of the move. So in that two weeks I committed a phrase book to memory and created a wordlist of some further 500 words relevant to my expected life. I arrived and survived two years leaving with a grasp of spoken and listening German, probably a B1/2 level purely by immersion. I know I passed the relevant speaking/listening tests and got a small pay rise.
I have started to revise my German and quite quickly realised that I can think in German and string together sentences with few grammatical errors I have no concept of the rules of German grammar.
I am taking a 'long sweep' of TY German on a suggestion from a post on this site and then Pimsleur as our local library has the playaway version. Then I will quickly follow with Colloquial German at a pace. I have ordered Hammer's Grammar because the name stuck in my mind.
In six weeks at the end of all that I hope to be ready for native materials, even if they are simplistic. I tend not to have a problem acquiring vocabulary so am making no real effort to add vocabulary.
I have booked a trip to Berlin next spring as an incentive.
Any thing else I should/could be doing ?
I should revert my profile from speaks German to studying German but I couldn't work out how to do it last night.
Edited by maydayayday on 29 September 2010 at 6:41pm
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hmkb Newbie GermanyRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5949 days ago 1 posts - 1 votes Speaks: English
| Message 2 of 4 29 September 2010 at 7:19pm | IP Logged |
Hi:
You do not have to get into much spending money on any books, courses, whatsoever to learn or brush up your German.
Just enter the words: deutsch lernen - into the search field on Google and you will get so many web-sites offered f r e e of c h a r g e to keep up with the German language. In my opnion the Deutsche Welle offers you the best foc course on the internet not being surpassed the the Goethe Institut which will charge you an incredible amount of money.
Reg,
Herbert Merkelbach
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Old Chemist Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5174 days ago 227 posts - 285 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German
| Message 3 of 4 04 October 2010 at 1:31pm | IP Logged |
Knowing grammar is not necessary. I doubt many native speakers know their grammar, they just speak idiomatically. I prefer to listen to conversations in German. I find the grammar boring - although having said that I have Hammer's and it is good..Good luck!
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maydayayday Pentaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5220 days ago 564 posts - 839 votes Speaks: English*, German, Italian, SpanishB2, FrenchB2 Studies: Arabic (Egyptian), Russian, Swedish, Turkish, Polish, Persian, Vietnamese Studies: Urdu
| Message 4 of 4 04 October 2010 at 4:40pm | IP Logged |
Thanks Old Chemist: I like to know, or at least have read, the grammar so I know why some of the words change as they do.
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