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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| TheElvenLord Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6072 days ago 915 posts - 927 votes  1 sounds Speaks: Cornish, English* Studies: Spanish, French, German Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin | Message 1 of 11 25 August 2008 at 11:54am | IP Logged |
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Oh.
Over the last few mounths, I have been working on my own method of teaching myself languages. It is similar to the 10,000 sentences and L-R methods. I was talking to a friend today, and we got onto the topic of my method. He found my method funny and was convinced no-one could learn a language with it. So, being foolish and addicted to language-learning as i am, I challenged him to learning a language. He was already taking German GCSE in school, so we settled upon that. He will use School and MT, and I will use my own method, which is described below. You will need A book in your target language* A book in your own language* A dictionary (NL - TL/TL - NL) * I choose the Bible for this option, as it is available in most languages, free, on the internet, in written and audio form. But you can use any book in both language. It is also nicely chopped up into sections. What to do Read the first section/sentence in your NL (Native language) book. After this, read the corresponding sentence in your TL (Target language) book. Try and breakdown the sentence into small pieces: Eg. From my analysis: Im Anfang, schuf Gott Himmel und Erde In the beginning, God made Heaven and Earth Anfang must mean Beginning schuf must mean Made or Created Gott looks similar to God Himmel und Erde must mean Heaven and Earth It looks like all the nouns start with Capital letters The object doing the verb (at least in 3rd person sing.) comes after the verb itself All this from a single sentence, and no previous knowledge of German (apart from a few words from war games). Other sentences may give an insight into previous sentences, or confirm something. For example: Und die Erde war wust und leer And the Earth was waste and void Und DOES mean and Die Erde DOES means The Earth And this is pretty much all you do. If you have a recording, I would reccommend listening and reading before you do the analytical process, and take the recordings everywhere, and just listen to them randomly. I would also reccommend shadowing. I know it is similar to some other methods. But anyway, on to the test itself. In 2 years time, We will both take a GCSE in German, and compare the results. I will do my method, he will do MT and School. This is my log of progress. Any tips, comments, adaptations to the method, or anything is welcome. Thanks TEL 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| TheElvenLord Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6072 days ago 915 posts - 927 votes 1 sounds Speaks: Cornish, English* Studies: Spanish, French, German Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin | Message 2 of 11 25 August 2008 at 11:58am | IP Logged |
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25 August 2008
I downloaded my German Bible from unbound.biola.edu. I also downloaded Genesis 1/2 from www.sermon-online.de (Link to audio page: http://www.sermon-online.de/search.pl?d1=Audio-Bibel+(Luther +1956/1964)&lang=de&author=13) I read through the first page, and learnt quite alot. Shadowed the recording quite a bit. Learnt quite a bit of vocabulary from it, and various pieces of grammar. TEL 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| TheElvenLord Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6072 days ago 915 posts - 927 votes 1 sounds Speaks: Cornish, English* Studies: Spanish, French, German Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin | Message 3 of 11 27 August 2008 at 7:49am | IP Logged |
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26th August
Been quite lazy, managed to get hold of Harry Potter in German, but done no real studying today. TEL 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| kflavin Diglot Newbie United States Joined 5935 days ago 24 posts - 31 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: French | Message 4 of 11 27 August 2008 at 10:47pm | IP Logged |
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I speak German, and I have to say that the Bible would be a pretty bad choice for learning to speak German. Just to use your example sentence. Im Anfang is rather poetic and generally used as an allusion to the Bible. Far more common would be am Anfang. It's a slight difference, in the beginning vs. at the beginning, but it sounds funny to say Im. Next, schuf is the imperfect. The imperfect is used in formal writing and in certain circumstances in parts of Germany, mainly in the north, but you would generally not use it in spoken German. Also ward, hasn't been used for like 200 years. Wurde is used in modern German.
German, is very rich in regional variations and as a result the spoken language is often very different from the written language (sometimes not even mutually intelligible with Hochdeutsch). If you try to learn solely from the Bible you're going to end up saying some pretty ridiculous things. Picture learning English from the Bible and saying "Hello, how art thou? Whither goest thou?" I understand it's an experiment but my advice would be to do what I did. Now, I did study at German at college but when I got to Austria I rented a movie everyday and watched it in German with German subtitles. I didn't know about the LR method I just thought it was good practice. My advice would be to buy a television series, like the Simpsons or House (10 hours or so a series vs 1.5 for a film) or whatever you like off of amazon.de. You won't have a region problem being in the UK, and then watch them in German with subtitles on. Pause and write down words you don't know. This is great for slang, normal conversational speed, and idioms. Probably a bit more interesting too. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| TheElvenLord Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6072 days ago 915 posts - 927 votes 1 sounds Speaks: Cornish, English* Studies: Spanish, French, German Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin | Message 5 of 11 28 August 2008 at 5:51am | IP Logged |
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Thanks for the advice Kflavin.
I am starting to use Harry Potter a bit more at the moment, but it is very difficult. On average 3 words per sentence do not appear in my dictionary, but im working on it. I will take all that into account, and will not use the bible very much anymore. Thank you a lot! Unfortunatly, I dont have the money to buy the series, and, as my parents dont know about my languages (They think im learning 1 and 3 at school lol) it would sort of give the game away. Thanks again, I will use HP more. TEL PS. Can you tell me about HP and the language within it. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| TheElvenLord Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6072 days ago 915 posts - 927 votes 1 sounds Speaks: Cornish, English* Studies: Spanish, French, German Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin | Message 6 of 11 28 August 2008 at 6:05am | IP Logged |
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27th August 2008
Tried to use Harry Potter. Very difficult, alot of words don't appear in my dictionary. So, I have to use the internet, which I get restricted access to. At the moment, German is on the back burner, but still going. My other languages take priority, at the moment, but i am still learning. Hopefully, I will have enough knowledge in around 4 mounths to go all out. Like a fuse, it burns away, and then it goes bang. TEL 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| TheElvenLord Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6072 days ago 915 posts - 927 votes 1 sounds Speaks: Cornish, English* Studies: Spanish, French, German Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin | Message 7 of 11 28 August 2008 at 12:19pm | IP Logged |
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28th August 2008
I have (thanks to Patuco) just found Logos Library (Click the link to take you to the section I am talking about). It is amazing, it has loads of children's stories in a variety of languages, great for those starting out in a language, or those just starting to read. Quite a few come with audio aswell! I will be using this as an introduction to German, and then moving to Harry Potter. Harry Potter is quite difficult, as I have found. I am so glad to have found this site. TEL 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| sei Diglot Senior Member Portugal Joined 5933 days ago 178 posts - 191 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, English Studies: German, Japanese | Message 8 of 11 28 August 2008 at 12:49pm | IP Logged |
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Wow! Thanks so much for that site! It's great to get a bit of basic reading going on! ^^
I did know of another Children's library that had stories with pictures and such on quite a few languages too. If I find the link again, I'll share it. ^^ Edit: There we go! Was getting desperate I couldn't find it anymore! Children's Library I linked it right to the search area. By the way, make sure to choose the language you want the books to be in, in the drop down menu in MIDDLE of the screen. The drop down menu on the right upper corner is just the language of the page. Enjoy! =) Edit2: Actually, the site seems to have grown a hell lot since I last visited. I would further explore the bottom buttons and the left side buttons for really nice, at your level, stuff. ;) I'll also do a search on the forum to see if this site is discussed anywhere, and if not, perhaps make a topic to share it around. It's really, really good. And at least the Finnish section, clearly not only for beginners but for intermediates as well. Edited by sei on 28 August 2008 at 1:14pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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