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Can I go from German A2 to B2 in 2 mo.? | ||
Tags: CEFR Language Levels | German | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| wandern Bilingual Pentaglot Newbie Germany Joined 5372 days ago 8 posts - 11 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish*, Catalan, Italian, Portuguese Studies: German | Message 1 of 15 14 March 2010 at 1:57am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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(Long* time lurker, first time poster here.)
I am writing because I'm hoping you guys can help me put together a solid study plan so I can bring myself up to B2 in the next 8 weeks. I have decided to take a 2-month break from work so I can just concentrate on studying German. The reason I'm so desperate is that I've actually been living in Germany for the past six months and I can still barely communicate. I know. So sad. Though in my defense, my situation is not as ideal as you might think: only English is spoken at work and I am strictly surrounded by non-Germans who are here for a relatively short period of time and who have decided they cannot afford to spend precious time and energy on learning a language they essentially consider not worth the trouble (!!!). Seriously, I never thought I could escape learning German while living in Germany even if I tried. But I find myself living in an almost airtight bubble while pulling 16 hour workdays. I grew up trilingual and I picked up the two other languages quite quickly and painlessly without having to take a single class or having to study. I learned through pure immersion when I spent some time in Italy and Brazil. I never thought of taking a class or buying a language course then. Of course I knew German would be a very different beast, so this time I enrolled in a A1 class almost as soon as I landed and got Langenscheidt's "German in 30 days" at the corner bookstore, which has theoretically taken me to A2. A very, very, very passive A2. As I was saying, I have until mid May before I get completely sucked in by my next project. Furthermore, I'm eyeing another position also here in Germany for which I need at least a B2 level, and would like to send in my application as soon as possible. Do you think I can do it? Can anybody help me put together some kind of schedule, or suggest what to use and in which order? How many hours should I put in each day? I've spent this week scouting local bookstores, Amazon, and the University and city libraries for material and this is what I've gotten ahold of: -Michel Thomas' Foundation, Advanced, Language Builder and Vocabulary Courses. -Pimsleur I, II, III and Plus. -Assimil "Il Tedesco Senza Sforzo" book and tapes from the 80s -Living Language Complete Course -Teach Yourself German -Rosetta Stone -All the PONS stuff, including a CDRom-based course -All Langenscheidt and Hueber publications -H. Strutz's "Pitfalls" and "501 verbs" -Books on tape divided by level of difficulty. -etc... Needless to say, I'm overwhelmed. I don't know where to start. EDIT: Sorry if I posted this on the wrong area of the forum. *Probably not as long as I thought/should've. Edited by wandern on 14 March 2010 at 11:34am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Paskwc Pentaglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5676 days ago 450 posts - 624 votes  Speaks: Hindi, Urdu*, Arabic (Levantine), French, English Studies: Persian, Spanish | Message 2 of 15 14 March 2010 at 2:05am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I think it's doable, especially since you've taken the next two months off work. I
haven't studied German and can't give you specific advice but I'm sure somebody else will drop by and respond soon. Best of luck. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| kerateo Triglot Senior Member Mexico Joined 5645 days ago 112 posts - 180 votes Speaks: Spanish*, English, French Studies: Italian | Message 3 of 15 14 March 2010 at 2:54am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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two words:
sleeping dictionary ;) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Pyx Diglot Senior Member China Joined 5734 days ago 670 posts - 892 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: Mandarin | Message 4 of 15 14 March 2010 at 3:38am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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from "I can write short, simple notes and messages" to "I can write clear, detailed text on a wide range of subjects related to my interests." in two months? No.
The amount of words you need to know to get from level to level grows exponentially. You will be able to make a lot of headway, but don't expect too much. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Sprachprofi Nonaglot Senior Member Germany learnlangs.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6469 days ago 2608 posts - 4866 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Esperanto, Greek, Mandarin, Latin, Dutch, Italian Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written), Swahili, Indonesian, Japanese, Modern Hebrew, Portuguese | Message 5 of 15 14 March 2010 at 9:48am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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If you're ready to spend as much time on German as you did on work and can prevent
burn-out, I think it should be doable. Depends on your current level of course. The key is to be surrounded by German every minute. I imagine you spend a lot of time online, so start using German websites for news, weather, discussions and German Wikipedia. There are several Firefox or Chrome plugins that will allow you to translate unknown words with one click, so it won't be too tedious. See what software you can switch to German as well, for example Open Office allows you to do that. Make German friends and never speak anything but German to them. Best if you find an East German, they often don't feel as comfortable in English. Watch nothing but German movies or American movies dubbed into German. You'll probably want to start with movies you have seen in English before. Watch movies several times or go over the scenes with and without subtitles for better comprehension. Most language courses will only lead you up to A2 level. Assimil is an exception, but Assimil typically takes 100 days - see if you can speed through some of the early lessons or do two per day. Note that there should be a more recent Assimil available somewhere, probably English-based "German with Ease". GermanPod101 also offers lessons leading you up to an advanced level even. Use the free trial and see if the beginning of Intermediate Series Season 2 might be the right level for you, if so, get all of Intermediate Series Season 2 and 3. Otherwise start with the Newbie Series at a point where the dialogs are non-obvious to you. When you do anything (going somewhere, shopping, doing housework etc.), feel how focussed you are. If you're able to focus well, listen to German-teaching podcasts. I do not recommend Pimsleur. If you're not able to focus well, listen to just dialogs. If your attention lapses during dialogs, you will still pick up many words and important sentence structures as soon as you're listening again. You can also practise shadowing with the dialogs. When you can't take another hour of studying, listen to German music as you relax. Forget about learning cases at this point, that would slow down your ability to speak immensely, plus many uneducated Germans can't use them correctly either. Tackle cases once you've had a lot more exposure to German. Use Iversen's method to study at least 300 words a week and use Anki to retain them. You may also want to use a tutor to help you spot and overcome any particular weaknesses, and to practise mock situations like talking to that potential employer. Myngle may be a good place to find a tutor because they have a "Full Immersion" deal, which is up to one lesson every day for 30 days, for as low as 145 EUR (depending on the teacher). If you will actually take one lesson every day or almost every day, you can hardly top that price. Edited by Sprachprofi on 14 March 2010 at 9:58am 7 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| wandern Bilingual Pentaglot Newbie Germany Joined 5372 days ago 8 posts - 11 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish*, Catalan, Italian, Portuguese Studies: German | Message 6 of 15 14 March 2010 at 11:29am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I really appreciate all your comments. And Sprachprofi: I've been researching all the fantastic suggestions you
provided. Thank you so much. Can't wait to try Shadowing in particular. I have a feeling it will suit me perfectly.
I'm guessing the version I have is the equivalent to "German without Toil". What's the difference between the two? I have been looking around the forum for the answer, but it is still not all that clear to me. Anyway, do you think I should use Assimil as the center of my studies?
Do you mind telling me why?
I'm actually on top of the basic grammar already and I have already made myself some cards with the accusative and dative articles, personal pronouns and prepositions. Haven't figured out declensions just yet when adjectives are involved though. My main problem is being able to recall the gender of the relatively few nouns I know. (Why is the sun feminine and the moon masculine? It makes no sense whatsoever). But I'll definitely try not to obsess about saying everything right. I realize I should not be afraid of making mistakes and just talk, talk, talk. By the way, do you know "The Fish Song"? Somebody suggested I memorize it. Edited by wandern on 14 March 2010 at 11:40am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| datsunking1 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5584 days ago 1014 posts - 1533 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: German, Russian, Dutch, French | Message 7 of 15 14 March 2010 at 2:30pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I think German without Toil is a better program personally, it's VERY straightforward, the dialogs are completely usable, and there are very few mistakes (I think I saw one in the first 60 pages)
When you learn with it, and know the sentences, you can easily interchange words that you need to use into those phrases to suit your needs. It's fantastic really. There's a fantastic book "German: How to Speak and Write It" which is I think 500 pages long, consists of 40 lessons, and was made in the 1950s. Straight content, no fluff or garbage to distract you. By the end you're reading 4 page dialogs and writing letters. There has to be over 5000 words in there! :D But all in all I definitely back assimil. Both programs are very good no doubt, but if you already have German Without Toil, use it. (You can save money) They are virtually the same programs, just updated vocabulary. Best of luck to you!! P.S. I learn mostly through music :) (try it) -Jordan 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6010 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 8 of 15 14 March 2010 at 3:47pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Pimsleur takes a long time to teach not-very-much. You probably already know most of what's in the early levels, but not everything, so if you go straight to the higher levels you'll get a bit lost. Pimsleur won't get you there as quick as you want. Teach Yourself is in general fairly bitty and devotes a lot of space to "word juggling" rather than proper practice. Assimil expects you to take a long time working on your passive understanding, and even the "active" phase isn't really natural production. Michel Thomas is short and all about active production. It gives you a good command of flexible structures, but it is far from complete. But as I said it's short, so it can be easily supplemented with other materials for further study. I'm not familiar with Strutz, PONS, Living Language, Langenscheidt or Hueber. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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