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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| sydneycarton Newbie United Kingdom Joined 5318 days ago 23 posts - 46 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German | Message 1 of 2 23 June 2010 at 11:24pm | IP Logged |
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Evening everybody.
I'm just looking for somebody who knows more about language learning than I do to evaluate my methods/progress and perhaps offer a few pointers. I've been learning German completely independently for 11 months now. Before I began to teach myself I knew literally two German words (namely, bier and bratwurst ;)). I began by spending one or two hours a day using the German FSI system but after a month or so I bored of the dryness of it and found Deutsche Welle. The language learning course on there was a godsend. Anyway, I completed that within a month or so - still studying an hour or two per day. All the while in the background I was using an Oxford German Grammar book to nail the grammar. Once I'd finished with the DW course I started to use their langsam gesprochene Nachrichten and the accompanying simplified German news reports. After a while I felt confident enough to take up some full news articles - at first a drag! - and in time I could read these quite easily with the help of a dictionary (anybody starting out with a language I strongly advise sorting yourself out with an iFinger dictionary for your computer). From there I started watching German shows/dubbed versions of American sitcoms (of which I initially understood very little). Since then it's been a slow progression to where I am now. My current regime involves using Anki daily (I've probably got over 2,000 cards on there ranging from nouns to verbs to sentences to irregular past participles), watching a few hours' worth of German telly each day (I've put a dish on the outside of the house that points towards the German-transmitting satellites) and doing a lot of reading. I've not long since completed reading my first full German novel (I read Der Kleine Prinz a few months back but that's hardly a "real" book) and I'm currently most of the way through Der Prozess (Kafka)(hard-work considering it's full of "old" vocabulary that I've not had much exposure to). I feel very comfortable reading and listening to the news and I can watch soaps/sitcoms/movies and get a lot what's going on. To practise my writing I use German forums/chatrooms. I really enjoy watching German TV and reading German books, for the challenge if nothing else - motivation isn't an issue. Hmmm. I didn't intend for this to be so long. Anyway, what I want to know is what I've already mentioned somewhere above: do you think there's any more I should be doing/doing differently to improve my rate of learning? I ask because I've never attempted to learn a language by myself before and there are several of you on here who are clearly very well versed in it. I'd rate my reading to be best, followed by listening and writing (which are probably a similar level to each other). My speaking skills probably leave more to be desired though it's in that that I get least practice. Thanks everybody...particularly tthe bloke who made the website - it gave me the motivation to start learning in the first place ;) Edited by sydneycarton on 23 June 2010 at 11:27pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6513 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes  Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 2 of 2 24 June 2010 at 12:01am | IP Logged |
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Well, you have used a variety of useful methods, and in 11 months you have gone from 2 words to a stage where you can watch sitcoms. That must be counted as a succes story, and it is defficult to see why you should be sceptical about your choice of methods after that performance.
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