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German C1 in 14 months | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Hardheim Diglot Newbie United States Joined 5010 days ago 34 posts - 78 votes  Speaks: English*, German Studies: Spanish, French | Message 33 of 39 26 November 2010 at 5:06am | IP Logged |
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If you are looking for something in the 4000-5000 word level, I would get ahold of Langenscheidt's 'Basic German Vocabulary'. It breaks out the most common 4000 German words in subsets of the 1st 2000 and 2nd 2000 words, and by topic. Popping those into Anki would increase the liklihood that you are learning relevant words. According to the book, the first 2000 words in German allow you to understand 80% of conversation and general interest reading, and the second 2000 words puts you into the 85-90% level. Once you hit 90%, the majority of unknown words can be understood through context relatively easily.
It's also imperative not to limit yourself to 2 or 3 different sources of listening to or reading German. You start to get used to the vocabulary of a certain subject (such as Harry Potter) or the way a certain narrator pronounces words and then find yourself lost when you hear someone else speak that has a different tempo etc. Also, I'd keep up with the FAZ. If you have trouble with this, you will have a very difficult time passing the C1. Combine this with a general interest magazine like Bild or Stern. The difference in the types of vocab words used in FAZ vs Bild is enormous, but both are needed to be well rounded. Look at FAZ as more proper German, but the style found in 'Bild' as a glorified version of daily speech. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| valkyr Triglot Groupie Romania Joined 4995 days ago 79 posts - 112 votes Speaks: Romanian*, EnglishC1, GermanB2 | Message 34 of 39 05 December 2010 at 11:29pm | IP Logged |
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@Sprachprofi
Thanks, I'll look those up. In the mean time I finished the "Warum nicht?" series and started the 'Wieso nicht?' course. It's OK (no more English, finally!) but they seem to have dropped all explanations and just provide you with a transcription of the dialogues ... @doviende I'll surely pick up some books later on. Right now I don't feel ready for authentic materials, especially literature. @Hardheim You make some good points. For a high grade on TOEFL (which is at C1 level) you need a passive vocab of ~10k words. Assuming the German test is similar, I think 6 - 8000 words in Anki are more than enough since I would recognize many more composite / derived words without having learned them explicitly. I chose to write words down as I encounter them in order to have some context. The downside, as you mention, is that I may be learning lower frequency words. A good rule of thumb for me is: if I don't know the English word for it, I don't learn the German word either. Since my English is about C1, this is a good filter. I'm waiting to hit the 2000 word mark in Anki to make reading original material less of a chore. I've had other people recommending Bild as a better starting point for beginners. About the FAZ ... I'll give it another shot when my vocabulary reaches more decent levels :) 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| valkyr Triglot Groupie Romania Joined 4995 days ago 79 posts - 112 votes Speaks: Romanian*, EnglishC1, GermanB2 | Message 35 of 39 06 December 2010 at 1:01pm | IP Logged |
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Elapsed time: 3 months 1 week Vocabulary: +1596 words Time for an update. As I mentioned above, I finished the Deutsche Welle "Warum nicht?" course and started their "Wieso nicht?" series. This is a German - German language course, which is supposed to cover the B1 level and indeed it seems about right in terms of difficulty. However, the explanations are non-existent. Actually they do explain, quite thoroughly, what "Happy end!" means (one of the voice actors uses this in the first lesson) ... now I'm aware some of their readers may not be so well versed in the lore of English, but still :) I picked up the pace with vocabulary acquisition and I'm confident I will reach my 2k words goal by the end of this year. I have a good overview of grammar but, as expected, knowing the rules doesn't help much in conversation. I'm thinking about switching to a more input based learning method - watching German television & reading newspapers. I tried this in the beginning, but knowing less than 1000 words, I found it too hard. Since I will have doubled my vocabulary by the time I try this again, I expect it to be easier this time around. Edited by valkyr on 06 December 2010 at 1:02pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Quabazaa Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 5420 days ago 414 posts - 543 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, German, French Studies: Japanese, Korean, Maori, Scottish Gaelic, Arabic (Levantine), Arabic (Egyptian), Arabic (Written) | Message 36 of 39 06 December 2010 at 4:23pm | IP Logged |
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Hello, very interesting log! I wish you all the best with your German endeavour! :) If you do decide to start watching TV, I highly recommend the series called "Türkisch für Anfänger" I watched it when I was just breaking into B1 level and found I could understand and really enjoy the show at that point.
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| valkyr Triglot Groupie Romania Joined 4995 days ago 79 posts - 112 votes Speaks: Romanian*, EnglishC1, GermanB2 | Message 37 of 39 15 December 2010 at 4:53pm | IP Logged |
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Elapsed time: 3 months 2 weeks Vocabulary: +1704 words I've been working hard on my vocabulary. Last weekend, after having skipped 2 days of practice, I had over 500 words due! I reviewed them in about 1 hour. This brings me to another point: am I going over them too quickly? If I can't remember a word I just read it once and then continue reviewing. For a new word I may repeat this process a few times until I manage to remember it correctly. Another thing I noticed is that I forgot to add the imperfect and past participle for verbs in ANKI. I will spend an hour or two this weekend on this issue. I set "new cards" to 60 / day (since I also generate reverse cards that's about 30 new words / day). Hopefully all this vocabulary will be sufficient to allow me to read newspapers without having to look up every other word in the dictionary. I plan to radically shift emphasis from doing courses and listening to dumbed down conversations to watching German TV and reading newspapers as early as January. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| valkyr Triglot Groupie Romania Joined 4995 days ago 79 posts - 112 votes Speaks: Romanian*, EnglishC1, GermanB2 | Message 38 of 39 03 January 2011 at 2:09pm | IP Logged |
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Elapsed time: 4 months Vocabulary: +1701 words First, I wish everybody reading my log a happy new year! Unfortunately my learning process has ground to a halt since my last posting. Between some personal problems and the hectic holiday season there was no time left for German. I have well over 1000 words due for review in Anki, total word count has decreased slightly (I removed some duplicates), and I haven't listened to or read any new material for the last two weeks. I remain committed to sitting the C1 exam in October, although I am a bit disappointed by my lack of focus. If I am to succeed at this I have to put in a lot more time and effort. For the month of January I hope to learn 500 new words and get my total up to 2200, complete the "Wieso nicht?" series and maybe read some newspaper articles from Bild.de if I run out of sources for new vocabulary. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| tomsawyer Senior Member Aruba Joined 5098 days ago 103 posts - 141 votes Speaks: English* Studies: GermanB1, French, Russian | Message 39 of 39 01 February 2011 at 3:11pm | IP Logged |
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Hi Radu,
I hope you're still powering on with this goal, and that you'll still sit and pass the C1 in October with confidence, as I am planning to do in November. In my opinion, your progress so far has been outstanding. Viel Glück mit deiner Vorbereitung! 1 person has voted this message useful |
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