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C1 to C2 in German in two months | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| alys.d'orival Triglot Newbie Germany Joined 5130 days ago 14 posts - 16 votes Speaks: English*, GermanC2, French Studies: Latin, Nepali | Message 1 of 18 26 November 2010 at 4:14pm | IP Logged |
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Hallo zusammen!
I've decided to sit the Goethe Insitut Zentrale Oberstufenpruefung in mid-January and wanted to share my experience with others and keep motivated. I'll be flying back to Australia in mid-February so I want to do it before I leave and also to make the most of my last few months here. I sat the C1 exam in July (and passed) but I don't think like my German level has improved that much since then. I speak mostly German at work (I work in tourism, so there's also a bit of English/French involved for me) but I'm usually just using the same words over and over again, so although my understanding has gotten a little better and maybe my pronunciation, I haven't improved my vocabulary nearly as much as I will need to for this exam. Since I've just been in a casual German environment I'll need to head back to the books a little since it looks like I'll need to know a lot of nuances. I've started using Anki very recently to finish off going through a vocabulary book with the most common 4000 German words (when I come across one I don't know I put it in Anki, look it up in the dictionary for context and try to then use it in my next conversation. I couldn't learn the word properly by only using Anki). Making sure that I know a lot of noun + verb combinations, fixed expressions, prepositions with nouns and adjectives will be an important part of my revision. I am planning to do a lot of reading to expand my vocabulary since the reading section was actually my weakest point in the C1 exam (isn't this often the best for many people??). I will be reading novels and newspapers to this end. I'm currently reading a novel about an undertaker, so if I need to know 'coffin', 'undertaker', 'urn' or something similar for the exam I'm set! I'll be writing some things since I've had virtually no writing practice recently and asking friends I'll be listening to Deutsche Welle more both to expand my vocabulary and improve my listening comprehension skills. I've always had a bit of difficulty with listening comprehension exercises in the classroom, I understand much better when there's an actual person talking to me, but I think that's normal. Still, much improvement in this area is needed. Then finally, to improve my oral skills I'll be meeting up with some of my colleagues to do a language tandem. Some have expressed such an interest. I will also try to meet up more often with German speaking friends and speak more with my German family (my boyfriend's family). With him I will also be speaking more German. I will try to post regularly and let you know how I'm going. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Sprachprofi Nonaglot Senior Member Germany learnlangs.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6281 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 2 of 18 26 November 2010 at 4:54pm | IP Logged |
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Good luck! C2 is an ambitious goal in any language, but especially one with so many
words as German. I would recommend also adding German movies (without subtitles or with German subtitles) to your diet in order to have something to do that you can do in the evenings while relaxing. It will still improve your German vocabulary, your listening comprehension and your feel for the language. If you want to get into colloquial language, I can recommend the TV series "Türkisch für Anfänger", which is available as a DVD case or on some online video sites. Otherwise any series or movie will do (except maybe Herbig's productions, which use rather much dialect). Since the exam is not about the content of the books but rather the language, you should not force yourself to read anything that you find boring. Be aware hat your reading speed has a big impact on whether you find a story thrilling or not; it all depends on the number of interesting happenings per 10 minutes or so. Depending on your reading speed, you may need a book that contains interesting things on at least every third page, but if you read three times as fast then every nineth page will do. This is not something you can easily will away (though trying to focus on something in particular, like character development or word usage, might increase the amount of interesting things you can find on the same number of pages). So to have more fun reading target-language books, you could try more thrilling books (e. g. Dan Brown is hard to put down no matter how slowly you read) or you could work on your reading speed. I found the 20-minute exercise suggested at http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2009/07/30/speed-readin g-and-accelerated-learning/ (remove spaces) astonishingly effective, plus it's free and easy to do, a jewel of a blog post. In any case I'm looking forward to reading your updates. Best wishes from Germany! 6 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Teango Triglot Winner TAC 2010 & 2012 Senior Member United States teango.wordpress.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5367 days ago 2210 posts - 3734 votes Speaks: English*, German, Russian Studies: Hawaiian, French, Toki Pona | Message 3 of 18 27 November 2010 at 1:07am | IP Logged |
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Big congrats on passing the C1 exam in German this July. :)
I'd be interested in hearing some more about the exam and how this compared to your initial expectations. As I've moved back to UK now, all eyes and ears need to be on Russian for the time being (my girlfriend's Russian), but it's always in the back of my mind to give the ZOP a go sometime later down the road. I look forward to reading about your journey and offer my best wishes for success. Viel Glück, Alys! Edited by Teango on 27 November 2010 at 1:09am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| alys.d'orival Triglot Newbie Germany Joined 5130 days ago 14 posts - 16 votes Speaks: English*, GermanC2, French Studies: Latin, Nepali | Message 4 of 18 30 November 2010 at 4:08pm | IP Logged |
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I've not done a lot since I wrote my opening post unfortunately since I've been busy hosting a visitor. However, I did look at the sample ZOP exam on the Goethe Institut website and I've had a bit of a look through to familiarise myself with the structure and to get a better idea of what I have to study to do well.
I have been learning some more words with Anki. I have a book 'Grund- und Aufbauwortschatz - Deutsch als Fremdsprache nach Themen' by Edwin Tschirner which has been very helpful. The book is supposed to be for levels up to B2 with the most common 4,000 words, but I still find that I don't know some of these words, or I only know them passively. I'm going through the book and trying to pick out the ones that I don't know. Any word that is in this book I should know really! I have been reading a bit more of 'Gestatten Bestatter' by Peter Wilhelm. It's quite easy to read and it's nice to read something for fun. Will make more time to read more, finish it and get onto something that will help me a bit more in the exam. I also looked through my A2 and B1 textbooks just for fun. It was quite amusing to see how much I've learnt since then and to see which words I had highlighted as 'unknown'. Going back to revise some grammar tomorrow! @Sprachprofi thanks for the recommendations. I will definitely be watching more German films. I'm actually now regretting not having a television here for the first time.. Fortunately there are a lot of resources to be found online. @Teango thank you for the congratulations. I was thrilled to pass the C1 exam and am looking forward to this next challenge. I've been living in Germany for almost a year now and I'll be leaving soon after the exam to finish some of my studies back in Australia. I really want to get the most out of my last few months here. I'll be really happy to share my experiences and hope that they will be helpful to you. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| alys.d'orival Triglot Newbie Germany Joined 5130 days ago 14 posts - 16 votes Speaks: English*, GermanC2, French Studies: Latin, Nepali | Message 5 of 18 07 December 2010 at 5:24pm | IP Logged |
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Days remaining until exam: 45
I've been reading more. Finished my current book and I'm now reading some of 'Der Dativ ist dem Genitiv sein Tod' which is quite interesting. Been progressing well with Anki. Read some articles on the 'Die Zeit' website and have already learnt a few things from them. It's good practice. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| alys.d'orival Triglot Newbie Germany Joined 5130 days ago 14 posts - 16 votes Speaks: English*, GermanC2, French Studies: Latin, Nepali | Message 6 of 18 14 December 2010 at 9:09pm | IP Logged |
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Days remaining until exam: 37
Sunday was a great day for my German learning. I was very tired from a long Saturday driving around the countryside so I decided to put off a trip to a nearby castle and read the newspaper instead. I read many articles from 'Die Zeit' and am happy to be noticing some improvements. I have recognised lots of words I've recently learnt using Anki and can remember most of them about well enough to reproduce them spontaneously. After a few months of being lazy with German it's great to be reading some very well written German. I've been having quite a few baths recently and I always take something light in German with me to read. Today and on Sunday I read 20 pages of one of the moomin books, a children's series (translated from Swedish into German). It's just a bit of fun and it exposes me to a different style of writing, I just have to remember not to spell this way in the exam since it's a translation from 20 years ago.. An aside; being around people from the area I live in at work (in the south of Germany) I find my accent suddenly slipping and a few dialectic quirks slip out when I'm not paying attention. Quite funny when I speak like that outside the workplace.. Another thing to watch in the exam.. Two days off work now - so my next post will be more constructive! 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| alys.d'orival Triglot Newbie Germany Joined 5130 days ago 14 posts - 16 votes Speaks: English*, GermanC2, French Studies: Latin, Nepali | Message 7 of 18 30 December 2010 at 9:41pm | IP Logged |
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Days remaining until exam: 22 (!!)
Well, I fell well and truly off the revision wagon during the holiday season! At least I did spend Christmas with my German family and will be here for the next five days or so. Lack of progress is, however, quite worrying at this stage. So, what have I actually done? Vocabulary: Learnt more with Anki. I really felt I was getting somewhere before my computer died. Yesterday I managed to extract some files from my hard drive and it looks like we've salvaged my Anki files!! Will be getting back into Anki in a big way tomorrow. I've also noted down a few words from my reading and have been using them in conversation. Speaking: Still very shy in German, but I'm getting a lot of practice in at least. Just need to start talking about my special topic (more to come on this very soon). Writing: Absolutely no progress. I'll be writing a few pieces in the next few days so I'll report back. I think this will need a lot of work, but I am pretty confident I'll be able to pass this part of the exam. Listening: only conversational listening and watching a soap opera.. Listened to some Deutsche Welle today and I'll be listening to it daily from tomorrow onwards. I feel like I could do badly in this section and I sometimes have a bit of trouble listening to German radio news which is a worry. Reading: Not been reading as much as hoped during the break. I optimistically brought about 10 books with me and I've read two of them.. I read 'Ich bin gespannt wie gekochtes Gemuese' by Nathalie Licard, story of a French woman in Germany and 'Winter im Mumintal' by Tove Jansson, a Finnish children's book. Strange choices, but I enjoyed them. It was funny reading Licard's broken German and immediately recognising all the mistakes and I like the whimsical style of the Moomin book. The plan: at least 4 hours of study a day. This means focussed study. I bought the novel 'Der Geschmack von Apfelkernen' by Katharina Hagena today, which is on the prescribed reading list for the exam. I also bought a book on analysing literature. I will probably do my writing part of the exam on this book. I will also try to read another of the books on the list. I'll get through these two books, increase my Anki study, revise some critical grammar points I sometimes do incorrectly, go through my (very good) C1 textbook, actively listen to the radio, read good quality newspapers and do some practice writing pieces. Will be updating this log from now on very often. I will be watching some films, a soap opera and probably another book or two for fun alongside. Chatting with the family will also be a daily occurence. A side note: I watched the Loriot Christmas special.. Couldn't stop laughing for 10 minutes afterwards! Language was no barrier to understanding all the jokes. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| alys.d'orival Triglot Newbie Germany Joined 5130 days ago 14 posts - 16 votes Speaks: English*, GermanC2, French Studies: Latin, Nepali | Message 8 of 18 01 January 2011 at 5:01pm | IP Logged |
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Days remaining until exam: 20
Yesterday: Reading: I read 50 pages of 'Der Gechsmack von Apfelkernen'. It's quite slow, but I think it might be good. Writing down quite a bit vocabulary which is a bit worrying. Vocabulary: found my old Anki file, 120 reviews were due! I added a lot more words. Will put vocabulary from the book in a new file tomorrow probably. Quite a lot of the words I looked up from the novel are ones that will be useful in the exam I'm pretty sure. Listening: essentially nothing. Just listened to some Silvester radio but didn't really pay attention because I was reading. Writing: nothing, need to start! Speaking: now speaking 90% German with my partner. It was hard to convince him, but I'm glad I did. Off to a barbeque in the snow with Germans now. Must make the most of it! 1 person has voted this message useful |
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