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Beginning and advancing in German | ||
Tags: German | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Advice Center |  | |
| DarrenDaka Newbie United Kingdom Joined 4594 days ago 28 posts - 31 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German | Message 1 of 8 22 May 2013 at 12:46am | IP Logged | ||
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Hey, I am just wondering how to start learning German. I have a grammar book , a reading
book and teach youself. I hope to eventually get to an C1 level. I love German I find it very interesting. I have learnt all about German history from occupation to division as part of my History course so luckily German culture is not too bad for me and is very interesting. Any advice would be appreciated. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Paco Senior Member Hong Kong Joined 4097 days ago 145 posts - 251 votes  Speaks: Cantonese* | Message 2 of 8 22 May 2013 at 2:11am | IP Logged | ||
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First step: Basic textbook studies plus audio
Finish 1 or 2 basic language manuals. They should give you a solid foundation should you engage them seriously. You can just use the Teach Yourself book you have, or you may want to chech out various methods to see which one suit you more. When you are done with these textbooks, there are many things you can do. You will know better what you want and what you need after you have finished them. 1) Further textbook studies After beginners' textbooks, there are usually follow-up advanced textbooks. Also, you can turn to monolingual German textbooks, for exmaple, "em neu" and "Aspekte". If you want to pin down specific weak points such as verbs, etc., there are books which are designed for that purpose. If you frequently make mistakes when speaking, you may find language manuals produced by Foreign Service Institute useful; they are free and available online here. You can also go through a comprehensive teaching grammar. 2) Graded readers They are stories specifically written for learners of different levels. They facilitate vocabulary acquisition by promoting extensive reading and providing fun. 3) Parallel texts/Bilingual books/Dual-language books These different titles refer to essentially the same types of books: a text in the original language and a translation of the text combined. An examples is "Penguin parallel text". 4) Conversation partners You should always seek out and create conversational opportunities. Ask your friends if they are willing to do it; make friends or find native speakers to converse. 5) Native materials You can watch films and dramas with subtitle or script. I suggest you do it in the following way: first watch it with enjoyment without the subtitle or script; then check out the points you cannot follow, and to see if you get everything correctly. You can also read books written for native speakers and newspaper. 6) IMMERSION The most important of all, I believe, is immersion. When you have got everything you can get by studying yourself, it is time to go to the countries where your target language is spoken. It is preferable to have at least a 2-week stay, during which you should banish English completely and operate in German. Converse as much as you can. The purpose is to expose yourself to fully immerse in the language without interference from everything else. Edited by Paco on 22 May 2013 at 4:03am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| zooplah Diglot Senior Member United States zooplah.farvista.net Joined 6188 days ago 100 posts - 116 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto Studies: German | Message 3 of 8 22 May 2013 at 11:45am | IP Logged | ||
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I skipped from #1 to #5. It's no wonder I have so many problems. :) #6, though; I don't see it happening.
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| Antanas Tetraglot Groupie Lithuania Joined 4632 days ago 91 posts - 172 votes Speaks: Lithuanian*, English, Russian, German Studies: FrenchB1, Spanish | Message 4 of 8 22 May 2013 at 4:45pm | IP Logged | ||
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7) Enjoy your studies. Study every day. But make it through the first year of your studies of German without expecting to understand much of what they say on German TV or radio. False expectations lead to despair. And despair is the worst enemy of any language learner.
I'm personally against #2: not enough satisfaction if you make it through them ("Don't get excited, it's only an adapted text for dummies.") and lots of despair if you don't ("Oh, I can't make it even through a such simple text!"). 8) Avoid teaching materials that require students that they use stand-alone dictionaries. This is my personal opinion, but I believe one has to avoid dictionaries as long as one can. They are very slow to be used effectively. And they give you to much irrelevant information. The only exception could be the pop-up dictionary in your browser or an e-book reader. Edited by Antanas on 22 May 2013 at 5:37pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Expugnator Hexaglot Senior Member Brazil Joined 4986 days ago 3335 posts - 4349 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, Norwegian, French, English, Italian, Papiamento Studies: Mandarin, Georgian, Russian | Message 5 of 8 22 May 2013 at 6:14pm | IP Logged | ||
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I totally agree with #8, Ananas. That is why I only proceed to reading native materials after I've been through A2 textbooks, and I always start by reading what I find translations for (that is, making my own billingual texts). I plan to do this for German as well, when I go back to it. I will pass through beginner's textbooks really fast, only for refreshment, before I proceed to more advanced one. That is another tip: if the textbook gets too easy, move quickly through the easy parts until you find something you have to stop for.
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| Jeffers Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4729 days ago 2151 posts - 3960 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German | Message 6 of 8 24 May 2013 at 8:49pm | IP Logged | ||
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Two words: Deutsche Welle. Tons of free material including full courses. I really
enjoyed the "Radio D" course, and they also have a more comprehensive course, "Deutsch Warum Nicht?" Look around the learning section of their website for tons of well produced material organised by CEFR level. Go to http://www.dw.de/deutsch-lernen/s-2055 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| montmorency Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4648 days ago 2371 posts - 3676 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Danish, Welsh | Message 7 of 8 24 May 2013 at 11:00pm | IP Logged | ||
Some of us will applaud you! Don't forget that the parallel texts, mentioned earlier in the list, will include native materials. Another way of using native materials (assuming that you like reading books), is to find a book that you can also fairly easily find an English translation of. Read the translation in full first. Then go back and read chapter 1. Then go back to page 1, then read page 1 of the German, and see how you get on. Don't worry too much about individual words at that stage. Just try to get through the paqe, then a few more pages, and so on, then a whole chapter. Don't worry if you can't manage the whole book at this stage; you can always come back to it later. One suggestion is "Emil und die Detektive" by Erich Kästner. It's actually a childrens book, but he had a way of writing that didn't talk down to children; he was on their side. It's a bit "old fashioned", but in a (to me) rather charming way. Emil (n.b. I have no shares in Am***n! :-) ). (Be aware that book translations are often rather un-literal, so don't expect 100% correspondence, even in a language-pair like English and German. Some translators take more liberties than others. It's not the end of the world; just something to be aware of). Graded readers is also quite a good way to go, and you might find these in libraries. Edited by montmorency on 24 May 2013 at 11:02pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Elexi Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5385 days ago 938 posts - 1839 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French, German, Latin | Message 8 of 8 24 May 2013 at 11:23pm | IP Logged | ||
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For me at least the answer is overlean - I made the mistake of thinking if I went through
basic courses like trash novels it would eventually stick, without getting boring. But now I think you need to master a course, 1 course, until you can extract nothing more before moving on. The same with native materials - read/listen, read/listen, read/listen etc until its natural. I'll probably change my mind on this one next year, however. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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