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German - advice for A1-A2 | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Advice Center |  | |
| patrickwilken Senior Member Germany radiant-flux.net Joined 4334 days ago 1546 posts - 3200 votes  Studies: German | Message 1 of 42 09 July 2013 at 9:18am | IP Logged |
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I have been asked to talk to some people about self-learning
techniques for German here in Berlin. The problem I have is that while I have self-taught myself from A1 to early B2 in the last year, the method I used to get to A2+/B1- - in part by transcribing sentences and words lists into Anki from old textbooks - doesn't necessarily seem very practical or efficient. I know there is a ton of material on the site, but I was wondering if people could give me their personal opinions on the best way to self-learn German from A1 to A2+/B1- - basically to the point where you can start accessing native materials more efficiently. I found using SRS to learn both sentences and word lists very powerful way to get to B1, so I would be particularly interested in hearing if anyone knows of good study materials that would allow you to learn in conjunction with something like Anki. But really any thoughts at all would be appreciated. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Jeffers Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4710 days ago 2151 posts - 3960 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German | Message 2 of 42 09 July 2013 at 8:02pm | IP Logged |
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For paid courses, Assimil, Pimsleur and Michel Thomas will do most of the job brilliantly. However, for German you have an awesome source of free learning material: the Deutsche Welle site has tons of learning material, all of which is rated by level. Deutsche Welle. There is a wide variety of self-learning material on DW, so there will be something to support almost every type of learner.
EDIT: I should add that my personal favourite resource on DW is the Radio D podcast series. Radio D. I think it helps beginners build good habits of listening for clues even when you don't know every word. Edited by Jeffers on 09 July 2013 at 8:05pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Elexi Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5366 days ago 938 posts - 1839 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French, German, Latin | Message 3 of 42 09 July 2013 at 8:27pm | IP Logged |
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Another couple of good video courses I have found for beginners to intermediate (me) to
get used to (admittedly stylised)speech are: BBC 2's Deutsch Plus http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4lk9rS7n-4Q&list=PL6FFFCB569B 2D0D0A and slightly more complicated - Channel 4's Extra auf Deutsch: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=urQYFFMIVJs&list=PLBCE1C8943B AEA169 Edited by Elexi on 09 July 2013 at 8:32pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Bobb328 Groupie Canada Joined 4386 days ago 52 posts - 78 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Russian | Message 4 of 42 09 July 2013 at 8:30pm | IP Logged |
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Finish Assimil with Ease and then jump right into easy native materials. If I could redo the last 4 months of my
learning this is exactly what I would have done. Once I finished Assimil I spent months switching between intermediate courses until just 2 weeks ago I realized I was wasting my time. I own a couple of German novels (Harry Potter, Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Er ist Wieder Da) and decided to open up my HP book one day and give it a go. I was shocked how much I could understand or at least guess the meaning of what was going on even if I didn't know the words. In fact, what I did was underline every word I didn't understand and put them into into a SRS. When I first started this was very slow adding up to around 30 words a page. The amount of progress, however, I've made in the last couple of weeks is astonishing. Within one chapter of Harry Potter I now only underline about 10 words a page and I'm betting by the time I finish the book it'll be fewer than 5 since the fifth book is 1,000 pages. After that, depending on my progess, I think I'm just going to listen to the last two book in audiobook format to practice listening. Seriously, I learned the hard way, don't buy more courses once you get the first 1,500 words down and the basic vocabulary, you'll just be wasting your time. 9 persons have voted this message useful | |
| patrickwilken Senior Member Germany radiant-flux.net Joined 4334 days ago 1546 posts - 3200 votes Studies: German | Message 5 of 42 10 July 2013 at 10:25am | IP Logged |
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@Jeffers & @Bobb328: Thanks. I was wondering how the Assimil, Pimsleur and Michel Thomas courses were for German. I had a quick look at Pimsleur when I was starting out, but ended up just using my old textbooks. Do you have any opinions between these courses? Also I have never fully understood how vocabulary is built up systematically using these courses. Do you transcribe materials into Anki? In addition to the tapes do you get written materials? Sorry for the naive questions.
@Jeffers & Elexi: Thanks. I have been told about the Deutsche Welle courses for a while, but for some unknown reason never looked at them. I guess even when I was at a lower level I was somewhat (stupidly) resistant to materials that were designed specifically for non-German speakers (I know it doesn't make sense). The BBC/Channel 4 links also look very good. @Bobb328: I agree entirely about the virtues of jumping into native materials. To start with I worked through and transcribed lesson by lesson an old A1 textbook putting sentences and vocabulary into Anki. By the time I was partway through A2 I was advanced enough that I had started to read real books and watch movies and haven't looked back. Harry Potter is great for learning. I would also recommend the Hunger Games. Both are available in ebook format, and I find with the Collins e-dictionary it's really possible to read fairly effortlessly while still understanding most of the text. For the Kindle at least you can also create a text file of words, sentences, or dictionary definitions that you can then import into Anki. Edited by patrickwilken on 10 July 2013 at 10:27am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Jeffers Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4710 days ago 2151 posts - 3960 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German | Message 6 of 42 10 July 2013 at 6:50pm | IP Logged |
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@patrick: I have not used Assimil for German, but it has a very good reputation. Assimil French is great. I have only used the first 12 lessons of Pimsleur German, but it was very good; again, I have used Pimsleur French further and it is very good. I have, however, used both levels of Michel Thomas in German, and in my opinion it is much better than his French lessons.
As to the question about vocabulary, Michel Thomas and Pimsleur both teach relatively little vocab. Assimil is much more extensive, and the French textbook covers about 2500 words. Michel Thomas and Pimsleur both focus on structures rather than vocabulary, but they take an opposite approach: Michel Thomas teaches you to think through sentences, while Pimsleur trains you by repetition to structure your sentences without thinking much about why. Assimil does a bit of both: it works by regular contact so that you "assimilate" the material, but actually has as much grammar explanation as a typical textbook. All three courses have their strengths, and I think they all complement each other well. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Bobb328 Groupie Canada Joined 4386 days ago 52 posts - 78 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Russian | Message 7 of 42 11 July 2013 at 5:09am | IP Logged |
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Assimil German is very good but I found the grammar explanations lacking. I've never used MT or Pimsleur so I
don't know. Assimil's vocabulary build up pretty randomly. The easiest and most useful words come first, after that it's pretty random. One lesson I remember is about a priest who buys a painting for his church but the angels are all wearing shoes. So you learn words like shoe, painting, church, furious, etc. I've noticed, however, that most lessons are focused on a specific piece of grammar such as a case or verb tense and then at the end of 7 units it would review, for example, all the cases or verb tenses used in the past units. I'd definitely reccomend it. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| patrickwilken Senior Member Germany radiant-flux.net Joined 4334 days ago 1546 posts - 3200 votes Studies: German | Message 8 of 42 11 July 2013 at 9:43am | IP Logged |
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@Jeffers thanks for the very helpful description of Assimil, Pimsleur, and MT. I have also heard very good things about Assimil for French, but for some reason hadn't heard anything about the German course.
@Bobb328 It doesn't matter to me too much if Assimil doesn't teach grammar. What I am looking for is something that will build vocabulary using sentences/stories and word lists that can be added to SRS. My preferred method is to just read a simple grammar book and learn vocab until you can start parsing native materials. I can recommend 'Essential German Grammar' by Guy Stern and Everett Bleiler. It's over 50 years old now, and bought on Amazon for about 8 Euros. It covers a lot of ground in a non-technical fashion that gives you everything you need to start parsing real sentences. I spent a month slowly reading through it (it's only just over a 100 pages) and then adding grammar rules into Anki. However, you don't need much explicit grammar to start reading - and as you read your implicit understanding of grammar skyrockets. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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