As always, let’s take some time to reflect on and share progress. Any wins lately? Hit any setbacks?
I’m just starting on German. I’m primarily using Goethe Institute’s A1-Deutsch app but I’d like an English resource covering grammar too.
I’m not sure whether studying via sentence completion and conversational examples is the most efficient way for my learning style. I think explicitly studying grammar would simultaneously assist in building vocabulary and proper usage. Any suggestions for a grammar primer?
I have an Anki deck but feel as if my lack of a grammatical foundation puts me at a disadvantage with it. I need to learn a bit more about the back-end/theoretical basis for how it works; perhaps that poor understanding is getting in the way as well.
Oh, one more thing. There are also “Grammar Workbooks” which consist of hundreds of pages worth of drills.
If you are a nerd, these hundreds of pages of exercises might be more important than reference material. Buying a workbook so that you can DIRECTLY write on the pages and try immediately is also helpful.
Grammatik Aktiv by Cornelsen covers A1 through B1 pencil-and-paper drills. Very dry stuff but it kind of works…
You need a separate textbook to know what order to learn things (it sounds like your Goethe Institute course covers this). You need additional reference (Basic German: A Grammar and Workbook covers this, a 2nd clear perspective focusing on grammar). Finally you’ll find that various bits of your speaking + writing skills suck.
Using Grammatik Aktiv exercises to drill on your weaknesses just makes sense. Maybe an intensive would try to complete the whole book but uhhhhh… self study means you get to choose when you’re done with exercises lol. Do as much as you see fit.
Grammatik Aktiv is however, 100% in German. You probably need to wait until you are A1+ before you buy Grammatik Aktiv, if only so you have enough vocabulary to even figure out what the drills are asking of you.
Maybe your A1 goal should be to learn enough German so that you can start Grammatik Aktiv, lol.
Excellent, I’ve just acquired Schenke and will incorporate it into my studying, danke!
The Cornelsen book sounds perfect! Pencil to paper reinforcement is key for my learning style so ‘graduating’ to that once I wrap my head around A1 makes a lot of sense. I’ll digitally ‘acquire’ that one as well and put my recently refurbished, 10+ year old Rotring pencil to work on the blank medium Leuchtturm ‘journal’ I never started. (Can you tell I have an appreciation for German craftsmanship and engineering?)
I’ve been taking steps towards leaving America to work and/or study abroad. Learning a new language, especially via self-directed study, has been a very intimidating step. These resources will go a long way in helping me tackle it. I very much appreciate your guidance.
Basic German: A Grammar and Workbook by H. Schenke.
It’s short. Too short. Too few exercises and only covers material up to A2+ or so. But at only 200 pages, it’s so ridiculously short!!! One of the fastest reads you can do on this subject.
As long as you use this book as an auxiliary, it’s great. It’s not a primary lesson material, it’s to help explain other books / other lessons.
There are 1000+ page comprehensive grammar books. But beginners shouldn’t use those. Instead, using a purposefully short book that covers wide all the basics is best for a beginner IMO.
Got pretty busy this week so I slowed down a bit but I’m still keeping pace on my flashcards, which is the important thing.
The reading in this chapter of Tobira was about Japanese-style paper and was far more interesting than I expected. I’m also starting to feel more comfortable parsing intermediate grammar and Japanese sentence structure in general. I swear it’s like learning how to read backwards.
I’ll have my first Korean exam this weekend. It is a very basic one done in the academy I’m enrolled, but I’m nervous nonetheless.
J’ai passé un examen de placement français. J’ai été contente quand Ils m’ont dit que j’étais niveau A2 avancé- presque B1! Alors, je me suis rejoint à une vraie course de français
Received the results for the JLPT exam I took last december ! I passed, (99/180 so pretty short as you need 90 to pass) but still quite proud of it.
I need to restart my learning :)
Nice, good work! What level?
It was N4, as per the results it corresponds to A2
I’m technically not studying Spanish now so this is not strictly language learning. Recently I found the Chilean show El Reemplazante which some kind person has uploaded on YouTube. It almost feels like a different language. It took a season to be able to understand “most” of what is being said but I think I’m slowly getting there. It’s fun to try writing down some harder dialogs. If you’ve never heard casual Chilean Spanish here’s a nice sample https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UfD1lxwvDQc&t=1766s (at 29:26)
For all the back and forth in French about Québécois vs traditional French, it’s nothing compared to Spanish lmao. Every damn country has its own accent, grammar, and vocabulary. I’m a native speaker (Costa Rican) and struggle to understand Puerto Ricans and Spaniards more than anyone else.
Puerto Rican Spanish doesn’t pronounce the letter S. Spaniards pronounce Z/C like th and use a different 2nd person if I’m not mistaken. My native dialect only really uses “usted”
That second person is a pain. Costa Rica has one of the more reasonable grammars. And then you get places like Chile and Uruguay where it seems any combination of voseo, tuteo and that special -ai thing is valid even in the same sentence.
We have difficulties even between regions in the same country. There is a TV series called The day of the Jackal where the British main character is married to a woman from Cadiz and they live there and interact with her family.
I couldn’t understand the woman and her family, I had to use the English captions to follow the story.
Currently trying to collect the yearly “education voucher” that my city offers for a languge course. This is a PSA for others to check if your town / union / workplace offers something like this. I didn’t know about mine until someone told me.
10 new words were added to my vocabulary (needed to use those words for a conversation I was preparing for)!
Although I don’t understand every word… the A2 level “Kurz und leicht” section of Deutsche Welle is surprisingly readable to me now (!!!). At least, today’s story is working out quite well.
I still need to look up around 30% of the words in the article. But notice: the page has definitions (albeit definitions in German). I can understand some of the definitions (and for the definitions I don’t understand, I think its a good learning opportunity to learn more vocabulary).
My Anki Deck is seriously too full and getting very difficult for me to push through as it is however. So I won’t “study” this new vocabulary from this source. Instead I’ll take it as a more “passive” kind of learning. I’ll probably forget all these words by tomorrow, but I’m almost stressed out from the amount of Anki flashcards I have to do already… so I really don’t want to do anything to add to my current workload.
Once I’m done my classes, maybe I’ll add these words to Anki and study them seriously. But while I have classes and “normal” vocabulary words to get through, it really doesn’t make sense to increase my work (or homework) load.
I cannot “listen” to Kurz und leicht yet. I mean, I can try but its not sticking at all. I can only read (and read at a relatively slow pace at that). But now that its “comprehensible input”, I can probably start working up the speed-ladder and work my way to understanding this stuff through listening.
Reading is always the first skill you unlock at a level.
Haven’t started, but soon, I’ll be giving Latin a go.
I’ve been doing 5 minute Spanish lesson during lunch for a while now. Like, 2+ years, probably more. Didn’t feel like I was making any progress, but it’s something to do on my phone other than doom scroll. Last week I was at an actual Mexican burrito place, and the guy behind me ordered in Spanish. And I understood it.
Whoa!
Copying others is the easiest language exercise you can possibly do. Just listen then parrot them.
So don’t just listen. ALSO repeat, either in your minds eye or even out loud if you don’t find it embarrassing.
