So, bad progress lately in terms of my active lessons of Assimil. Still working on lesson 57, which shows I just haven't put in enough focussed time on the task. I still listen to SBS' German programme on my morning commutes, and Deutsche-Welle. And I've been listening to Rammstein more lately. It's funny how now I pick up more of the songs, I'm starting to really get into songs that perhaps never really did it for me before. The songs are often so insane that I find myself intrigued to figure them out :-)
I have at least written to a few of my German acquaintances, and got replies. Interestingly I got back a review of the subject of my last post on the website SlowGerman. My former German teacher from back in the Vaterland had a somewhat mixed impression of the content and the site. She seemed to think some of it was a little too confusing for beginners, or that some of the content itself had errors, but that overall it was a very good idea and that she planned to write to the website author to say so. She also has plans to share it with her students I think.
I think what I liked about the site was mainly that I understood enough of the vocabulary that I could either work out the meaning of words I didn't know, or I could look those few words up without feeling like it was just becoming a tedium of incomprehensibility.
In other good news, my new Austrian friends are keen to meet up again to do "something typically Australian". Maybe I'm not a typical Australian enough to know what that should be :-) I would think a barbecue with a game of backyard cricket would be in order, but neither of us has a backyard or a barbecue. I think I'll take them up into the Blue Mountains for the day because, without a car, it can be a pain to get to and from. Not impossible of course - at least it has a train line (unlike much of Sydney).
I also recently discovered that a new work colleague has a German wife and seems to speak fluent German, so we will be chatting a little over lunch some days. Maybe I'll be able to get some practice in twice a week. Not a native speaker, but better than me, which is the main thing :-)
At least I've got some positive news to report, despite the lack of apparent progress in German - I did NOT come last in the 1km swim at Cronulla last Sunday (I beat 25% of entrants, which just shows that a lot of real amateurs like myself go in this event), and I've done a bit of exercise each night since to keep up my momentum - a run that was approaching my old pace, and a fast walk pushing my daughter up the hills in my local area. Tonight I'll get out for something too - I just need to make sure I find the time to advance my German as well.
Only 3 months to go till the B2 exam!
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
Great website for German learners!
Just the other day I came across a really well put-together website called "Slow German". It has lots of articles on topics about German culture and living in Germany, all written in a clear writing style, and each with an accompanying audio file with the text read in (what else) "slow German", i.e., slowly-spoken German. It's all free except for the accompanying study material which is also available to download for 1 euro per article. I don't know what that material is like, but the free material is really good anyway. Everything on the site is in German apart from the site name itself, and the three articles for absolute beginners (top left of homepage), and really that's all you need.
People might worry about listening to slowly-spoken material, but I think there are two ways in which it is useful for the learner. For beginners there is the obvious problem that you may understand nothing of normal speed text, so you will need bridges into the faster pace. I actually found this transition quite short myself as I listened to Deutsche-Welle news in both the slow version and the normal speed version. At first I couldn't believe I was listening to the slow version, it seemed insanely fast! But after a few sessions of listening to the same 2 or 3 news reports in both the slow and the fast versions, spread over a few weeks, I found that I was very comfortable with the fast version. The amount of actual time spent on it was only small really, so it was a great boost to my confidence! Now I listen to the news at full speed and am hardly ever lost, often understanding almost everything. There's still more work to do, of course, but I really think that the use of the bridge of the slow version of the news followed by the fast version, and having the text to read occasionally, made all the difference.
I plan on doing some more of this sort of work in the near future - not just the news reports, but with other articles that Deutsche-Welle makes available with text and audio. I'll have to do the translations myself of course, and when I do I'll post them here. This is to help expand my vocabulary beyond the limited set of what appears in most newsflash style updates. That's not to say I don't understand any other articles on DW - generally, I understand most of them to a greater or lesser extent, but it's something that needs work.
My current "book" learning update is that I've just finished lesson 56 (active phase) of Assimil's New German with Ease. Certainly not the two-per-day pace I said I would achieve, but better than my usual. I've also managed to slip in several kilometres of laps in the pool to prepare for this weekend's Shark Island Ocean Swim down at Cronulla Beach (just one of Sydney's many great beaches). Considering I haven't done much dedicated swimming really since early 2008, I've got into the groove again pretty quickly. Luckily, my mate only wanted to do the 1km swim (in the ocean, that's more like 1.5km at least of pool swimming), so it's all I had to commit to as well :-)
People might worry about listening to slowly-spoken material, but I think there are two ways in which it is useful for the learner. For beginners there is the obvious problem that you may understand nothing of normal speed text, so you will need bridges into the faster pace. I actually found this transition quite short myself as I listened to Deutsche-Welle news in both the slow version and the normal speed version. At first I couldn't believe I was listening to the slow version, it seemed insanely fast! But after a few sessions of listening to the same 2 or 3 news reports in both the slow and the fast versions, spread over a few weeks, I found that I was very comfortable with the fast version. The amount of actual time spent on it was only small really, so it was a great boost to my confidence! Now I listen to the news at full speed and am hardly ever lost, often understanding almost everything. There's still more work to do, of course, but I really think that the use of the bridge of the slow version of the news followed by the fast version, and having the text to read occasionally, made all the difference.
I plan on doing some more of this sort of work in the near future - not just the news reports, but with other articles that Deutsche-Welle makes available with text and audio. I'll have to do the translations myself of course, and when I do I'll post them here. This is to help expand my vocabulary beyond the limited set of what appears in most newsflash style updates. That's not to say I don't understand any other articles on DW - generally, I understand most of them to a greater or lesser extent, but it's something that needs work.
My current "book" learning update is that I've just finished lesson 56 (active phase) of Assimil's New German with Ease. Certainly not the two-per-day pace I said I would achieve, but better than my usual. I've also managed to slip in several kilometres of laps in the pool to prepare for this weekend's Shark Island Ocean Swim down at Cronulla Beach (just one of Sydney's many great beaches). Considering I haven't done much dedicated swimming really since early 2008, I've got into the groove again pretty quickly. Luckily, my mate only wanted to do the 1km swim (in the ocean, that's more like 1.5km at least of pool swimming), so it's all I had to commit to as well :-)
Saturday, March 19, 2011
A spanner in the works...
So, last night something strange happened to me. A native French ex-colleague with whom I used to work in the UK, wrote to me from his new job in Paris... To say that his company was desperately looking for a skilled PS3 programmer. Before moving back to Sydney due to the imminent arrival of our first child, games programming had been the focus of my career for the better part of 8 years, including working mainly on the PS3 for the last 3 years. In Sydney there are no real games jobs, so I've ended up doing something else.
Now, I'm not devoted to the games industry - it has LOTS of problems. High pressure, not great rewards financially for the hours, erratic workplaces, lots of instability. It also has plenty of rewards... Coupled with the prospect of a job in a city I would love to live in (Paris) - it is certainly very attractive.
This has thrown a little spanner into the works, so to speak. Especially for my German studies, as you can imagine. I wonder if I should bring forward my plans for studying French Assimil-style instead. I'm not even sure I'm seriously consider the possibility of a job overseas again - we just finished setting up back in Sydney! What if we don't like it there? We would just be ping-ponging across the world, and my job prospects outside of games will only get worse as a result.
Well... To hell with it all :-) I've decided that, in the absence of better information, the best course of action is to push on with my original plan, at full speed!
What am I doing now? Well, I've done lessons 51 and 52 active phase of Assimil's German with Ease. It feels as if I should be able to do 2 of these lessons a day without breaking too much of a sweat. Perhaps once I get into the higher lessons it will slow down again (the sentences get longer, and the constructions a bit more involved) but for now I should be aiming for 2 per day.
I have now ordered "Using German" - well, the French-language version (all that's current it appears) called "Perfectionnement Allemand". I shouldn't have too much trouble following it given my knowledge of German and French, but I'm sure some idioms will escape me. I'm not worried though - if you think you will encounter a problem, chances are someone before you has already encountered it and posted about it on the internet :-) In this case, because Assimil doesn't appear to sell an English version of the advanced German course (and it sounds like they never did), people have been forced to make do with the French version regardless of the fact that they don't speak French. That's how good Assimil is! If someone who doesn't speak French at all didn't let that put him off advancing his German knowledge, then neither should !
Once it arrives, I'll mix doing a passive phase lesson from the advance book with an active phase lesson from the beginner's book, as though it were just a direct continuation. I'll report on how that goes once I start it.
The only other book I ordered is one for reading practice in German specifically for the B2 test. I figure this is one of the main parts where they test out your vocabulary and understanding more than many other sections (as far as I can tell, at B2 level, the listening comprehension tests, and speaking tests, are more forgiving in terms of actual complexity of the material) and I really don't want to stress about this, especially given the time limits. It's definitely something you can just sit with a book and practice, so I will soon be doing just that - if I can find the time!
As for speaking German, no upcoming plans to meet up with more native speakers, but I will definitely need to find more time for this. Not sure how! This week I'll be doing some complete last minute training for a 1km ocean swim event which a friend just rang me up about today. I've swum about 3 or 4 times in the ocean since returning to Australia in July last year, each time about 800+m. Despite that, I'm sure I can do it. I just also want to make sure that I make some sort of decent effort to prepare in the 6 days I have available to me :-) I REFUSE TO COME LAST!
Now if only I could somehow practice German while swimming. Hmmmm...
Now, I'm not devoted to the games industry - it has LOTS of problems. High pressure, not great rewards financially for the hours, erratic workplaces, lots of instability. It also has plenty of rewards... Coupled with the prospect of a job in a city I would love to live in (Paris) - it is certainly very attractive.
This has thrown a little spanner into the works, so to speak. Especially for my German studies, as you can imagine. I wonder if I should bring forward my plans for studying French Assimil-style instead. I'm not even sure I'm seriously consider the possibility of a job overseas again - we just finished setting up back in Sydney! What if we don't like it there? We would just be ping-ponging across the world, and my job prospects outside of games will only get worse as a result.
Well... To hell with it all :-) I've decided that, in the absence of better information, the best course of action is to push on with my original plan, at full speed!
What am I doing now? Well, I've done lessons 51 and 52 active phase of Assimil's German with Ease. It feels as if I should be able to do 2 of these lessons a day without breaking too much of a sweat. Perhaps once I get into the higher lessons it will slow down again (the sentences get longer, and the constructions a bit more involved) but for now I should be aiming for 2 per day.
I have now ordered "Using German" - well, the French-language version (all that's current it appears) called "Perfectionnement Allemand". I shouldn't have too much trouble following it given my knowledge of German and French, but I'm sure some idioms will escape me. I'm not worried though - if you think you will encounter a problem, chances are someone before you has already encountered it and posted about it on the internet :-) In this case, because Assimil doesn't appear to sell an English version of the advanced German course (and it sounds like they never did), people have been forced to make do with the French version regardless of the fact that they don't speak French. That's how good Assimil is! If someone who doesn't speak French at all didn't let that put him off advancing his German knowledge, then neither should !
Once it arrives, I'll mix doing a passive phase lesson from the advance book with an active phase lesson from the beginner's book, as though it were just a direct continuation. I'll report on how that goes once I start it.
The only other book I ordered is one for reading practice in German specifically for the B2 test. I figure this is one of the main parts where they test out your vocabulary and understanding more than many other sections (as far as I can tell, at B2 level, the listening comprehension tests, and speaking tests, are more forgiving in terms of actual complexity of the material) and I really don't want to stress about this, especially given the time limits. It's definitely something you can just sit with a book and practice, so I will soon be doing just that - if I can find the time!
As for speaking German, no upcoming plans to meet up with more native speakers, but I will definitely need to find more time for this. Not sure how! This week I'll be doing some complete last minute training for a 1km ocean swim event which a friend just rang me up about today. I've swum about 3 or 4 times in the ocean since returning to Australia in July last year, each time about 800+m. Despite that, I'm sure I can do it. I just also want to make sure that I make some sort of decent effort to prepare in the 6 days I have available to me :-) I REFUSE TO COME LAST!
Now if only I could somehow practice German while swimming. Hmmmm...
Monday, March 14, 2011
PASSIVE PHASE COMPLETE!
Oh, happy day! I feel like celebrating :-)
This morning I finished Lesson 100 (passive phase) in Assimil's German with Ease. I still have 50 lessons to go in the active phase, but it feels like a great milestone has been achieved. My overall review of the book is that it is excellent, with only a few minor errors mostly due to the translation and editing from French into English. The physical size of the book (compact), the quality of the audio, the amount of content, the fact that it really works, all excellent. I think that for self-study with a single book, you couldn't do any better. You end up being able to read and write reasonably well, and also to understand the spoken word. In addition, you should have good pronunciation at the end if you really focussed on repeating the lessons at the speed in which they were presented. All in all, excellent.
Makes me wonder why they decided to make the book 3 times thicker, with a thin paper cover, lots of wasted space, and no cool little string bookmark (awesome for quickly reading a little bit of the book while waiting for a bus, or while stuck in traffic, where you often only get 20 or 30 seconds to read a few more lines) for the latest edition of the French book. I guess they felt they needed to compete with the massive, but vacuous, offerings from many other providers (such as the Teach Yourself series, for example). The German With Ease book fitted comfortably into my pants pocket. If I stick the new French one in my pocket, people will think I have a serious problem...
As for the level you should be at after completing the book, they say you will be B2. Like I mentioned above, I still have the last 50 lessons of the active phase to go, but I think the level needs to be taken with a grain of salt. I think you will have all the tools you will need to get to this level with a bit of extra work. If you want to be a B2-level speaker only, then you need to practice real-life speaking, but you will find this gets better and better as you go through the lessons. In fact, I believe you could pretty much finish the book without ever having spoken to anyone, and then start having decent conversations. You will, of course, need time practising your new skills, but I doubt you could do that with many other courses. Great for the lone (and time-poor) learner. If you want to pass the B2 exam in German as I do, you will need to acquire more vocabulary and, probably, do a bit of formal review of the grammar (memorising some patterns could allow you to breeze through some parts of the exam). And of course, you will need to practice speaking German (or whatever your target language is) for the exam as well.
So, you need to be tested in some way to know it's worked for you. Formal exams are one thing, and they require some specialised preparation. Just talking to people is another great test and, if you find people you have something in common with, the most fun by far.
Which brings me to my other milestone. Last Sunday my wife, daughter and I went to meet a couple from Austria who've been living in Sydney for just 3 months or so now. I met them on CouchSurfing and I thought we would hit it off. It turns out I couldn't have hoped to find nicer people for my first attempt at conversation since returning from Germany mid-last year. As I've mentioned earlier, we lived in Germany for the first 6 months of 2010, but last Sunday I spoke more German than I had the entire time we lived there.
TERRIBLE!
I know it's terrible. TERRIBLE!
But everything is a learning process, and I've learnt the value of making an effort... And I try not to fear embarassment anymore. I wasn't too bad at doing that on the weekend :-)
Our new friends from Austria, Daniel and Marlene, were just brilliant. We started off speaking in English, but at some stage early on, Daniel suggested we switch to German and we spoke for a few minutes while we waited for my wife to find parking. When she joined us, I switched back to English because she doesn't speak a lot of German. However, once we sat down at lunch, Daniel again said we should speak in German and just switched to it. My wife and Marlene had a long chat in English, and we had a long chat in German. It was really great. I felt as though I started slowly, with lots of pauses, trying to get shit sorted in my head, but as I relaxed more, I just started to let the words flow out of my mouth. Sometimes I had a feeling it was all just coming out as a stream of words, but Daniel would just nod and then ask a question which showed I was making myself somewhat understood. He also suggested small corrections along the way, as well as words I was missing. He could have corrected every mistake, but that wouldn't have been fun for either of us. I felt as though anything he said was just gold. It was a really fun, positive experience. My wife also enjoyed it (and even followed some of what Daniel was saying) and so I am sure we will be getting together again soon.
Unfortunately, I'm still quite time-poor, and they are also very busy (Marlene has taken on the mammoth task of studying for her Masters in English - very brave!), so I know it will never be really frequent practice (probably not even once a week) but anything is good. You take what you can get when you can't dedicate yourself to language learning fulltime! I think we'll all go for a bushwalk sometime.
I was quite happy with how it went. The conversation flowed fairly easily, though I did often find myself not quite sure of what Daniel was saying. He spoke natural German to me, so I will just need to get used to it, it's that simple!
My final "checkpoint" to note is that I looked at a rough guide for self-assessing your level on the CELRF scale, and I can see from that that I have a long way to go to get to B2! But I feel bolstered, I feel confident, and I know how to squeeze the most from each day to reach my target (along with doing everything else I need to in life!). Nothing can stop me now!
Roughly 4 months till my B2 test now...
This morning I finished Lesson 100 (passive phase) in Assimil's German with Ease. I still have 50 lessons to go in the active phase, but it feels like a great milestone has been achieved. My overall review of the book is that it is excellent, with only a few minor errors mostly due to the translation and editing from French into English. The physical size of the book (compact), the quality of the audio, the amount of content, the fact that it really works, all excellent. I think that for self-study with a single book, you couldn't do any better. You end up being able to read and write reasonably well, and also to understand the spoken word. In addition, you should have good pronunciation at the end if you really focussed on repeating the lessons at the speed in which they were presented. All in all, excellent.
Makes me wonder why they decided to make the book 3 times thicker, with a thin paper cover, lots of wasted space, and no cool little string bookmark (awesome for quickly reading a little bit of the book while waiting for a bus, or while stuck in traffic, where you often only get 20 or 30 seconds to read a few more lines) for the latest edition of the French book. I guess they felt they needed to compete with the massive, but vacuous, offerings from many other providers (such as the Teach Yourself series, for example). The German With Ease book fitted comfortably into my pants pocket. If I stick the new French one in my pocket, people will think I have a serious problem...
As for the level you should be at after completing the book, they say you will be B2. Like I mentioned above, I still have the last 50 lessons of the active phase to go, but I think the level needs to be taken with a grain of salt. I think you will have all the tools you will need to get to this level with a bit of extra work. If you want to be a B2-level speaker only, then you need to practice real-life speaking, but you will find this gets better and better as you go through the lessons. In fact, I believe you could pretty much finish the book without ever having spoken to anyone, and then start having decent conversations. You will, of course, need time practising your new skills, but I doubt you could do that with many other courses. Great for the lone (and time-poor) learner. If you want to pass the B2 exam in German as I do, you will need to acquire more vocabulary and, probably, do a bit of formal review of the grammar (memorising some patterns could allow you to breeze through some parts of the exam). And of course, you will need to practice speaking German (or whatever your target language is) for the exam as well.
So, you need to be tested in some way to know it's worked for you. Formal exams are one thing, and they require some specialised preparation. Just talking to people is another great test and, if you find people you have something in common with, the most fun by far.
Which brings me to my other milestone. Last Sunday my wife, daughter and I went to meet a couple from Austria who've been living in Sydney for just 3 months or so now. I met them on CouchSurfing and I thought we would hit it off. It turns out I couldn't have hoped to find nicer people for my first attempt at conversation since returning from Germany mid-last year. As I've mentioned earlier, we lived in Germany for the first 6 months of 2010, but last Sunday I spoke more German than I had the entire time we lived there.
TERRIBLE!
I know it's terrible. TERRIBLE!
But everything is a learning process, and I've learnt the value of making an effort... And I try not to fear embarassment anymore. I wasn't too bad at doing that on the weekend :-)
Our new friends from Austria, Daniel and Marlene, were just brilliant. We started off speaking in English, but at some stage early on, Daniel suggested we switch to German and we spoke for a few minutes while we waited for my wife to find parking. When she joined us, I switched back to English because she doesn't speak a lot of German. However, once we sat down at lunch, Daniel again said we should speak in German and just switched to it. My wife and Marlene had a long chat in English, and we had a long chat in German. It was really great. I felt as though I started slowly, with lots of pauses, trying to get shit sorted in my head, but as I relaxed more, I just started to let the words flow out of my mouth. Sometimes I had a feeling it was all just coming out as a stream of words, but Daniel would just nod and then ask a question which showed I was making myself somewhat understood. He also suggested small corrections along the way, as well as words I was missing. He could have corrected every mistake, but that wouldn't have been fun for either of us. I felt as though anything he said was just gold. It was a really fun, positive experience. My wife also enjoyed it (and even followed some of what Daniel was saying) and so I am sure we will be getting together again soon.
Unfortunately, I'm still quite time-poor, and they are also very busy (Marlene has taken on the mammoth task of studying for her Masters in English - very brave!), so I know it will never be really frequent practice (probably not even once a week) but anything is good. You take what you can get when you can't dedicate yourself to language learning fulltime! I think we'll all go for a bushwalk sometime.
I was quite happy with how it went. The conversation flowed fairly easily, though I did often find myself not quite sure of what Daniel was saying. He spoke natural German to me, so I will just need to get used to it, it's that simple!
My final "checkpoint" to note is that I looked at a rough guide for self-assessing your level on the CELRF scale, and I can see from that that I have a long way to go to get to B2! But I feel bolstered, I feel confident, and I know how to squeeze the most from each day to reach my target (along with doing everything else I need to in life!). Nothing can stop me now!
Roughly 4 months till my B2 test now...
Saturday, March 12, 2011
Lesson 100!
So, today's the day. I've now almost finished Lesson 100, the last lesson from Assimil's German with Ease. Happy times :-)
The question of how to proceed has cropped up. I originally intended to do no more book study, at least not in a general form like Assimil. I'm now thinking of getting the next book for German which, though it's in French, should still be very useful to me. I'm sure my French is good enough to make use of it. The target of that book is CELRF C1. My target exam would still be B2, but I always feel that you should aim past your target to land comfortably on the spot. I'll think about this a bit more in the next few days.
The only other purchase I had planned was to buy a book specifically to help with preparing for the B2 exam. This is still the plan, though I haven't ordered it yet.
In more social news, today my little family are going to meet some Austrians I contacted through CouchSurfing. I hope we find we have a lot in common so I can meet up with them on a regular basis for a bit of German speaking practice, and also to do some activities we can all enjoy on a semi-regular basis. A bit of social interaction in German is definitely past due!
So next update I'll be able to say how my first German conversation since leaving Germany has gone... And also that I've finished all the passive lessons in "German with Ease" which will be cause for celebration!
The question of how to proceed has cropped up. I originally intended to do no more book study, at least not in a general form like Assimil. I'm now thinking of getting the next book for German which, though it's in French, should still be very useful to me. I'm sure my French is good enough to make use of it. The target of that book is CELRF C1. My target exam would still be B2, but I always feel that you should aim past your target to land comfortably on the spot. I'll think about this a bit more in the next few days.
The only other purchase I had planned was to buy a book specifically to help with preparing for the B2 exam. This is still the plan, though I haven't ordered it yet.
In more social news, today my little family are going to meet some Austrians I contacted through CouchSurfing. I hope we find we have a lot in common so I can meet up with them on a regular basis for a bit of German speaking practice, and also to do some activities we can all enjoy on a semi-regular basis. A bit of social interaction in German is definitely past due!
So next update I'll be able to say how my first German conversation since leaving Germany has gone... And also that I've finished all the passive lessons in "German with Ease" which will be cause for celebration!
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
Mini-sprint update
First of all, I just noticed that the dates given for me posts match the Mountain View, California location of the blog provider and not my own timezone. For shame, Google!
OK, just kidding, I'm just sure it will confuse me as I look over it in the future. Anyway, after having finished off lesson 97 this morning, I managed to do active lesson 48 in some quiet time tonight. And then I decided that, since I don't get much quiet time anymore, I should push on a bit and I read both review lessons (the passive and active ones - lessons 98 and 49), so I'm currently up to lesson 99 (passive) and 50 (active).
Normally I would use the review lesson as a chance to re-listen to the last 6 lessons and review the audio, but since I'm so close to the end, and I'll doubtless review lessons at random once I've finished all the passive phase lessons, I decided to just read the notes and then push on. With any luck/dedication/focus, I might only be 2 days away from finishing the passive phase! Let's say, by the end of the week.
Ich müss gestehen, ich bin sehr froh, daß diese Unterrichten endlich fast vorbei sind!
OK, just kidding, I'm just sure it will confuse me as I look over it in the future. Anyway, after having finished off lesson 97 this morning, I managed to do active lesson 48 in some quiet time tonight. And then I decided that, since I don't get much quiet time anymore, I should push on a bit and I read both review lessons (the passive and active ones - lessons 98 and 49), so I'm currently up to lesson 99 (passive) and 50 (active).
Normally I would use the review lesson as a chance to re-listen to the last 6 lessons and review the audio, but since I'm so close to the end, and I'll doubtless review lessons at random once I've finished all the passive phase lessons, I decided to just read the notes and then push on. With any luck/dedication/focus, I might only be 2 days away from finishing the passive phase! Let's say, by the end of the week.
Ich müss gestehen, ich bin sehr froh, daß diese Unterrichten endlich fast vorbei sind!
Monday, March 7, 2011
How time flies!
Just when I thought I had been making faster than usual progress, it looks like I slipped back to my old pace without even realising :-)
Just now I finished lesson 97 (passive) and so hope to finish off lesson 48 (active) today. I thought my pace hadn't been too bad, but without realising it I've let almost 5 days pass since I last finished a lesson! In between was the weekend, and that's often a bad time for progress because I get very little time at home where it seems possible or appropriate to close out the world and finish a lesson. The thing is, when I shut myself away and focus, it really doesn't take much more than 30 minutes to make significant headway (I won't say I'm able to finish the lessons within half an hour always!).
Doesn't matter. That's the past. And I am happy to be this close - after this active lesson I'll be doing review lesson 98 and then I'll be on to the last TWO active lessons of the book. As the Bürgermeister said in der 97. Lektion - "hipp, hipp, hurra!"
Just now I finished lesson 97 (passive) and so hope to finish off lesson 48 (active) today. I thought my pace hadn't been too bad, but without realising it I've let almost 5 days pass since I last finished a lesson! In between was the weekend, and that's often a bad time for progress because I get very little time at home where it seems possible or appropriate to close out the world and finish a lesson. The thing is, when I shut myself away and focus, it really doesn't take much more than 30 minutes to make significant headway (I won't say I'm able to finish the lessons within half an hour always!).
Doesn't matter. That's the past. And I am happy to be this close - after this active lesson I'll be doing review lesson 98 and then I'll be on to the last TWO active lessons of the book. As the Bürgermeister said in der 97. Lektion - "hipp, hipp, hurra!"
Thursday, March 3, 2011
The clouds have lifted, and now it's pouring!
My progress of book lessons has been like a Sturzflut (flash-flood - not to be confused with a Sturmflut = storm surge :-) ) in the last day or two. I finished lesson 96 by this morning. For some reason I couldn't sleep and got up about an hour earlier than usual. However, since the traffic is significantly worse if I leave earlier, I decided to finish this lesson instead and just leave a little earlier than usual. I listened to it a few more times in the car, repeating it in german, and then repeating the english translations along just after the german-speakers. Then I switched over to the SBS radio german program for the last 20 minutes of the trip. I'm going to do my best to finish the active lesson (47) today as well, so I can start on the next passive lesson tomorrow.
It feels good to be making some faster progress. Completing the passive lessons in Assimil's "German with Ease" is one of my mini-goal milestones on the road to the B2 exam in July. Of course, July won't be the end of my german learning. As long as I keep using my german, I will keep learning all my life. I just don't have any plans to do more exams beyond B2 at this stage. If I ever need a formal qualification in german, I think B2 will be sufficient for all my possible purposes, and if I manage my other goal of fostering a few good friendships with germans in Australia, then I shouldn't need to work too hard *consciously* towards any specific goal in german.
In a way, this spurt of activity towards the end of something, following a short period quite close to the end where it all feels too hard, and like it's never going to happen, is much like how I get during long runs. I won't stretch the analogy too far, but often when I have less than 5% left, I just feel like I'm done, like I can't push myself anymore. And then when I know I'm a lot closer, I find much more energy and enthusiasm. Of course, I only do these runs for fun, so perhaps it's partially just a matter of not feeling the need to destroy myself every time I go for one :-) Is it the same with language learning? After all, I'm not competing against anyone but myself, and it's only really for fun. Maybe that explains my standard "5% malaise".
Whatever the case, with the fnishing line very much in sight, I've got my second wind :-)
It feels good to be making some faster progress. Completing the passive lessons in Assimil's "German with Ease" is one of my mini-goal milestones on the road to the B2 exam in July. Of course, July won't be the end of my german learning. As long as I keep using my german, I will keep learning all my life. I just don't have any plans to do more exams beyond B2 at this stage. If I ever need a formal qualification in german, I think B2 will be sufficient for all my possible purposes, and if I manage my other goal of fostering a few good friendships with germans in Australia, then I shouldn't need to work too hard *consciously* towards any specific goal in german.
In a way, this spurt of activity towards the end of something, following a short period quite close to the end where it all feels too hard, and like it's never going to happen, is much like how I get during long runs. I won't stretch the analogy too far, but often when I have less than 5% left, I just feel like I'm done, like I can't push myself anymore. And then when I know I'm a lot closer, I find much more energy and enthusiasm. Of course, I only do these runs for fun, so perhaps it's partially just a matter of not feeling the need to destroy myself every time I go for one :-) Is it the same with language learning? After all, I'm not competing against anyone but myself, and it's only really for fun. Maybe that explains my standard "5% malaise".
Whatever the case, with the fnishing line very much in sight, I've got my second wind :-)
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
The clouds are lifting...
So my slight malaise in German learning that I had to push myself through is lifting a bit. I've finished Assimil lesson 95 (passive) and lesson 46 (active). 95 is a good number, but 100 will be even better. My god, it's already March and I still haven't finished all the passive lessons!
Crazy laziness I say :-)
Not to worry. I feel like I'm making progress, and that's a good feeling...
I've been listening to the radio (Deutsche Welle) a lot more in the last few days too. During the day at work I listened to it for about half the day yesterday and today (the other half of those days was spent recharging my battery, which is particularly badly drained by listening to internet radio over wireless). I've even discovered that I can keep listening to the radio even when I walk into the bathroom, though it cuts out eventually. How's that for efficiency!
I haven't done any measurements, but it's feeling less and less like a foreign language. I usually understand the presenters reasonably well. At least, I hardly ever have a situation where I have no idea what they're talking about. Listening to it regularly helps - I've been keeping up to date with the German news stories lately - for example, the resignation of the Defence Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg. It was a lot easier to know what they were banging on about when he finally resigned and they went out into the streets to ask people what they thought. By the way, it might have just been my own opinion colouring my interpretation of what they said, but I think most people they interviewed on the street thought something similar to me - that it shows that he's possibly a dishonest person and in any case he probably should have left sooner.
I still don't have a plan with mini steps/goals in it in order to achieve my July goal of passing the B2 exam at the Goethe Institute. Nothing well thought out, anyway. One current "goal" is to make a few german friends in my local area and so be able to speak a lot more German. Just last night I made an approach to a couple on CouchSurfing who specifically mention in their "Teach/Learn/Share" section "Teach: German, Learn: English" which is cool. There are plenty of German-speakers near where I live on CouchSurfing, but I'm trying to be a bit selective. My point is not just to find someone to practice speaking German with. I've tried that before with French, and my penpal and I didn't have much to talk about really. I want to make German-speaking friends. It's important that we will want to do things together, because I'm married and have a young family, so I don't have a limitless supply of time in which to just meet up with random people. Fingers-crossed that they will get back to me soon.
Considering that my other main goal this year is getting back into shape (to make up for doing nothing last year due to freezing weather in Germany, and the birth of my first child), and that I have limited time available to be away from my family, I would really like to find a German-speaker who is also looking for a running partner. Perhaps unlikely, but I can dream...
One thing I plan on posting soon is a brief overview/review of the good work from Benny the Irish Polyglot. Clearly, since no one is reading this blog, I can safely say that the purpose is just to provide a summary of his main advice so far to help me organise it in my head. His main points are pretty simple, so it won't be a very long post I imagine.
Crazy laziness I say :-)
Not to worry. I feel like I'm making progress, and that's a good feeling...
I've been listening to the radio (Deutsche Welle) a lot more in the last few days too. During the day at work I listened to it for about half the day yesterday and today (the other half of those days was spent recharging my battery, which is particularly badly drained by listening to internet radio over wireless). I've even discovered that I can keep listening to the radio even when I walk into the bathroom, though it cuts out eventually. How's that for efficiency!
I haven't done any measurements, but it's feeling less and less like a foreign language. I usually understand the presenters reasonably well. At least, I hardly ever have a situation where I have no idea what they're talking about. Listening to it regularly helps - I've been keeping up to date with the German news stories lately - for example, the resignation of the Defence Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg. It was a lot easier to know what they were banging on about when he finally resigned and they went out into the streets to ask people what they thought. By the way, it might have just been my own opinion colouring my interpretation of what they said, but I think most people they interviewed on the street thought something similar to me - that it shows that he's possibly a dishonest person and in any case he probably should have left sooner.
I still don't have a plan with mini steps/goals in it in order to achieve my July goal of passing the B2 exam at the Goethe Institute. Nothing well thought out, anyway. One current "goal" is to make a few german friends in my local area and so be able to speak a lot more German. Just last night I made an approach to a couple on CouchSurfing who specifically mention in their "Teach/Learn/Share" section "Teach: German, Learn: English" which is cool. There are plenty of German-speakers near where I live on CouchSurfing, but I'm trying to be a bit selective. My point is not just to find someone to practice speaking German with. I've tried that before with French, and my penpal and I didn't have much to talk about really. I want to make German-speaking friends. It's important that we will want to do things together, because I'm married and have a young family, so I don't have a limitless supply of time in which to just meet up with random people. Fingers-crossed that they will get back to me soon.
Considering that my other main goal this year is getting back into shape (to make up for doing nothing last year due to freezing weather in Germany, and the birth of my first child), and that I have limited time available to be away from my family, I would really like to find a German-speaker who is also looking for a running partner. Perhaps unlikely, but I can dream...
One thing I plan on posting soon is a brief overview/review of the good work from Benny the Irish Polyglot. Clearly, since no one is reading this blog, I can safely say that the purpose is just to provide a summary of his main advice so far to help me organise it in my head. His main points are pretty simple, so it won't be a very long post I imagine.
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