One big warning for anyone else looking for a book like Lesetraining B2 - it doesn't have any answers!! I can't find any, but I keep hoping I'm just missing them somehow! Unbelievable... [EDIT: The answers have been found! See this post for details] It'll still be useful though - I've decided to add vocabulary that I don't know to a new Anki list. The logic here is that although the vocabulary used in the B2 exam must be quite large, there is almost certainly a reasonably finite set of what they're able to use in any exam because it has to be fair and consistent to all past and future exam entrants. Actually, now that I've written that it seems both self-evident and nonsensical at the same time. Well, it makes sense to me!
As for "Perfectionnement Allemand", it looks and sounds great. I've listened to the first two lessons, but I haven't gone through with the text. I understood them all pretty much, but I need to read the notes, etc. As I mentioned right at the start, my French isn't great, but I think it'll do the trick, along with some amount of help from Google Translate, Linguee and perhaps some help from the forums on How To Learn Any Language where I've seen someone posting about using this course even though they speak no French. This is possible because the audio is ALL in the target language, though of course it helps massively if you can't understand the parallel translation :-)
One final note - I made a comment on someone's review of Assimil's "German With Ease" and they read my comment and actually amended their review to add an extra star! The reason I felt the need to comment was not that I think this book is the only way to learn German, but my experience with it has just been so positive compared to previous attempts (along with some very simple and very good advice from Benny the Irish Polyglot) that I just feel the need to share what I've learnt along the way. Here is what the original reviewer added to his review in response to my comments:
"April 2011 -
After having tried other German learning techniques, I believe the Assimil approach is one of the best. This method (like all methods) does require perseverance and patience, something I did not really appreciate when I first wrote this review. My comments about timing, etc. still stand, but can be overcome using things like an iPod (which makes it easier to pause and restart), or actually speaking over the audio after you have reviewed it or heard it a few times (see comments to this post from "Crno Srce", they are valuable)."
Since I now know that at least one other person in the world found the advice useful, I've reproduced the main part of it here:
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I do have some specific advice to address your issues. Definitely, listen to the audio. My "ideal" day (the way I was able to practice at the start) is to listen to the new lesson several times, trying to understand it as best I can, and guessing at the meanings of new words. Then I read the lesson + the translations several times while having breakfast, and also read it a few times out loud in German only. After that I would listen to the lesson on repeat on my mobile phone for my whole commute. I used to take public transport, so I would often be able to read along with the audio quite a lot, but I felt too self-conscious to repeat the lessons out loud. Now I have to commute by car, so I just listen to the audio on repeat and steal a few moments here and there at traffic lights to check what I'm hearing, or remind myself of the translation. The most important thing I do is that, after a few initial listenings, I repeat along with the actors at their speed. I start speaking just after they start, and I have to keep up, while also listening to the next few words. Of course, by this stage I know the lesson reasonably well from having read it and listened to it a fair bit, but it still requires being able to hear different words to what you're repeating. Still, it is VERY doable. The lessons get faster and more complex as you go along, but as long as I make sure I can repeat the lesson along with the actors without making mistakes, I never feel that I'm getting lost in later lessons. If you use a digital music player, you will probably find it easier to repeat specific sections of the text, which I sometimes do to practice a passage I find particularly difficult.
As for pronunciation, I basically never used the pronunciation guides for each lesson. Then again, because the text uses bold to indicate the stressed syllable, and German is so easy to pronounce once you know the writing rules and have heard the sounds a few times, you should be able to get a decent pronunciation just from reading. Of course, there's no substitute for listening to the audio and trying constantly to correct your pronunciation to match that of the actors (in particular, you won't know which vowel sounds are long and which are short just from reading the text). Also, listening to the current lesson on repeat allows you to use time when you can't read (driving, exercising, washing the dishes :-), etc).
As for pronunciation, I basically never used the pronunciation guides for each lesson. Then again, because the text uses bold to indicate the stressed syllable, and German is so easy to pronounce once you know the writing rules and have heard the sounds a few times, you should be able to get a decent pronunciation just from reading. Of course, there's no substitute for listening to the audio and trying constantly to correct your pronunciation to match that of the actors (in particular, you won't know which vowel sounds are long and which are short just from reading the text). Also, listening to the current lesson on repeat allows you to use time when you can't read (driving, exercising, washing the dishes :-), etc).
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More updates to come, in German in the future...
the Lösungen for the lesetraining b2 was very helpful!
ReplyDeletei have searched it the entire day. Luckily, i read your diaries, and found it there.
thank you! now, i can continue to finish it without doubts of my answers!lol��
Glad I could help! Good luck with your studies!
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