A long time ago I posted about how I use Anki. I never really updated that in detail, but I ended up doing much less with it. I currently just use two decks - one I downloaded from the public lists (German Intermediate to Advanced) and one I am making myself. For the latter, I originally intended it would just be words I didn't know in Lesetraining B2, but lately I have been using it for basically all new words - when I'm reading the news, or listening to German radio, or when after I've had a conversation with my German-speaking friends. I've found that the words that I add myself stick much better. The public list I downloaded has a lot more words than my own (currently) but I often find that they don't stick very well because they are context-free and sometimes vague or contradictory to what I already know. Still, I kept going with this big list and recently finally got to the stage where I have no more new words to learn - it's all revising from here and MAN, does it go faster now. I find it no problem to revise both my lists within just 15 or so minutes spread throughout the day.
So I've realised something... When learning an Anki list for the first time, don't try to learn too many lists at the same time if you're time poor. You'll just end up doing badly at all of them. However, now that I've finished the initial phase of learning the list, I can see that I could easily start learning another list without the first one being too much of a cost time-wise.
Not that I plan to add more lists. I will just keep expanding my own list as I do more from Lesetraining, and learn more from conversations, radio, etc.
I am now past my original deadline, and am still in the phase of deciding on how to reach my goal now that I should have a good idea of what's left to achieve. One idea I toyed with was completing Perfectionnement Allemand after all, aiming to be at a book-learning level of C1, which would help push me into a higher confidence level for the B2 test, hopefully...
I resumed my Stammtisch at work this week after a couple of weeks without it, and I'll also hopefully resume my in-person German conversation classes with my Austrian friends this Thursday. Fingers crossed. I am looking to ramp up my studies again now that I've got a bit of a rhythm with my training for the City2Surf in mid-August!
Monday, July 18, 2011
Thursday, July 14, 2011
Ich will...
One of the best ever songs for revving up a crowd at the start of a concert just has to be Rammstein's "Ich will". But not only is it a great pumping song, it's also a veritable treasure trove of practice for your German grammar, viz:
Ich will eure Stimmen hören
Ich will die Ruhe stören
Ich will dass ihr mich gut seht
Ich will dass ihr mich versteht
You get to practice the less-used "ihr" forms of the verb and pronouns, as well as some honest-to-goodness word order practice. It just gets better and better too:
Seht ihr mich?
Versteht ihr mich?
Fühlt ihr mich?
Hört ihr mich?
Könnt ihr mich hören?
Wir hören dich
Könnt ihr mich sehen?
Wir sehen dich
Könnt ihr mich fühlen?
Wir fühlen dich
Ich versteh euch nicht
Fantastic! "Do you see me?" followed by "Can you see me?".
The song then finishes off with some practice for the "wir/uns" forms (we/us). I mean, what more could you ask for?
Seriously, if you haven't listened to Rammstein yet and you're learning German, it's time to get with the program. Start with "Ich will" and go from there :-)
Got any other favourite German music which you think is helpful for your German? Let us all know in the comments!
Ich will eure Stimmen hören
Ich will die Ruhe stören
Ich will dass ihr mich gut seht
Ich will dass ihr mich versteht
You get to practice the less-used "ihr" forms of the verb and pronouns, as well as some honest-to-goodness word order practice. It just gets better and better too:
Seht ihr mich?
Versteht ihr mich?
Fühlt ihr mich?
Hört ihr mich?
Könnt ihr mich hören?
Wir hören dich
Könnt ihr mich sehen?
Wir sehen dich
Könnt ihr mich fühlen?
Wir fühlen dich
Ich versteh euch nicht
Fantastic! "Do you see me?" followed by "Can you see me?".
The song then finishes off with some practice for the "wir/uns" forms (we/us). I mean, what more could you ask for?
Seriously, if you haven't listened to Rammstein yet and you're learning German, it's time to get with the program. Start with "Ich will" and go from there :-)
Got any other favourite German music which you think is helpful for your German? Let us all know in the comments!
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
Free online tests to assess your German level
In the last couple of days I've tried a couple of online tests to guage my current level. The first one I present here is actually a test to assess for readiness for the Deutsch als Fremdsprache test, which is a B2 level exam, often taken as an entry requirement for German universities. The test can be found here. Here is my result:
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The site says that the further you are into the blue section, the better your chances in the TestDaF. So... my chances would be low, but not terrible. Still, I'd much rather be hitting the top end of this scale before attempting the test!
The other test was from a pretty good website called Deutsch Perfekt. A fair bit of free stuff there, and practice exercises to suit three different levels. Their assessment test gives an indication of which level of material would be most suitable for you. For me it recommended the middle level and said I was somewhere around B1 level. As I wrote some time ago, I have already decided I would be able to pass the B1 exam. So either I'm going nowhere, or my progress has just been quite slow. I do definitely feel I've made progress, but it's not measurably at the next level up yet, unfortunately.
I really feel like B2 level is a significant step up from B1 in terms of fluency of speech and comprehension. Like I've mentioned before, you're supposed to understand most of what's going on in a German movie by B2, and I'm not there yet!
Ihr Ergebnis im Lückentest und Ihre Chancen beim TestDaF
Sie haben 19 Punkte erreicht.
The site says that the further you are into the blue section, the better your chances in the TestDaF. So... my chances would be low, but not terrible. Still, I'd much rather be hitting the top end of this scale before attempting the test!
The other test was from a pretty good website called Deutsch Perfekt. A fair bit of free stuff there, and practice exercises to suit three different levels. Their assessment test gives an indication of which level of material would be most suitable for you. For me it recommended the middle level and said I was somewhere around B1 level. As I wrote some time ago, I have already decided I would be able to pass the B1 exam. So either I'm going nowhere, or my progress has just been quite slow. I do definitely feel I've made progress, but it's not measurably at the next level up yet, unfortunately.
I really feel like B2 level is a significant step up from B1 in terms of fluency of speech and comprehension. Like I've mentioned before, you're supposed to understand most of what's going on in a German movie by B2, and I'm not there yet!
Wednesday, July 6, 2011
A chance encounter...
I recently had a chance encounter in a park which improved my confidence in German a little. I was playing with my daughter in our local park when a young girl came up and wanted to play on the see-saw too, so she climbed on board. Her dad came over and watched her and then a group of three women, busily chatting away loud enough for me to realise that it was obviously in German... Then the father also spoke a little German with his daughter.
Here was my chance...
When they went to the swings, after a little encouragement from my wife, my daughter and I went too, and as we were playing on the swings I decided to strike up a conversation with the father. I spoke to him in English first once, and then I said in German "So, you are all German, right?". He looked a little surprised, so it took him a second to switch to speaking German with me, but then we had a brief conversation about where he was from, where and when I started learning German, etc. He even made a comment about my German being good for the amount of time I had been learning it. All very brief and simple, and then his daughter was off to the next piece of play equipment :-)
The best part about it was just that I was very relaxed and starting speaking with him in German as though it's the most normal thing in the world. Which it is, of course, except that it has taken me a while to realise that! Even when I speak with my Austrian friends who are very friendly and supportive, before that meeting I was almost never relaxed and flowing, even when I was speaking about familiar things. The next evening I had another briliant class with Lene and I felt much more comfortable speaking in German, especially when it was about something familiar. I made more chit-chat and had less awkward moments where I stopped to think of what to say. It was a geniune step-change in my output. It hasn't become fluent at all, but I definitely have felt the change and it was a great feeling. It's hard to relax and let the words come out on their own, but I can feel that bit-by-bit my speaking is actually improving.
I'm sure I'll feel like I've gone backwards again sometime in the future, but hopefully I'll have had two steps forward by then!
Here was my chance...
When they went to the swings, after a little encouragement from my wife, my daughter and I went too, and as we were playing on the swings I decided to strike up a conversation with the father. I spoke to him in English first once, and then I said in German "So, you are all German, right?". He looked a little surprised, so it took him a second to switch to speaking German with me, but then we had a brief conversation about where he was from, where and when I started learning German, etc. He even made a comment about my German being good for the amount of time I had been learning it. All very brief and simple, and then his daughter was off to the next piece of play equipment :-)
The best part about it was just that I was very relaxed and starting speaking with him in German as though it's the most normal thing in the world. Which it is, of course, except that it has taken me a while to realise that! Even when I speak with my Austrian friends who are very friendly and supportive, before that meeting I was almost never relaxed and flowing, even when I was speaking about familiar things. The next evening I had another briliant class with Lene and I felt much more comfortable speaking in German, especially when it was about something familiar. I made more chit-chat and had less awkward moments where I stopped to think of what to say. It was a geniune step-change in my output. It hasn't become fluent at all, but I definitely have felt the change and it was a great feeling. It's hard to relax and let the words come out on their own, but I can feel that bit-by-bit my speaking is actually improving.
I'm sure I'll feel like I've gone backwards again sometime in the future, but hopefully I'll have had two steps forward by then!
Friday, July 1, 2011
The best language teacher I've ever had...
Given the current trend in language learning blogs, you might think this is one of those pap-psychology motivational posts that do the rounds. You might be expecting me to answer this question with "an iPad", "Book X", "blog X", "method X", or just "YOU".
Well... It's not.
The story of an ordinary person just learning language in a fairly ordinary way in his spare time as much as possible isn't really very interesting. At least, it's not particularly motivational.
No. This isn't a motivational.
Sometimes in life you just get lucky. In the case of my language learning, I was lucky enough that the first people I reached out to to practice German with were all lovely people and very helpful. In fact, the first 4 people. After that my luck started to wear thin.
As I mentioned earlier, I wrote to three people at my work to see if they would like to meet up for some German conversation at lunchtimes. One replied, and has been incredibly helpful and accomodating by meeting me once a week for the last few weeks. I got silence from the other two. I was never sure if they had received my email and decided not to reply, or just couldn't be bothered.
Well, a funny thing happened today while waiting for the lift. A co-worker started making idle conversation while we waited, and I asked him where his accent was from (just to be polite, and because it was quite weak). He said he was German, and I said "ahh, really, because I'm learning German at the moment". That was the point where we both realised that he was one of the silent Germans I wrote to! He made some funny excuse about being busy, etc, and I told him not to worry, it was totally optional anyway. I mean, I don't expect anything from other people. There is no obligation to help me, after all! Still, it was funny to watch him squirm a little :-)
After making his excuses for not replying, he then asked me rather pointedly "so why are you learning German?". I don't think he was particularly interested - more like he thought I was nuts. I asked him what was wrong with German to which he replied "oh nothing, I just find it strange." Fair enough :-)
I don't expect to be hearing back from him any time soon.
Anyway, on to my update. I haven't posted anything for a while, but I haven't done anything much either, so that's a nice balance. I did eventually finish lesson 16 in Perfectionnement Allemand and have now been on lesson 17 for a while. I listen to the audio for it along with a few other bits of German audio, but I haven't made much progress. I have in the back of my mind that I would like to add words from some previous lessons to my Anki review list, but that might just be an excuse. This week has been quite a poor weak for work most days due to my daughter being quite ill with the flu, with the intendent sleepless nights that caused for us.
HOWEVER, I did have my Stammtisch at work on Monday (which really felt like torture for her, and was therefore quite the confidence deflator for me), and then on Monday night I had my first structured lesson with my Austrian friends. No, I haven't decided to pay for lessons. It just so happens that one of the Austrian couple (Lene) offered to help me out during her university holidays, and I jumped at the chance!
So, I thought we would chat, maybe discuss some general preparation topics, etc. No. When I arrived at their apartment, Lene had prepared quite a lesson! She reviewed all of the email I had ever sent to her or her partner and marked up all of the mistakes. She had also bought a pair of textbooks for me, and printed out a bunch of grammatical notes for me. In addition, she had marked up the textbooks for the pages where my mistakes are explained.
To say I was shocked would be an understatement. A gross understatement. I WAS ASTOUNDED! And, I have to say it, I was a little ashamed because, of late, I have been in somewhat of a malaise and I haven't studied in a properly focused way. Certainly, in the time Lene put in to correct my emails and find references for the mistakes, I hadn't done much.
She also asked me when my exam was, and I had to explain, perhaps a little sheepishly, that I could organise it for any time, and my plan had been the middle of July (now THIS month), but that I felt too far from my goal. Lene and the Hof didn't judge me for my lack of commitment. Basically, this was one of those moments in life were you get lucky. I've had a few, but this is the best I've had in language learning.
So, I feel somewhat reinvigorated with my German. We invited our Austrian friends over for dinner last night, and I also had another lesson, and some chatting. So, this week I've had 3 lengthy conversations (+ 2 one-on-one tutoring sessions) in German. Pretty damn good!
Looking forward, I think I've realised that to hit my goal of the B2 exam I need to focus for a while on getting my grammatical knowledge really clear and formalised, and trying to apply that to better writing skills. My friends can tell me if this is getting better. From a definition of B2 level that I read recently, I should be able to understand German TV and movies to a reasonable extent to be at the required level. I don't get a lot of chances to practice this, but I will search out some German movies without subtitles and find some time for it. I should also be able to enjoy a novel in German, so perhaps this will replace some of my other learning activities. I'd like to make sure I always have something to listen to in during my commute to make use of this dead time, but perhaps that won't always include an Assimil lesson now.
I think in a couple more weeks I should be able to do an honest assessment of how much work I have left to achieve my goal, and so decide on a new timeframe. No point in sitting a test you know you will fail!
Well... It's not.
The story of an ordinary person just learning language in a fairly ordinary way in his spare time as much as possible isn't really very interesting. At least, it's not particularly motivational.
No. This isn't a motivational.
Sometimes in life you just get lucky. In the case of my language learning, I was lucky enough that the first people I reached out to to practice German with were all lovely people and very helpful. In fact, the first 4 people. After that my luck started to wear thin.
As I mentioned earlier, I wrote to three people at my work to see if they would like to meet up for some German conversation at lunchtimes. One replied, and has been incredibly helpful and accomodating by meeting me once a week for the last few weeks. I got silence from the other two. I was never sure if they had received my email and decided not to reply, or just couldn't be bothered.
Well, a funny thing happened today while waiting for the lift. A co-worker started making idle conversation while we waited, and I asked him where his accent was from (just to be polite, and because it was quite weak). He said he was German, and I said "ahh, really, because I'm learning German at the moment". That was the point where we both realised that he was one of the silent Germans I wrote to! He made some funny excuse about being busy, etc, and I told him not to worry, it was totally optional anyway. I mean, I don't expect anything from other people. There is no obligation to help me, after all! Still, it was funny to watch him squirm a little :-)
After making his excuses for not replying, he then asked me rather pointedly "so why are you learning German?". I don't think he was particularly interested - more like he thought I was nuts. I asked him what was wrong with German to which he replied "oh nothing, I just find it strange." Fair enough :-)
I don't expect to be hearing back from him any time soon.
Anyway, on to my update. I haven't posted anything for a while, but I haven't done anything much either, so that's a nice balance. I did eventually finish lesson 16 in Perfectionnement Allemand and have now been on lesson 17 for a while. I listen to the audio for it along with a few other bits of German audio, but I haven't made much progress. I have in the back of my mind that I would like to add words from some previous lessons to my Anki review list, but that might just be an excuse. This week has been quite a poor weak for work most days due to my daughter being quite ill with the flu, with the intendent sleepless nights that caused for us.
HOWEVER, I did have my Stammtisch at work on Monday (which really felt like torture for her, and was therefore quite the confidence deflator for me), and then on Monday night I had my first structured lesson with my Austrian friends. No, I haven't decided to pay for lessons. It just so happens that one of the Austrian couple (Lene) offered to help me out during her university holidays, and I jumped at the chance!
So, I thought we would chat, maybe discuss some general preparation topics, etc. No. When I arrived at their apartment, Lene had prepared quite a lesson! She reviewed all of the email I had ever sent to her or her partner and marked up all of the mistakes. She had also bought a pair of textbooks for me, and printed out a bunch of grammatical notes for me. In addition, she had marked up the textbooks for the pages where my mistakes are explained.
To say I was shocked would be an understatement. A gross understatement. I WAS ASTOUNDED! And, I have to say it, I was a little ashamed because, of late, I have been in somewhat of a malaise and I haven't studied in a properly focused way. Certainly, in the time Lene put in to correct my emails and find references for the mistakes, I hadn't done much.
She also asked me when my exam was, and I had to explain, perhaps a little sheepishly, that I could organise it for any time, and my plan had been the middle of July (now THIS month), but that I felt too far from my goal. Lene and the Hof didn't judge me for my lack of commitment. Basically, this was one of those moments in life were you get lucky. I've had a few, but this is the best I've had in language learning.
So, I feel somewhat reinvigorated with my German. We invited our Austrian friends over for dinner last night, and I also had another lesson, and some chatting. So, this week I've had 3 lengthy conversations (+ 2 one-on-one tutoring sessions) in German. Pretty damn good!
Looking forward, I think I've realised that to hit my goal of the B2 exam I need to focus for a while on getting my grammatical knowledge really clear and formalised, and trying to apply that to better writing skills. My friends can tell me if this is getting better. From a definition of B2 level that I read recently, I should be able to understand German TV and movies to a reasonable extent to be at the required level. I don't get a lot of chances to practice this, but I will search out some German movies without subtitles and find some time for it. I should also be able to enjoy a novel in German, so perhaps this will replace some of my other learning activities. I'd like to make sure I always have something to listen to in during my commute to make use of this dead time, but perhaps that won't always include an Assimil lesson now.
I think in a couple more weeks I should be able to do an honest assessment of how much work I have left to achieve my goal, and so decide on a new timeframe. No point in sitting a test you know you will fail!
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