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!
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