Just found these when I was looking for help with writing a formal letter to cancel a phone contract in Germany. I plan on doing something I wouldn't have dreamed off while I actually lived there - I'm going to do the whole thing myself in German. Anyway, here's the resource which had a few good tips:
http://www.oxfordlanguagedictionaries.com/Public/PublicResources.html?direction=b-de-en&sp=S/oldo/resources/de/Writing_Letters_in_German.html
Looks like they've got one or two other German resources which I'll check out when I get some spare time. To their informal ways of signing a letter, I would add "(ganz) liebe Grüße" or just "Lg" as this is the way all my German speaking friends sign off in their letters. They are all Austrian, so perhaps this is a southern German thing.
Just one final note - today I did the online Goethe B2 test's written practice where you need to correct the mistakes in someone else's letter and got 8 out of 10. I plan on doing the writing practice questions in this section soon and asking my friends to make comments. Hopefully constructive ones!
Oh, and one really final thing - bad news on the speaking practice front. One of my Austrian friends will be too busy until mid-January to meet up so I'll need to keep up my practice with my workmate and also use the time to do more written type practice, which I also sorely need anyway...
I do think this should be the impetus for finding a new practice partner at my work - I'll reach out again and see what happens!
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
Friday, November 25, 2011
Goethe Zertifikat B2 Hörverstehen looking good!
In my last post I mentioned that I had tried Aufgabe 1 from the online Goethe Zertifikat B2 Hörverstehen test and I got 8 out of 10. I only listened to the audio once as per test conditions, so I was pretty happy. Today I did Aufgabe 2. I relistened to two of the segments. I understood them reasonably well, but I just wasn't able to figure out the right answer. I guess you could say that means I'm still not 100% there, and I would totally agree with that :-) Anyway, given that I listened twice to some segments (whereas in the real exam you would hear the whole thing once, and then each segment only once) I did at least get a good score: 13.5 out of 15 (that means 9 correct out of 10 questions). Ironically the only question I got wrong is one I changed after listening to the audio a second time. Let that be a lesson to me!
bis zum nächsten Mal!
bis zum nächsten Mal!
Wednesday, November 23, 2011
Grüße aus Deutschland!
Just a small post which I've meant to do previously. The Goethe Institut did a series a while ago under this name. It is targetted at A2->B1 level but I often find the interviews hard to understand, and although it seems targetted at high school language learners, I find the tweeness amusing and the format quite useful. Anyway, you can find all the text and audio here:
http://www.goethe.de/lrn/prj/gad/deindex.htm?wt_sc=gad
However, since they are not producing any new episodes, the RSS feed is no longer advertised, but after writing to the person responsible I was told that the feed is still available, so I figured I'd pass it on in case anyone else ever wanted it. I personally find it easier to use the podcast version since it just means selecting a different podcast within the same application on my phone as I drive home, and I could grab the whole lot at once without any fuss. You can find the RSS feed at:
http://media.goethe.de/
On a sidenote, just for the record, I did the first audio exercise in the online B2 sample exam from the Goethe Institut just a short while ago and got 8 out of 10. I lost 2 points on a question which required me to listen to a name being spelled out. I heard the name and immediately wrote out the spelling I thought it would be and so didn't pay proper attention to the actual spelling given. The mistake I made was to write a "v" instead of a "w" which is the sort of mistake I could make under pressure even if I was paying attention, so I'm glad I did the practice test!
http://www.goethe.de/lrn/prj/gad/deindex.htm?wt_sc=gad
However, since they are not producing any new episodes, the RSS feed is no longer advertised, but after writing to the person responsible I was told that the feed is still available, so I figured I'd pass it on in case anyone else ever wanted it. I personally find it easier to use the podcast version since it just means selecting a different podcast within the same application on my phone as I drive home, and I could grab the whole lot at once without any fuss. You can find the RSS feed at:
http://media.goethe.de/
On a sidenote, just for the record, I did the first audio exercise in the online B2 sample exam from the Goethe Institut just a short while ago and got 8 out of 10. I lost 2 points on a question which required me to listen to a name being spelled out. I heard the name and immediately wrote out the spelling I thought it would be and so didn't pay proper attention to the actual spelling given. The mistake I made was to write a "v" instead of a "w" which is the sort of mistake I could make under pressure even if I was paying attention, so I'm glad I did the practice test!
Some movies, some fairy tales, and some grammar drills...
Sorry the updates have been slow. I've been busy with a whole bunch of things, including a new job and renovations to my house.
The title says it all... Well, some of it. I've watched some (well, three) movies in German recently. Two had subtitles (The Downfall and Das Boot) and one didn't (Nowhere in Africa). It was cool to finally see that famous scene with correct subtitles. It's a brillilantly acted movie and really well put together. "Nowhere in Africa" (Nirgendwo in Afrika) had no subtitles which actually worked great while they were speaking German, but a good, solid third of the movie is in Swahili. Not having subtitles made these sections somewhat tricky to follow :-|
That was all a while ago now - maybe more than a month. I really should find some more to watch and get back into it, since it's something I really enjoyed. I've come to the conclusion that watching the movies without (English) subtitles is the best way to go because I can't stop myself reading them if they're available and they make my thought process switch back to English which breaks my flow of understanding.
After watching these movies, I went through my collection of DVDs for movies and TV shows and discovered that several of them offer either German subtitles or German language soundtracks, or both (some classic Monty Python movies and Fawlty Towers being amongst them). I don't know why it took me so long to think of this as a source of German content, but now that I have found them, and when I move back into my house (in a few weeks - after the renovations) I will find the time to watch some of them.
I still listen to German every day - downloaded podcasts mainly of the general news, and lots science news as well. And when I don't feel like doing that, I listen to Rammstein or Unheilig of course! One important thing to note is that you really need to concentrate to make this time worthwhile. The audio must have your attention, otherwise it's doing nothing.
As for fairy tales, well, my daughter was given a beautiful German-language edition of the Grimm Brothers' fairy tales and I've been reading them to her every few nights. She really seems to enjoy it which is pretty cool. I've also had a sneaky read of a few on my own. By and large, I understand them very well, but there is some unusual and old-fashioned language in fairy tales which, coupled with my only intermediate German, means that I don't understand every word, but I always understand every story pretty well and sometimes pretty much perfectly. Reassuring, since they're targetted at little kids!
As for grammar drills, I've worked through a few more questions in Lesetraining B2 (in fact, I just finished Aufgabe 4, question 4 and got 10/10 during my lunch break today and added some new words to my Anki list) as well as grammar drills from "German Grammar Drills". I don't consider this necessary for speaking confidently in the language at an early stage, but it's certainly helpful for polishing off the (very) rough edges and pretty much vital in preparing for the exam itself. I actually feel like my speaking has become more flowing as a result, probably because I feel more confident that I have reduced my more obvious errors. If you're at an intermediate level and haven't done much in the way of grammar drills so far, I highly recommend doing so.
One important change in the last one or two weeks is that I've been adding vocabulary at least every few days to my Anki list. To increase my vocabulary I really need to be learning new words every day. Sounds obvious, but unless I'm making a conscious effort to add new words to my Anki list, I'm really only in a holding pattern. However, when I do make this effort and get the words into my Anki list, I only have to make sure that I do the list every day to make sure I'm learning the new words properly and maintaining old words. New words come from everywhere - Lesetraining B2, Deutsche Welle articles, Der Spiegel, from podcasts or the SBS radio program. Speaking of Der Spiegel, if you're an intermediate learner I highly recommend it. I've been finding that I understand most of the vocabulary in the articles and can figure out most of the rest fairly easily. For some reason, I don't find all Deutsche Welle articles as easy to understand as the one that was the subject of my last post, but most Der Spiegel articles present few problems. And, of course, when I have the opportunity, I add unknown words to my Anki list.
And no, I haven't yet decided on when I'll do the B2 exam *sigh*. I should finish my preparatory books first I think at a minimum before I fork out the $230!
The title says it all... Well, some of it. I've watched some (well, three) movies in German recently. Two had subtitles (The Downfall and Das Boot) and one didn't (Nowhere in Africa). It was cool to finally see that famous scene with correct subtitles. It's a brillilantly acted movie and really well put together. "Nowhere in Africa" (Nirgendwo in Afrika) had no subtitles which actually worked great while they were speaking German, but a good, solid third of the movie is in Swahili. Not having subtitles made these sections somewhat tricky to follow :-|
That was all a while ago now - maybe more than a month. I really should find some more to watch and get back into it, since it's something I really enjoyed. I've come to the conclusion that watching the movies without (English) subtitles is the best way to go because I can't stop myself reading them if they're available and they make my thought process switch back to English which breaks my flow of understanding.
After watching these movies, I went through my collection of DVDs for movies and TV shows and discovered that several of them offer either German subtitles or German language soundtracks, or both (some classic Monty Python movies and Fawlty Towers being amongst them). I don't know why it took me so long to think of this as a source of German content, but now that I have found them, and when I move back into my house (in a few weeks - after the renovations) I will find the time to watch some of them.
I still listen to German every day - downloaded podcasts mainly of the general news, and lots science news as well. And when I don't feel like doing that, I listen to Rammstein or Unheilig of course! One important thing to note is that you really need to concentrate to make this time worthwhile. The audio must have your attention, otherwise it's doing nothing.
As for fairy tales, well, my daughter was given a beautiful German-language edition of the Grimm Brothers' fairy tales and I've been reading them to her every few nights. She really seems to enjoy it which is pretty cool. I've also had a sneaky read of a few on my own. By and large, I understand them very well, but there is some unusual and old-fashioned language in fairy tales which, coupled with my only intermediate German, means that I don't understand every word, but I always understand every story pretty well and sometimes pretty much perfectly. Reassuring, since they're targetted at little kids!
As for grammar drills, I've worked through a few more questions in Lesetraining B2 (in fact, I just finished Aufgabe 4, question 4 and got 10/10 during my lunch break today and added some new words to my Anki list) as well as grammar drills from "German Grammar Drills". I don't consider this necessary for speaking confidently in the language at an early stage, but it's certainly helpful for polishing off the (very) rough edges and pretty much vital in preparing for the exam itself. I actually feel like my speaking has become more flowing as a result, probably because I feel more confident that I have reduced my more obvious errors. If you're at an intermediate level and haven't done much in the way of grammar drills so far, I highly recommend doing so.
One important change in the last one or two weeks is that I've been adding vocabulary at least every few days to my Anki list. To increase my vocabulary I really need to be learning new words every day. Sounds obvious, but unless I'm making a conscious effort to add new words to my Anki list, I'm really only in a holding pattern. However, when I do make this effort and get the words into my Anki list, I only have to make sure that I do the list every day to make sure I'm learning the new words properly and maintaining old words. New words come from everywhere - Lesetraining B2, Deutsche Welle articles, Der Spiegel, from podcasts or the SBS radio program. Speaking of Der Spiegel, if you're an intermediate learner I highly recommend it. I've been finding that I understand most of the vocabulary in the articles and can figure out most of the rest fairly easily. For some reason, I don't find all Deutsche Welle articles as easy to understand as the one that was the subject of my last post, but most Der Spiegel articles present few problems. And, of course, when I have the opportunity, I add unknown words to my Anki list.
And no, I haven't yet decided on when I'll do the B2 exam *sigh*. I should finish my preparatory books first I think at a minimum before I fork out the $230!
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