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!
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