Just when I should be accelerating, I see that all my posts talk about "slow progress". Well, I don't want to break the mold yet, so here's another one on the same theme :-)
I finished lesson 10 in Perfectionnement Allemand yesterday and started listening to lesson 11, which is Heinrich Heine's poem "Loreley". This is something that I've really been looking forward to - some original texts in German by famous authors. I've flicked through the advanced Assimil courses for Spanish and French and they both seem to have more samples of famous authors than I see on a flick through the advanced German course, but at least the lessons have been pretty funny so far. That's as opposed to "New German With Ease" which is a lot of good things, but funny it ain't ("Haben Sie den von der Erbsen, Mohren und Tomaten gehört?").
I have had a go at some more fill-in-the-blanks style B2 exam questions, and they haven't gone well. This probably shows a few things - that I rely a lot on context, for example, to understand what's happening, but there's also a problem that even when I understood all the vocabulary in the sentence, and I knew the word that was the answer, it just didn't come to me.
So, two problems. The first I will work on by continuing my vocabulary work, but perhaps also by working on more composition in German - after all, the problem is one of finding a word to fill a need, which is somewhat similar to some parts of composition. The second problem will be helped by more composition (i.e., writing in German :-) ) but to supplement this I've decided to do some word puzzles in German, specifically crosswords - Kreuzworträtsel. Here is a website that has a daily crossword as well as others by category and more. And if you're looking for some nice easy ones to build up your confidence first (as I am!), there are ones targeted at children here. This one seems to be a nice example!
I wasted my opportunity at the Eurovision party turned. I did talk to Germans, but they said (to another non-native German speaker) that they wouldn't speak German because we wouldn't understand them, and I let that put me off. Waste! Anyway, maybe I'll meet them again.
I have done more writing in German lately to my Austrian friends as well as to a new Austrian person at my work who I will meet up with for lunch next week. There is also another native German speaker in the office that I'll seek out soon and try to spread my poor German around so that no one person has to suffer to great a burden :-)
Anyone else who has done the B2 exam or later (or anyone else!) who has other suggestions for how to prepare for fill-in-the-blanks questions, please leave them in the comments!
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