Back from a break in my German studies...

A couple of weeks ago I was feeling overwhelmed. I seemed to have tracked down all sorts of good sources for German learning and material, I was listening to it as I drove, I was keeping up with my Anki reviews, and meeting up with my German-speaking friends.

But one day I realised that I felt like I was just spinning my wheels.

So, I decided to stop studying, stop worrying about Anki, and for the first week I didn't even listen to German as I drove around. I still met up with my German-speaking friends, but I didn't study. In the second week, I started listening again to German radio and podcasts as I drove, but still no other study, and I allowed myself to feel happy with not listening to German in every available moment.

Now, I must say that I really enjoy my German study time, but the break felt great. I managed to get through three books that have been calling to me on my shelf for quite some time now, waiting to be read. And I still had fun speaking German with my friends.

It allowed me to realise that I was unfocused precisely because I had so much available to me. This is a part-time project. I'm not throwing every minute I have into, nor will I ever. There's a lot of other stuff I also want to keep doing, including reading English books, training for some more upcoming events, spending time with my family, and even relaxing on occasion. And besides, I was making little headway through my study options due to my lack of progress.

My new rules/goals for study are:
* keep up with Anki (I have to catch up first, of course!). This isn't too much of a commitment once I'm caught up
* one source of study per week
* keep up my German conversations
* listen to German radio, podcasts and watch German TV whenever I feel like it and have a chance

I feel better about it already - like perhaps soon I'll be able to see my way through to the original goal of sitting the B2 exam! :-)

In the spirit of these new rules, I did some book study this morning. I did exercise 2 of Aufgabe 4 in Lesetraining B2. It was one of the types of exercise I seem to struggle with a lot - filling in the blank words in an article. I got 6 out of 10, and it didn't take long, so I was reasonably happy, actually. Most of the vocabulary felt very familiar, which is a big improvement over when I started!

Heading off now to meet my Austrian friends for our Thursday evening catchup.

bis nächsten Mal!

Podcast addiction...

I'm a bit of a latecomer to the podcast game, considering that I never saw the point in giving mp3's another name. Well, it's mp3 + RSS - how very Apple to name them i-something or pod-something.

Just recently, I discovered how useful RSS is for finding the latest episode in a series or the latest news. I used to like to listen to streaming radio, but I don't have access to it when I'm driving. Podcasts fix that problem Apart from a good selection on Deutsche Welle, I discovered dradio as well which has a good environment program and a really excellent science show (Wissenschaft in Brennpunkt). Links to their science show articles are here.

Of course, it's an addiction. There's only so much time available in a day to really focus on listening, after which it becomes background noise. I don't believe in passive listening, but I do leave it playing at times when I focused on other activities (especially at work) because I get a chance to focus every now and then, and I can take advantage of those little moments. I listen to good articles multiple times.

I did a little self-assessment recently, just on the basis of my own comfort level in certain activities, and I came up as B1 level for everything except speaking which was somehow B2. My speaking still feels pretty bad, so that doesn't leave much hope for everything else...