Adding up the costs...

Just for the sake of it, I've decided to try to do a brief rundown of how much money I've spent on learning German so far. I'm very conscious of price in my studies. The question is not "how much do I need to spend?" but rather "why spend anything at all?"

The biggest cost for a lot of people in language learning could be their language courses, or private tutors. I've used both of these in the past for languages other than German and I was much less successful, despite as much calendar time passing, as well as a not insignificant amount of money passing out of my bank account! I felt as though I just needed to go to the class, put in the time there and with *assigned* homework, and one day I would know when I was ready. The secrets would be revealed to me, and I'd magically be able to read, write and speak with confidence.

Well, the magic never happened.

Now that I don't go to classes, I do something most days. Anki reviewing and listening to German podcasts being the two main daily activities. I get to speak about once a week at the moment, and I find the odd moment here or there to do some study-type activities. I've also met up with my new German-speaking friends both in and out of work, whenever that's been possible. But what I've done very little of is spend my hard-earned cash :-)

I've been lucky too to receive gifts from friends and family, and to get a few items on loan from my sister. I've listed these below as well. Which of them would I have bought myself? Probably none of them, though I appreciate all of them immensely. I do think that one of the books I received as a present is a really good confidence boost, if only in the sense of achievement I get from easily following the story (but still not understanding every single word!). I don't know what I would do about this in the future. Probably check out my local library to see what they have. I might try to buy some books second-hand as well wherever possible, though this can be quite hit and miss. Maybe I can just wait till I receive some more presents!

So, the tally. First the items I have bought (note that none of the links below are affiliate links):

• Lesetraining B2 - AU$25 delivered from The Book Depository.
• Perfectionnement Allemand ("Using German") by Assimil - AU$25 also from the Book Depository. This is without audio - with audio it's about $100. Unfortunately I couldn't stretch to this, but I was lucky enough to later find it second-hand.
• Das Parfum - the movie. Can't remember but it was pretty cheap (bought while in Germany). AU$10 at the most.
• Das Parfum - the book. Got it second-hand online (bought while in Germany) for about AU$10 as well.

And that's it so far. AU$70. The textbooks for a couple of levels of German at the Goethe Institute probably cost something like that.

I've been given the following as various kinds of presents or loans:

• Assimil's German with Ease, which I received as a going-away gift before I left for Germany. This was the start of it all for me really. Without this book, I don't think I would have lasted on this path for so long. I learnt reading, pronunciation, listening comprehension and grammar all at the same time in a way I could apply immediately through lots and lots of examples of native speakers. Just perfect!
• Grimm's Fairy Tales - actually a gift from our Austrian friends for my daughter's first birthday, but she needs some help reading it :-)
• Der Beobachter by Charlotte Linke, an author from where I lived in Germany (Frankfurt-am-Main). It's not the sort of thing that I would read in English (maybe I should start?), but then I think that can be a good thing some times. I decided not to be daunted by the enormous size of this book (600+ pages of story!) and just get started on it, and I'm now about page 107 or so. I think this is faster than I read the Lord of the Rings (in English!) the first time I tried, because I just hated Hobbits so much. Please, LOTR fans - don't kill me!
• Two other 600+ page novels. Haven't touched either of these yet.
• Two other children's books to read to my daughter. Have read these to my daughter already a couple of times. One of them is all about the noises animals make, which is pretty cool to know, really :-)
• Duden's Bildwörterbuch + some grammar books on loan from my sister. I've only ever really flicked through these.

Of course, much of my reading and listening comes from online - Der Spiegel, Deutsche Welle, etc. In fact, without the internet, I don't think I could make anywhere near the progress I've been able to without spending some more money on content. In the old days, it just wasn't that easy to get foreign language material for free. Possible yes, but not easy!

There might be something I've actually spent money on that's missing from this list, but I can't think of it at the moment. I'm going to try to keep my total expenditure (excluding the cost of the exam) to be below $100, which means I can't spend more than another $30. I'd really rather not even spend that :-)