Thursday, December 4, 2014
Finally! Good Spoken Examples for Goethe Zertifikat Exams
I'm back from the dead to drop a quick note about some videos that appeared on youtube recently - examples of every level of the Goethe Zertifikat from A1 to C2! Previously I could find A1 and C2, so it'll be helpful for other readers to watch these videos and get an idea of what a good speaker at that level sounds like. I was very impressed with the B2 speakers. While I can't watch my own video of the spoken part of the exam (Schade!) for comparison, I think the two women in the video speak very fluently and respond quite well. I would like to think that my accent was/is better, but I haven't listened to myself speak for a long time. I think they probably are more fluent sounding than I was, and I got quite a good score in that section of the exam, so don't lose heart if they seem a lot better than you. They're pretty damn good! :-)
So, without further ado, here are the videos for the Goethe exams:
A1
A2
B1 and this one.
B2
C1
C2
And a final one for the telc Deutsch B2 here!
Thursday, February 6, 2014
The Greater Wonder by Thomas Glavinic (Translation of previous post)
As promised, I've decided to do a loose translation of my previous post, a review of Das grössere Wunder. I haven't re-read my previous post yet so I'm sure I'll noticed plenty of problems but I'll try to ignore them for now or I'll spend my whole life correcting my past mistakes :-)
Before you read my translation, I thought I'd include this review of the book I found on youtube by a bookseller who considers it to have been the book of the year for 2013. I found her enthusiasm contagious and also her high speed speech a bit challenging, so I may include a transcribed and translated snippet at some stage in the future of the bit I found the hardest. Anyway, here's her review:
Enthusiastic review from a German bookseller
As a checkpoint update before my translated review, I'm up to page 218. I think that means my average is about 10 pages a day which is a pretty slow way to read a 526 page book, but considering my limited time and the fact that I read quite slowly in English often, it's not that bad :-) I wouldn't mind finding some time to read big chunks of it at once though! And besides, the on again, off again way I read Der Beobachter meant that it took me more than a year to finish, so 2 months for this doesn't seem all that bad!
What follows is my (rough) translation which also covers up some of the original's mistakes. Don't rely on my German too much for your own learning!
***
Hello dear reader!
Today I'm trying out something new. I've decided that I have to spend more time "in German". The best place to start is here in my blog.
Well, as I mentioned earlier, I'm currently reading a very interesting and well-written book called "das grössere Wunder" (The Greater Wonder). I've only reached page 193, so this review has to be short.
On the whole the book is a story of a man and his youth. Right from the start we're in a chaotic scene at Mt Everest basecamp. The first two sentences set the mood for the first chapter:
"Yesterday stood clearly in front of him, the Present faded, dissolved, ethereal and consumed. The first corpse was carried past his tent, covered in a makeshift fashion with a tarpaulin which flapped in the wind."
I have to admit that already at this point I got a big shock because I didn't know two words in the first sentence! I was unclear about "Soeben" although it was obviously in contrast to "Yesterday". Also, the meaning of "zerfließen" wasn't coming to me. Terrible beginning! However, I just searched through a couple of word frequency lists and either haven't found the words, or [only] in the second half of a list containing 10,000 words. Here are a couple of word-frequency lists:
Taken from movie subtitles
Taken from who knows where
I read on anyway, and I'm really glad I did! In the early chapters I found everything to be a little improbably, and there were dialogues which didn't really ring true. I forgot to keep any examples, but it doesn't matter. The more I read the better I felt about it. The writing style is easy to read, even if I still lack a few words, and it is possessed [strange choice of phrase!] by a subtile, understated humour. And THANK GOD because there's also a lot of violence in it! In contrast to the things which I found improbable, I have kept a good example of the humour! On the 188th page can be found a scene in which the main character (named "Jonas") is recovering at basecamp after a health scare and his friend Marc takes him to a doctor who Marc recommends. The doctor has just taken blood from Jonas in order to check his "blood sats" [basically, to determine how well his body is absorbing oxygen at the high altitude] and is talking about the health risks at 7,000 metres, and whether people can recognise the signs [originally "Weise" here which makes no sense - hopefully "Zeichen" makes more sense now!] themselves:
"Two Australians arrived yesterday, who've already climbed up further today. Either they are lucky and notice it themselves in time, how lousy they're feeling - and by God will they feel lousy - or they spend the next thousand years up there. Now a band-aid so the kid doesn't have to cry. There. Be right back."
The doctor disappeared into the tent next door.
"Good guy", said Marc quietly. "A gifted doctor and a strange old codger. Even had the plague once."
"He doesn't appear to be so old."
"No, seriously."
"He had the plague?"
"Yeah, almost died from it."
"Where do you get the plague?"
"No idea. Some rats, perhaps??"
Don't know why I liked this scene so much. Just did.
That's it for today. I hope that I'll find the time to translate this post [I DID!]. In the meantime you can do it for yourselves!
I'm looking forward to your comments. Bye!
***
Before you read my translation, I thought I'd include this review of the book I found on youtube by a bookseller who considers it to have been the book of the year for 2013. I found her enthusiasm contagious and also her high speed speech a bit challenging, so I may include a transcribed and translated snippet at some stage in the future of the bit I found the hardest. Anyway, here's her review:
Enthusiastic review from a German bookseller
As a checkpoint update before my translated review, I'm up to page 218. I think that means my average is about 10 pages a day which is a pretty slow way to read a 526 page book, but considering my limited time and the fact that I read quite slowly in English often, it's not that bad :-) I wouldn't mind finding some time to read big chunks of it at once though! And besides, the on again, off again way I read Der Beobachter meant that it took me more than a year to finish, so 2 months for this doesn't seem all that bad!
What follows is my (rough) translation which also covers up some of the original's mistakes. Don't rely on my German too much for your own learning!
***
Hello dear reader!
Today I'm trying out something new. I've decided that I have to spend more time "in German". The best place to start is here in my blog.
Well, as I mentioned earlier, I'm currently reading a very interesting and well-written book called "das grössere Wunder" (The Greater Wonder). I've only reached page 193, so this review has to be short.
On the whole the book is a story of a man and his youth. Right from the start we're in a chaotic scene at Mt Everest basecamp. The first two sentences set the mood for the first chapter:
"Yesterday stood clearly in front of him, the Present faded, dissolved, ethereal and consumed. The first corpse was carried past his tent, covered in a makeshift fashion with a tarpaulin which flapped in the wind."
I have to admit that already at this point I got a big shock because I didn't know two words in the first sentence! I was unclear about "Soeben" although it was obviously in contrast to "Yesterday". Also, the meaning of "zerfließen" wasn't coming to me. Terrible beginning! However, I just searched through a couple of word frequency lists and either haven't found the words, or [only] in the second half of a list containing 10,000 words. Here are a couple of word-frequency lists:
Taken from movie subtitles
Taken from who knows where
I read on anyway, and I'm really glad I did! In the early chapters I found everything to be a little improbably, and there were dialogues which didn't really ring true. I forgot to keep any examples, but it doesn't matter. The more I read the better I felt about it. The writing style is easy to read, even if I still lack a few words, and it is possessed [strange choice of phrase!] by a subtile, understated humour. And THANK GOD because there's also a lot of violence in it! In contrast to the things which I found improbable, I have kept a good example of the humour! On the 188th page can be found a scene in which the main character (named "Jonas") is recovering at basecamp after a health scare and his friend Marc takes him to a doctor who Marc recommends. The doctor has just taken blood from Jonas in order to check his "blood sats" [basically, to determine how well his body is absorbing oxygen at the high altitude] and is talking about the health risks at 7,000 metres, and whether people can recognise the signs [originally "Weise" here which makes no sense - hopefully "Zeichen" makes more sense now!] themselves:
"Two Australians arrived yesterday, who've already climbed up further today. Either they are lucky and notice it themselves in time, how lousy they're feeling - and by God will they feel lousy - or they spend the next thousand years up there. Now a band-aid so the kid doesn't have to cry. There. Be right back."
The doctor disappeared into the tent next door.
"Good guy", said Marc quietly. "A gifted doctor and a strange old codger. Even had the plague once."
"He doesn't appear to be so old."
"No, seriously."
"He had the plague?"
"Yeah, almost died from it."
"Where do you get the plague?"
"No idea. Some rats, perhaps??"
Don't know why I liked this scene so much. Just did.
That's it for today. I hope that I'll find the time to translate this post [I DID!]. In the meantime you can do it for yourselves!
I'm looking forward to your comments. Bye!
***
Wednesday, February 5, 2014
Das grössere Wunder von Thomas Glavinic: eine kleine Rezension
Hallo liebe Leserinnen/Leser!
Heute probiere ich etwas neues aus. Ich habe beschlossen, dass ich muss mehr Zeit auf Deutsch verbringen. Hier im Blog ist der beste Ort damit anzufangen.
Also, als ich früher erwähnt habe, ich lese im Moment ein sehr interessantes, gut geschriebenes Buch, das heißt Das grössere Wunder. Ich habe nur bis zur 193en Seite erreicht, deshalb muss diese Rezension kurz sein.
Es ist im Großen und Ganzen die Geschichte eines Manns und seiner Kindheit. Gleich am Anfang sind wir in einer chaotischen Szene im Basislager von Mt Everest. Die zwie ersten Sätze stellen die Stimmung für den ersten Kapitel:
"Das Gestern stand klar vor ihm, das Soeben schwand, zerfloss, ungreifbar und verbraucht.
An seinem Zelt wurde der erste Leichnam vorbeigetragen, notdürftig bedeckt mit einer im Wind flatternden Plane."
Ich muss ja zugeben, dass gleich an diesem Punkt hatte ich schreckliche Angst, weil es im ersten Satz zwei Wörter fehlt! Soeben war mir unklar, obwohl es offensichtlich im Gegenteil zum "Gestern" stand. Dazu auch die bedeutung von zerfließen fällt mir nicht ein. Grauhafter Anfang! Ich habe aber gerade durch ein paar Worthäufigkeitlisten gesucht und habe entweder die Wörter nicht gefunden, oder in der zweiten Hälfte einer 10.000 Wörter beinhaltenden Liste. Hier gibt's ein paar Worthäufigkeitlisten:
Von Filmuntertiteln genommen
Von woher bloß weiß ich genommen
Ich habe trotzdem weiter gelesen, und da bin ich froh darüber! In den früheren Kapiteln fand ich alles ein bisschen unwahrscheinlich, und es gab Dialoge die nicht wirklich echt klang. Ich habe vergessen Beispiele zu halten, aber macht nichts. Umso mehr ich gelesen habe, desto besser ging es mir. Der Schreibstil ist leicht zu lesen, sogar wenn mir noch ein paar Wörte fehlen, und besessen von einem subtilen, untertrieben Humor. UND GOTT SEI DANK, weil eine Menge Gewalt steht auch da drin! Im gegensatz zu die Unwahrscheinlichkeiten, habe ich für den Humor einen guten Beispiel beibehalten! An der 188en Seite lass sich es finden eine Szene, in der die Hauptfigur (namens Jonas) erholt sich im Basislager nach einem Gesundheitsschrecken und sein Freund Marc ihn zu einem von Marc vorgeschlagenen Arzt bringt. Der Arzt hat gerade von Jonas blut genommen, um eine Blutsättigungswerte zu bestimmen, und redet über den gesundheitlichen Gefahr auf 7000 Metern und ob Leute die Zeichen selbst erkennen können:
"Gestern sind zwei Australier angekommen, die heute gleich weiter aufgestiegen sind. Entweder sie haben Glück und merken selbst rechtzeitig, wie mies es ihnen geht - und es wird ihnen bei Gott mies gehen -, oder sie verbrigen die nächsten tausend Jahre da oben. Ein Pflaster noch, damit das Kind nicht weinen muss. So. Bin gleich zurück."
Der Arzt verschwand im Zelt nebenan.
"Guter Kerl", sagte Marc leise. "Begnadeter Arzt und komischer Kauz. Hat schon die Pest gehabt."
"So alt wirkt er aber auch wieder nicht."
"Nein, im Ernst."
"Er hat die Pest gehabt?"
"Ja, fast wäre er dran gestorben."
"Wo kriegt man denn die Pest?"
"Keine Ahnung. Irgendwelche Ratten vielleicht?"
Weiss nicht genau, warum mir diese Szene so gut gefallen ist. Es ist nur so.
Das war's für heute. Ich hoffe, dass ich die Zeit finde, um dieses Post zu übersetzen. Inzwischen könnt ihr euch selbst machen!
Ich freue mich auf eure Kommentare! Tschüß!
Heute probiere ich etwas neues aus. Ich habe beschlossen, dass ich muss mehr Zeit auf Deutsch verbringen. Hier im Blog ist der beste Ort damit anzufangen.
Also, als ich früher erwähnt habe, ich lese im Moment ein sehr interessantes, gut geschriebenes Buch, das heißt Das grössere Wunder. Ich habe nur bis zur 193en Seite erreicht, deshalb muss diese Rezension kurz sein.
Es ist im Großen und Ganzen die Geschichte eines Manns und seiner Kindheit. Gleich am Anfang sind wir in einer chaotischen Szene im Basislager von Mt Everest. Die zwie ersten Sätze stellen die Stimmung für den ersten Kapitel:
"Das Gestern stand klar vor ihm, das Soeben schwand, zerfloss, ungreifbar und verbraucht.
An seinem Zelt wurde der erste Leichnam vorbeigetragen, notdürftig bedeckt mit einer im Wind flatternden Plane."
Ich muss ja zugeben, dass gleich an diesem Punkt hatte ich schreckliche Angst, weil es im ersten Satz zwei Wörter fehlt! Soeben war mir unklar, obwohl es offensichtlich im Gegenteil zum "Gestern" stand. Dazu auch die bedeutung von zerfließen fällt mir nicht ein. Grauhafter Anfang! Ich habe aber gerade durch ein paar Worthäufigkeitlisten gesucht und habe entweder die Wörter nicht gefunden, oder in der zweiten Hälfte einer 10.000 Wörter beinhaltenden Liste. Hier gibt's ein paar Worthäufigkeitlisten:
Von Filmuntertiteln genommen
Von woher bloß weiß ich genommen
Ich habe trotzdem weiter gelesen, und da bin ich froh darüber! In den früheren Kapiteln fand ich alles ein bisschen unwahrscheinlich, und es gab Dialoge die nicht wirklich echt klang. Ich habe vergessen Beispiele zu halten, aber macht nichts. Umso mehr ich gelesen habe, desto besser ging es mir. Der Schreibstil ist leicht zu lesen, sogar wenn mir noch ein paar Wörte fehlen, und besessen von einem subtilen, untertrieben Humor. UND GOTT SEI DANK, weil eine Menge Gewalt steht auch da drin! Im gegensatz zu die Unwahrscheinlichkeiten, habe ich für den Humor einen guten Beispiel beibehalten! An der 188en Seite lass sich es finden eine Szene, in der die Hauptfigur (namens Jonas) erholt sich im Basislager nach einem Gesundheitsschrecken und sein Freund Marc ihn zu einem von Marc vorgeschlagenen Arzt bringt. Der Arzt hat gerade von Jonas blut genommen, um eine Blutsättigungswerte zu bestimmen, und redet über den gesundheitlichen Gefahr auf 7000 Metern und ob Leute die Zeichen selbst erkennen können:
"Gestern sind zwei Australier angekommen, die heute gleich weiter aufgestiegen sind. Entweder sie haben Glück und merken selbst rechtzeitig, wie mies es ihnen geht - und es wird ihnen bei Gott mies gehen -, oder sie verbrigen die nächsten tausend Jahre da oben. Ein Pflaster noch, damit das Kind nicht weinen muss. So. Bin gleich zurück."
Der Arzt verschwand im Zelt nebenan.
"Guter Kerl", sagte Marc leise. "Begnadeter Arzt und komischer Kauz. Hat schon die Pest gehabt."
"So alt wirkt er aber auch wieder nicht."
"Nein, im Ernst."
"Er hat die Pest gehabt?"
"Ja, fast wäre er dran gestorben."
"Wo kriegt man denn die Pest?"
"Keine Ahnung. Irgendwelche Ratten vielleicht?"
Weiss nicht genau, warum mir diese Szene so gut gefallen ist. Es ist nur so.
Das war's für heute. Ich hoffe, dass ich die Zeit finde, um dieses Post zu übersetzen. Inzwischen könnt ihr euch selbst machen!
Ich freue mich auf eure Kommentare! Tschüß!
Tuesday, February 4, 2014
Ideas for learning languages from some Ted talks
This post is a reall brief one just to summarise the main points from 2 TEDx talks about language learning. You can watch the talks at the links below, but these super brief summaries are here to help if you don't have much time :-) Notice there is some overlap in the ideas of the two speakers, Sid Efromovich and Chris Lonsdale. My (few) comments are in [] in italics. Let us all know your own thoughts in the comments below!
Sid Efromovich
Rule 1: Get things wrong - make mistakes.
Rule 2: Use own scheme to record phonology [Learning IPA is better really]
Rule 3: Find a stickler who won't let you get away with mistakes. They need to feel comfortable correcting you.
Rule 4: Shower conversations. He points out that you can have these conversations anywhere. You practice both sides of a conversation which helps with issues like knowing how to ask a question but not know how to answer it. If you find you don't know how to answer, you will figure it out and then practice again.
Rule 5: Buddy formula - find people to speak with.
Chris Lonsdale - become fluent in any language in 6 months
Myths:
5 Principles:
1) Attention, meaning, relevance and memory are interconnected in important ways
2) Use your language as a tool to communicate from Day 1
3) When you first understand the message then you will unconsciously acquire the language.
4) Language learning is not about accumulating knowledge - it's a physiological process. If your face doesn't hurt at the end of a session of practicing speaking, you're not doing it right!
5) Psycho-physiological state matters: Being in a happy, relaxed state matters. You need to learn to tolerate ambiguity!
7 Actions:
1) Listen a lot. Brain soaking. Put yourself in a context to hear tonnes of the languages to hear patterns and rhythms.
2) Get the action before you get the words. Read the body language to understand as much as possible before you know everything. Use patterns you already know from known language.
3) Get mixing. 10 verbs * 10 adjectives * 10 nouns = 1000 sentences.
4) Focus on the core. This means focusing on high-frequency content. 1000 words in English covers 85% of daily conversation, 3000 words covers 98% of daily conversation.
Week 1 - the toolbox: "What is this?", "How do you say?", "I don't understand", "Can you repeat that please?" - all in your target language.
Week 2 - "you, that, me, give, hot"
Week 3 - Glue words: "although, but, therefore". At that point you're talking.
5) Get yourself a language parent. They will use simple language with you and put up with your faults to help you move on. NO SPOUSES!
Rule 1: They will work hard to understand you even if you are way off-target.
Rule 2: Does not correct your mistakes.
Rule 3: Confirms understanding by using correct language.
Rule 4: Uses words the learner knows.
6) Copy the face. You have to get the muscles working right. You need to hear how it feels and feel how it sounds to have a feedback loop. If you can watch a native speaker and subconsciously absorb the facial patterns.
7) Direct connect to mental images. Don't make lists of words to connect to words in your native language - connect to pictures. [Not a bad idea for those few hundred concepts that have clear images but I've always found that (a) there are tonnes of words that are necessary for basic reading and listening, let alone an adult ability to express oneself, that are just basically impossible to use images for. Fire is an easy one to visualise, but what about showing the distinction between such simple concepts as "tears" and "crying" or "distraught" or even "grief", and I often find myself trying to remember between the multiple possible meanings of an image, which pretty much defeats the purpose, and (b) because this worked so well for Rosetta Stone. Of course, this is probably generally intended for beginners and those concepts should be a bit easier to distinguish although there can be confusion amongst images for even simple things like the prepositions. The suggestion for more advanced learners who prefer not to use their own language for initial support is to write definitions for new words in terms of words you already know in the target language. The flaw here is that it might not lead to much precision but it's an option. When I get a chance again to learn a new language I will try some of these ideas for sure, although it sometimes seems like trying to build an arch using only the stones already in the arch as opposed to using support stones first and then removing them one by one as it becomes possible :-) ].
Sid Efromovich
Rule 1: Get things wrong - make mistakes.
Rule 2: Use own scheme to record phonology [Learning IPA is better really]
Rule 3: Find a stickler who won't let you get away with mistakes. They need to feel comfortable correcting you.
Rule 4: Shower conversations. He points out that you can have these conversations anywhere. You practice both sides of a conversation which helps with issues like knowing how to ask a question but not know how to answer it. If you find you don't know how to answer, you will figure it out and then practice again.
Rule 5: Buddy formula - find people to speak with.
Chris Lonsdale - become fluent in any language in 6 months
Myths:
- Talent is important.
- Immersion is necessary.
5 Principles:
1) Attention, meaning, relevance and memory are interconnected in important ways
2) Use your language as a tool to communicate from Day 1
3) When you first understand the message then you will unconsciously acquire the language.
4) Language learning is not about accumulating knowledge - it's a physiological process. If your face doesn't hurt at the end of a session of practicing speaking, you're not doing it right!
5) Psycho-physiological state matters: Being in a happy, relaxed state matters. You need to learn to tolerate ambiguity!
7 Actions:
1) Listen a lot. Brain soaking. Put yourself in a context to hear tonnes of the languages to hear patterns and rhythms.
2) Get the action before you get the words. Read the body language to understand as much as possible before you know everything. Use patterns you already know from known language.
3) Get mixing. 10 verbs * 10 adjectives * 10 nouns = 1000 sentences.
4) Focus on the core. This means focusing on high-frequency content. 1000 words in English covers 85% of daily conversation, 3000 words covers 98% of daily conversation.
Week 1 - the toolbox: "What is this?", "How do you say?", "I don't understand", "Can you repeat that please?" - all in your target language.
Week 2 - "you, that, me, give, hot"
Week 3 - Glue words: "although, but, therefore". At that point you're talking.
5) Get yourself a language parent. They will use simple language with you and put up with your faults to help you move on. NO SPOUSES!
Rule 1: They will work hard to understand you even if you are way off-target.
Rule 2: Does not correct your mistakes.
Rule 3: Confirms understanding by using correct language.
Rule 4: Uses words the learner knows.
6) Copy the face. You have to get the muscles working right. You need to hear how it feels and feel how it sounds to have a feedback loop. If you can watch a native speaker and subconsciously absorb the facial patterns.
7) Direct connect to mental images. Don't make lists of words to connect to words in your native language - connect to pictures. [Not a bad idea for those few hundred concepts that have clear images but I've always found that (a) there are tonnes of words that are necessary for basic reading and listening, let alone an adult ability to express oneself, that are just basically impossible to use images for. Fire is an easy one to visualise, but what about showing the distinction between such simple concepts as "tears" and "crying" or "distraught" or even "grief", and I often find myself trying to remember between the multiple possible meanings of an image, which pretty much defeats the purpose, and (b) because this worked so well for Rosetta Stone. Of course, this is probably generally intended for beginners and those concepts should be a bit easier to distinguish although there can be confusion amongst images for even simple things like the prepositions. The suggestion for more advanced learners who prefer not to use their own language for initial support is to write definitions for new words in terms of words you already know in the target language. The flaw here is that it might not lead to much precision but it's an option. When I get a chance again to learn a new language I will try some of these ideas for sure, although it sometimes seems like trying to build an arch using only the stones already in the arch as opposed to using support stones first and then removing them one by one as it becomes possible :-) ].
Saturday, January 25, 2014
Der Erlkönig by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - a parallel translation
I don't know how, but somehow I missed this a long time ago - I made a parallel translation of "Der Erlkönig" by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe which I did in April last year. I also found some free audio of it. Here they are:
My own loose parallel translation
The audio on youtube
To get the audio as an mp3, I just use RealPlayer. It has a plugin that lets you download streamed videos from youtube and you can then extract the mp3. Easy :-)
I didn't put much effort into the translation so don't base your exam preparation on my vocabulary choices! Comment below if you find any issues.
My preparations for what I plan to do in trying to achieve the C2 level exam by the start of next year have not really got started very well. I know I really need to speak German every day, but that certainly hasn't happened yet and the year is almost 1 month down. I have a few plans of attack on this problem which I will discuss more in my future posts.
I'm currently reading a new German book after reading one of the several books in English which I got for my birthday and Christmas (both around the same time). This book was lent to me by my Austrian friend at work. Called das größere Wunder, it is written by an Austrian author but set all over the world. I've had it for a couple of weeks and am about 10% of the way through it. I'll try to pick up the pace a bit! I'll write some more thoughts about it soon as it was a bit of a shock to me in some ways and a great test for my current abilities helping to show me the way to some improvements.
My own loose parallel translation
The audio on youtube
To get the audio as an mp3, I just use RealPlayer. It has a plugin that lets you download streamed videos from youtube and you can then extract the mp3. Easy :-)
I didn't put much effort into the translation so don't base your exam preparation on my vocabulary choices! Comment below if you find any issues.
My preparations for what I plan to do in trying to achieve the C2 level exam by the start of next year have not really got started very well. I know I really need to speak German every day, but that certainly hasn't happened yet and the year is almost 1 month down. I have a few plans of attack on this problem which I will discuss more in my future posts.
I'm currently reading a new German book after reading one of the several books in English which I got for my birthday and Christmas (both around the same time). This book was lent to me by my Austrian friend at work. Called das größere Wunder, it is written by an Austrian author but set all over the world. I've had it for a couple of weeks and am about 10% of the way through it. I'll try to pick up the pace a bit! I'll write some more thoughts about it soon as it was a bit of a shock to me in some ways and a great test for my current abilities helping to show me the way to some improvements.
Tuesday, January 14, 2014
The piano speaks!
An interesting little video article in German about an art display that shows that a mechanically-played piano but sound like it's speaking, sort of:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=muCPjK4nGY4
The kid they based it on seems to have a funny accent or a minor speech impediment, which surely doesn't help the comprehensibility of the final result. To train your understanding, ignore/close the onscreen translations as they appear.
Enjoy!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=muCPjK4nGY4
The kid they based it on seems to have a funny accent or a minor speech impediment, which surely doesn't help the comprehensibility of the final result. To train your understanding, ignore/close the onscreen translations as they appear.
Enjoy!
Wednesday, January 8, 2014
Examples of the spoken section (Mündlicher Teil) of various Goethe-Zertifikat test levels
Just a short one to share some links I found recently of examples of candidates sitting various levels of the Goethe Zertifikat exams. The exams are probably pretty similar for TestDaF, so these should be a good guide. As I found while I was preparing for the B2 exam, there are no examples available for the B2 or C1 exams. I wrote to Goethe at the time and they just basically replied to say "there's no such thing available". Basically, they were just fobbing me off :-) So please, if you're preparing for either of those exams, or even just if you're curious to see what those levels look like when done well, write to Goethe and request that they make more recordings available. Maybe we can start a groundswell :-)
Anyway, without further ado, here are the examples I've found for the various levels:
A1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGNd-6pDkEI
A2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5o87rLPbbHc
B1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=khf1PF-jsHY
B2: MISSING!
C1: MISSING!
C2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8VN2keDjzk
There's also this video for B1 level that's an example of the kind of introductions you need to be able to do at that level.
What I noticed is that A1 is not a complete doddle but it's clearly very formulaic. It would probably be fairly easy to pass it with just a bit of drilling for the exam itself. Although that may not be the best Einführung into the German language, it would make the task of passing the exam easier if that's all you want to do.
Tschau for now!
Anyway, without further ado, here are the examples I've found for the various levels:
A1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGNd-6pDkEI
A2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5o87rLPbbHc
B1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=khf1PF-jsHY
B2: MISSING!
C1: MISSING!
C2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8VN2keDjzk
There's also this video for B1 level that's an example of the kind of introductions you need to be able to do at that level.
What I noticed is that A1 is not a complete doddle but it's clearly very formulaic. It would probably be fairly easy to pass it with just a bit of drilling for the exam itself. Although that may not be the best Einführung into the German language, it would make the task of passing the exam easier if that's all you want to do.
Tschau for now!
Monday, January 6, 2014
Extract from DRadio Wissen's Lernen to Talk Show episode
I wrote a post about an interesting discovery called "The Lernen to Talk Show" way back last year (so, a few weeks ago). It's a youtube show created by +Mickey Mangan . All the background is explained or linked there. The main thing I wanted to talk about today is that, contrary to my better judgement, I did actually end up transcribing a section of an interview Mickey did on DRadio Wissen about a year after he had finished up his year in Germany which was the main content of his web show.
I felt compelled to do so because I found the comments by one of the interviewees, Dr Martina Pinke, to be a little unreasonable. As I wrote in my earlier post, she basically says that if you are 30, you can't really learn a language. She does admit that Mickey himself speaks very good German, but she confuses the issues if you ask me. From my impression of what she says, basically you will never really "speak" a language unless you are essentially flawless with a native accent. Before I comment further, please listen to the interview from when it has about 45:45 mins remaining until about 42 mins remaining. It was enough work just to transcribe this 3.5 mins - sorry, but I ain't doing the whole hour!
Then you can read my transcription and parallel translation here:
Transcription and Parallel Translation
I don't disagree with everything she says. In fact, perhaps what she says about becoming accent-free is true. I know it has been researched but I think it's quite hard to replicate the conditions children learn under in comparison to their parents. I think a lot of the differences might be due to the differences in a child's willingness to immerse themselves (unconsciously) in their new language in comparison to adults. Think about adults moving to a new country with their children. The children go to school and want to do everything they can to fit in with those around them. Peer pressure is never so strong as when you're a child or teenager. We adults see these things more sanguinely. Conformity with those around us is something we care less and less about as we age. However, to get to a higher level in language learning we need to be willing to conform again. We need to conform more to the "standard" accent (which we have to search out because we probably won't be picking up a local native accent from our peers) and we need to conform our phrasing, even our body language and world view, in order to fit in.
Then there's a difference in time available. Children are forcibly immersed by their parents in their new community but their parents will usually just to do enough to get by in their new homeland and then relax with their family, friends and language-speaking community. If you're not married with children then perhaps you can't visualise this very well, but you really just don't have time to "live" the language 24/7. That is, unless your partner wants to do the same and your circle of friends speaks the local language. Some of this is a choice, and some of it is forced upon us.
All I'm saying is that the circumstances for children are vastly different to those for adults.
In terms of accent, some adult learners achieve a much better accent than others. What are the differences? Well, perhaps the other factors she mentions are also as important - input and motivation. She forgot to mention practice, since speaking is a physical task that is improved with constantly exercising the required muscles and coordinating them so that producing the right sounds will literally "just roll off the tongue". While a child is more plastic in terms of accent, etc, an adult can achieve this if they want to. Perhaps one problem is that once an adult achieves a pretty good accent they don't keep torturing themselves to keep getting more and more perfect as their place in society, and how well accepted they are, etc, are already more settled. Children and teenagers are desperate to fit in, and different accents are often mercilessly teased out of youngsters by others. It's not for nothing that we say "kids can be so cruel"!
I've never been very good with producing accents or hearing small differences, which is partially why I've decided to read an introductory book on phonetics. I just recently ordered "A Practical Introduction to Phonetics" by Catford which I hope will help me learn how to recognise and produce the sounds of any language I learn much more accurately. For this year, I hope it will help me with German, of course :-) If I were just a good listener I wouldn't need this, but I found when learning Chinese that I couldn't tell the difference between the consonant sounds represented in Pinyin as "xi" vs "shi" (although those always had a vowel differences to cover up my mistakes :-) ), "qi" vs "chi" and "ji" vs "zhi". Then I found an old book in a university library called "Mandarin Pronunciation" by Raymond Huang (unfortunately out of print) which explains the pronunciation of every single vowel and consonant of Chinese with a diagram showing the position of elements in the mouth and a short descriptive text. Even though I had listened to a fair bit of Chinese I had always been unable to accurately produce a difference between those consonants above in a way that would make sense to Chinese speakers, but after reading the descriptions for just those sounds in the book I found that the few short phrases I tried out got a very enthusiastic reception - much more than ever before! In fact, the team member who judged my accent most harshly actually got very excited and said that it sounded really good, "very standard". So, perhaps as an adult who never had a particularly good ear, this is what I really need to improve my accent. Obviously, producing the sound in one off, concentrated speech is one thing. For German I want to sound much more standard in normal speech. I think my vowels in particular need work, along with the few consonants that are significantly different to English, so we'll see if the book helps. I plan on writing a little more on this topic in the future as I recently learnt something interesting about German pronunciation which I'd like to share, but I digress.
But back to the transcription of the interview with Dr. Penke. I feel as though she might have taken a little offence that Mickey suggested that wanting to learn the language and having fun with it are all you need, even though she says something similar herself in different words. She says you also need "motivation" and "input", and having fun in the language is a great way to get input!
She then goes on to say that you can only really ever learn the language if you're a first-language learner (i.e., you learn it in childhood). Well, what's the metric? She admits that Mickey speaks really good German but that he's immediately recognisable as a non-native speaker, and then she finishes with what I consider to be a massive clanger:
"A: Can anyone manage to learn a language within one year?
B: When… Yes, they could manage it – as a child! Obviously, error-free. Start early!"
Apart from being completely useless advise to adult language learners, it's also complete nonsense. The best a child can hope for is to learn the language roughly to the level of their peers in a year. What Mickey and other adult learners have to do is to try to learn the language to sound like ADULTS in the language. Adults are not forgiven their errors, they have very large vocabularies and can (depending on the person involved) have very detailed conversations. My eldest daughter is 3 years old and I think she's brilliant, but I can tell you that she's only learnt English to the level of a small child (I think a 4 or 5 year old, but I'm biased). I often speak to my young nephews and nieces and note that even 8 year olds are still making very obvious mistakes. And I'm not talking about the very obvious "mistakes" that their parents make in terms of using a different dialect, I mean mistakes as in things that adults don't say but children and language learners say, like using the wrong tense, or the wrong form for an irregular past tense, etc. This is after 8 years of immersion, including three years of immersion *in school*!
No, children do not learn a language flawlessly within a year. We just have lower standards for them, which they reach faster, because the last "10%" is what takes all the time...
I felt compelled to do so because I found the comments by one of the interviewees, Dr Martina Pinke, to be a little unreasonable. As I wrote in my earlier post, she basically says that if you are 30, you can't really learn a language. She does admit that Mickey himself speaks very good German, but she confuses the issues if you ask me. From my impression of what she says, basically you will never really "speak" a language unless you are essentially flawless with a native accent. Before I comment further, please listen to the interview from when it has about 45:45 mins remaining until about 42 mins remaining. It was enough work just to transcribe this 3.5 mins - sorry, but I ain't doing the whole hour!
Then you can read my transcription and parallel translation here:
Transcription and Parallel Translation
I don't disagree with everything she says. In fact, perhaps what she says about becoming accent-free is true. I know it has been researched but I think it's quite hard to replicate the conditions children learn under in comparison to their parents. I think a lot of the differences might be due to the differences in a child's willingness to immerse themselves (unconsciously) in their new language in comparison to adults. Think about adults moving to a new country with their children. The children go to school and want to do everything they can to fit in with those around them. Peer pressure is never so strong as when you're a child or teenager. We adults see these things more sanguinely. Conformity with those around us is something we care less and less about as we age. However, to get to a higher level in language learning we need to be willing to conform again. We need to conform more to the "standard" accent (which we have to search out because we probably won't be picking up a local native accent from our peers) and we need to conform our phrasing, even our body language and world view, in order to fit in.
Then there's a difference in time available. Children are forcibly immersed by their parents in their new community but their parents will usually just to do enough to get by in their new homeland and then relax with their family, friends and language-speaking community. If you're not married with children then perhaps you can't visualise this very well, but you really just don't have time to "live" the language 24/7. That is, unless your partner wants to do the same and your circle of friends speaks the local language. Some of this is a choice, and some of it is forced upon us.
All I'm saying is that the circumstances for children are vastly different to those for adults.
In terms of accent, some adult learners achieve a much better accent than others. What are the differences? Well, perhaps the other factors she mentions are also as important - input and motivation. She forgot to mention practice, since speaking is a physical task that is improved with constantly exercising the required muscles and coordinating them so that producing the right sounds will literally "just roll off the tongue". While a child is more plastic in terms of accent, etc, an adult can achieve this if they want to. Perhaps one problem is that once an adult achieves a pretty good accent they don't keep torturing themselves to keep getting more and more perfect as their place in society, and how well accepted they are, etc, are already more settled. Children and teenagers are desperate to fit in, and different accents are often mercilessly teased out of youngsters by others. It's not for nothing that we say "kids can be so cruel"!
I've never been very good with producing accents or hearing small differences, which is partially why I've decided to read an introductory book on phonetics. I just recently ordered "A Practical Introduction to Phonetics" by Catford which I hope will help me learn how to recognise and produce the sounds of any language I learn much more accurately. For this year, I hope it will help me with German, of course :-) If I were just a good listener I wouldn't need this, but I found when learning Chinese that I couldn't tell the difference between the consonant sounds represented in Pinyin as "xi" vs "shi" (although those always had a vowel differences to cover up my mistakes :-) ), "qi" vs "chi" and "ji" vs "zhi". Then I found an old book in a university library called "Mandarin Pronunciation" by Raymond Huang (unfortunately out of print) which explains the pronunciation of every single vowel and consonant of Chinese with a diagram showing the position of elements in the mouth and a short descriptive text. Even though I had listened to a fair bit of Chinese I had always been unable to accurately produce a difference between those consonants above in a way that would make sense to Chinese speakers, but after reading the descriptions for just those sounds in the book I found that the few short phrases I tried out got a very enthusiastic reception - much more than ever before! In fact, the team member who judged my accent most harshly actually got very excited and said that it sounded really good, "very standard". So, perhaps as an adult who never had a particularly good ear, this is what I really need to improve my accent. Obviously, producing the sound in one off, concentrated speech is one thing. For German I want to sound much more standard in normal speech. I think my vowels in particular need work, along with the few consonants that are significantly different to English, so we'll see if the book helps. I plan on writing a little more on this topic in the future as I recently learnt something interesting about German pronunciation which I'd like to share, but I digress.
But back to the transcription of the interview with Dr. Penke. I feel as though she might have taken a little offence that Mickey suggested that wanting to learn the language and having fun with it are all you need, even though she says something similar herself in different words. She says you also need "motivation" and "input", and having fun in the language is a great way to get input!
She then goes on to say that you can only really ever learn the language if you're a first-language learner (i.e., you learn it in childhood). Well, what's the metric? She admits that Mickey speaks really good German but that he's immediately recognisable as a non-native speaker, and then she finishes with what I consider to be a massive clanger:
"A: Can anyone manage to learn a language within one year?
B: When… Yes, they could manage it – as a child! Obviously, error-free. Start early!"
Apart from being completely useless advise to adult language learners, it's also complete nonsense. The best a child can hope for is to learn the language roughly to the level of their peers in a year. What Mickey and other adult learners have to do is to try to learn the language to sound like ADULTS in the language. Adults are not forgiven their errors, they have very large vocabularies and can (depending on the person involved) have very detailed conversations. My eldest daughter is 3 years old and I think she's brilliant, but I can tell you that she's only learnt English to the level of a small child (I think a 4 or 5 year old, but I'm biased). I often speak to my young nephews and nieces and note that even 8 year olds are still making very obvious mistakes. And I'm not talking about the very obvious "mistakes" that their parents make in terms of using a different dialect, I mean mistakes as in things that adults don't say but children and language learners say, like using the wrong tense, or the wrong form for an irregular past tense, etc. This is after 8 years of immersion, including three years of immersion *in school*!
No, children do not learn a language flawlessly within a year. We just have lower standards for them, which they reach faster, because the last "10%" is what takes all the time...
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