Learning German.

willhub

willhub

willhub

Caporegime
Joined
3 Jan 2006
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Location
Chadderton, Oldham
Hi,

So, I just decided to learn German for "fun". I literally dropped out of German in high school into some "special class", I want to prove to myself I can learn a language.

I've picked up Duolingo app and have so far learnt more than in 2 years I did of it in school, because now I actually want to do it, when I say learnt more, after a couple of hours I've learnt some basic words, able to string a basic sentence together and understand some of the grammar like feminine and masculine words.

The issue I find with Duolingo is it doesn't really teach me about forming sentences properly and how certain words have multiple meanings, also when I've been trying to see if I remember words and use Google Translate, it appears that depending on how a sentence is wrote, the same word can be totally different.

Any recommendations of online courses or content that is structured in a way that I could learn German and potentially even get a qualification at the end of it?

I need to make sure I stick at it, when the going gets TUF I can easily just let go, especially if I get in a abit of a "spaghetti situation" as I call it when I'm so mixed up and nothing makes sense.

If I can get to the point where I know a good level of German I want to start learning other languages too, like Italian, French, Spanish, but, one at a time need to walk before I can run.
 
Piggybacking on this since I'm trying to learn Dutch through Duolingo as well, wouldn't mind some help since I'm useless at pronounds.
 
Ich kann kein Deutsch. Ich bin dummkopf :p

Recently I've watched my brother move to Spain and pick up the language almost overnight.

That's the problem. If you go to the land and immerse yourself in it you're going to learn very, very fast.

It would appear to be hugely more difficult and far, far slower to learn any other way.
 
Are there any groups you can join? Obviously with the rona it'll be limited to skype or something, but there's nothing like the real thing. For example, even I know that goodbye is auf weidersehen, yet IME the vast majority of germans in germany said caio to me.
 
I am part-time living in Austria, and my GCSE German from 20 years ago is just enough to scrape me by in daily interactions in shops etc.

  • Most difficult for me is speaking, definitely - partly a confidence/shyness thing. I don't like to have ago unless I'm 100% sure I'm correct
  • Next hardest is listening, particularly in Austria where there is an array of local dialect to deal with - different words, phrasings and what I find a very tough accent to deal with. I was watching a bit of telly here the other day and said to my partner "I understand this bloke a bit, but the others I haven't got a clue." Her response was "He is German and the others are from Austria"
  • Reading is the easiest by far for me. I can read a newspaper article and glean the most important parts from it, I can read signs and basic instructions, I can understand menus in restaurants and what's what in a supermarket.
  • Writing is something I don't ever have to do so this is a non starter (for now)
There are two critical factors for really learning a language IMO - Motivation and Immersion.
Motivation is key because without some real form of need to learn a language it's very difficult to stick with it.
Immersion is hugely useful because you are seeing and hearing it all day, you pick up on words and phrases and start using them in your own clumsy scripted routines.

An example of this is ordering a Leberkase (a warm meat snack served in a roll, purchased at a supermarket deli counter usually). I really like Leberkase, so if I'm on my own I have no option but to ask for it, I can't just pick it up off the shelf. This forces me to learn how to say "Ein Kaseleberkasesemmel bitte", and I know they will show me how much they are slicing off and ask "Passt?" and I will have to respond. Initially I used to respond with a thumb's up. Then I started saying "Ja, perfekt". Then I started saying "Vielleicht ein bisschen mehr?" - I didn't want a bit more but I wanted to practice something different. Then I know I'll be asked if I want mayo or mustard, and if I want anything else, and then there will be goodbyes. I build up a similar set of subroutines that I can use for this as well and as long as someone doesn't look at me like I'm an alien I know I am probably doing alright.

Actually I bought a Kaseleberkasesemmel in Billa last week, and the woman behind the counter talks super-fast Vienna slang. She asked me something and I had no clue what she meant, so instead of the usual "I'M SORRY I'M ENGLISH" panic response I said "Entschuldigung, ich verstehe nur ein bisschen Deutsche - langsamer, bitte?"
She pointed at the gherkins, looked at me like I was a simpleton and said "JA ODER NEIN?" :D

Duolingo has it's place, it is definitely useful - the later exercises get significantly harder and are far more contextual than the early ones - so I encourage you to stick with it, but what you really need is actual conversation - even if you aren't that good at the moment.

*Important Edit

This is something I have to remind myself as I learn.

If you were in the UK, and somebody approached you looking for directions, and said "Scusi, please you explain me to reach airport with bus?", you wouldn't stare at them like they'd just yelled at you in Klingon - you would get the jist of what they were after and try to help them in your most basic English, right?
Well it's almost exactly the same in reverse with German. If you have a crack, most people will either get what you mean and respond, or get what you mean and correct you and then respond.
Vienna (and other big cities in Germany and Austria) is full of immigrants - Serbs, Croatians, Turks, Bosnians, Slovaks, whatever - all of whom speak German with different styles and degrees of fluency.

The UPS dude who dropped off my delivery yesterday asked me for "Die Name?" rather than "Der Name?" so I already know more German than him, and I'm only visiting - he lives here :D
 
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I use Duo to learn Ukrainian. I too feel that it isn't great for building sentences.

Biggest problem for me is I can't roll my R for the life of me. :D
 
use sticky notes and place them on all your household items, that way you will learn and remember what they are all in german.
try to watch streaming content in german with english subtitles, netflix has some good german tv shows like Dark.
You need to expose yourself to as much german as possible.

@Lopéz "Leberkäse mit scharfen Senf ist super lecker" :) or in dialect "Leberkas mit schoarfen Senf is sauguat" :p
 
If you have Netflix, I would recommend watching Dark in the original German language with English subtitles.

It's a great series and I enjoyed listening to the audio, trying to guess what was said (based on what I learned using Duolingo) and then looking at the subtitles to see if I understood correctly.
 
FoxEye said:
Ich kann kein Deutsch. Ich bin dummkopf :p

Recently I've watched my brother move to Spain and pick up the language almost overnight.

That's the problem. If you go to the land and immerse yourself in it you're going to learn very, very fast.

It would appear to be hugely more difficult and far, far slower to learn any other way.
Click to expand...

This is what stops me from bothering. Super ball ache to learn properly if you aren't surrounded by native speakers (although entirely possible if you're motivated, of course).
 
Is there any reason you want to learn German?
I can think of more useful languages to devote your time to learning.
 
Learning Finnish on Duolingo at the moment. Thought I had better brush up as I'm getting a Finish passport and being born here my Finnish language skills are quite poor.
 
FoxEye said:
Ich kann kein Deutsch. Ich bin dummkopf :p

Recently I've watched my brother move to Spain and pick up the language almost overnight.

That's the problem. If you go to the land and immerse yourself in it you're going to learn very, very fast.

It would appear to be hugely more difficult and far, far slower to learn any other way.
Click to expand...

the problem i've found with rocking up in germany and trying to learn off the locals is they're all trying to use you to practice their english, which unfortunately they're already well enough versed in that it's the easiest tool to use for communication :P
 
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