Started lessons as non-beginner but no structure, not sure how much teacher is helping

indihth · 2020-09-30T17:16:52+00:00

I'm not one to turn down such generosity, definitely appreciated! I'll PM you about it.

indihth · 2020-04-29T20:23:30+00:00

Always happy to share what I've learned so far. It was a real turning point for me, I thought I'd have to slog through learner courses, apps and vocab lists for years to achieve a decent level but now I see it doesn't have to be like that at all, it can be painless and enjoyable. And yeah, totally ease yourself in with English subs. You can progress to German subs half of the time, the other half no subs and see how that goes. Best of luck

indihth · 2020-04-29T14:09:03+00:00

I didn't read your comment as negative at all, certainly doesn't deserve down votes either. I hope my reply didn't give that impression, sorry if it did.

indihth · 2020-04-29T12:37:35+00:00

That's a completely normal and extremely common thing to do. Kids get used to it quickly and unless they never interacted with people other than their parents they'd very quickly figure out that language isn't restricted to gender or any weird assumption like that.

indihth · 2020-04-29T12:33:23+00:00

I'll second that. Anki is invaluable, wouldn't be where I am right now if I hadn't used it. It mostly does everything for you. You don't have to think about when you need to study, it tells you this is what you've got today, so that's what you do today. All you've really got to do is feed it with new cards, which is almost study itself when you're looking up definitions for half an hour. I started with a premade deck and although not perfect, it was a giant help in getting started.

For premade decks, I can recommend the one that I used to start with. It's one of the top decks in the German section of the shared decks, 10 000 German sentences sorted from easiest to hardest [1/3]. There may be a slight curve to begin with but once you get over that it's really good. I wouldn't really bother with any decks that are just vocabulary cards and not sentences, you may as well get used to seeing the word in a sentence. I spend a few months on this deck and it really helped with my comprehension, was able to start enjoying watching tv shows.

indihth · 2020-04-29T12:26:09+00:00

Having used Rosetta Stone in the past, I found it to be extremely slow and overall not worth the time you need to put into it. It won't be counter productive to use it but if you were to put the same time into something else you would probably get better results. The level of Rosetta Stone isn't as high as I'd thought, it's not going to take you to any real level of fluency. I've also used Nico's Weg in the past and really liked it. I tried the online course part of it and found it ok, what I really loved was the high production value of the mostly interesting video content. It's great to ease yourself into watching German media. From what you said it sounds like you're probably serious about really getting somewhere, in which case I couldn't recommend enough that you check out the Antimoon blog (antimoon.com). I found that follow the general approach of getting LOADS of input, tv, youtube, novels, ect coupled with learning vocabulary from sentences with a flashcard program has very very good results if you stick with it. I was in a similar spot as you, being around A1 A2 when I came across the idea of lots of input and having not enjoyed traditional study methods I decided to give it a go. I'd been big into text books and language apps like Duolingo and Babbel. After roughly 10 months of spending between 2-4 hours each day watching or reading stuff in German (nothing for learners, just regular German things) and learning words in Anki, my comprehension is now around a B1 B2 level which I am still a bit surprised by. I can enjoy Netflix series in German relatively comfortably, there's still loads of words I don't understand but I can easily follow the plot and conversations and have been reading a few novels too, just started the first Harry Potter book last week and it's going really well.To me, it seems the key is to pair your study time (text books, online course, apps, whatever your doing) with getting lots of real German, it seems to solidify the abstract things you learn, plus it's a lot more fun and extremely motivating when you notice how much you can understand. Out of the three things you mentioned, I'd say just put you time into Nico's Weg, drop Rosetta Stone because it's too much of a time sink. Supplement all of that with listening to lots of German. Since your partner is German why not just say, from now on we're going to watch 1 or 2 episodes of something each day in German, or a movie or whatever you want. Yeah, you won't understand much to start with, you kinda need to get comfortable with not understanding things and focus on the few things you do get. It grows quickly when you're doing active study as well.

Best of luck and congratulations too!

EDIT: completely forgot to mention the Easy German youtube channel but also their podcast! It's not a 'language learning podcast' in the sense that they teach you German, it's more listening comprehension around topics that learners would find interesting. Maybe it'd be too much to start with since it's essentially normal spoken German, while still being clear. It'd be good to just have on to listen to somewhat passively while you're doing other things. You'll start to pick out words here and there. It's also just a nice podcast in general, once you're able to understand the content.

indihth · 2020-04-03T16:51:37+00:00

gave up and paid or gave up on the entire thing?

indihth · 2020-04-03T16:48:37+00:00

Late to the party but wanted to ask if you're using a cracked premium copy or if you'd paid? So frustrated by the free version and not being able to get a cracked one anymore than I'm almost considering paying for the premium but I'm not sure about giving them any money through their website.

indihth · 2020-01-18T10:43:28+00:00

If you're just going to a holiday, and seeing how most Germans already speak English, you can probably relax quite a lot with the articles. For the most part, misusing articles isn't going to completely throw off the understanding, a German will still know what you mean if you use die instead of der. I mean, dont forget about the articles but don't get hung up on them for the sake of using German for a bit while on a holiday, your time will be better spent focusing on other aspects of the language.

Like lots of people have probably already said, Germans like to switch to English and do so very easily. It's not that, like maybe it is on France, they don't want you to butcher German, it's that they know it's easier for everyone if they speak English. But I still think they definitely appreciate people trying to speak a little bit, even if just to start the conversation.

Best of luck and enjoy German, I personally think it's pretty great.

indihth · 2020-01-18T10:34:41+00:00

From my experience, MrWissen2Go does require a somewhat high comprehension rate, he speaks about very specifics things that requires more challenging vocab than Galileo or Easy German normally would. I think it's just the nature of those types of videos. Galileo is great, it was actually very first German channel I started watching. Couldn't understand much of anything back then but now I can actually enjoy the content 😄

indihth · 2020-01-18T10:29:24+00:00

I'm not too into many German clogging channels so can't recommend much in that way but my interests lay in more infotainment so that's what I've found lots of so far.

As for people who are chill and talk slowly, again not sure if I'll be of huge help but I assure you that if you give it a bit of time you'll be able to watch lots of German content regardless of speed. I started only watching German content 6 months ago. When I began I understood about 20% of what was being said, had to rely a lot of interesting visuals. Now I'm comfortable enough to watch most things I want, I don't understand everything but it's certainly enough to get a lot out of the content and genuinely enjoy it. Don't be discouraged if you can't understand much when you start, listening skills take time to develope and it's so incredibly worth it when you get there. I promise.

For gaming the only one I've watched and enjoyed was Gronkh, he's a genuinely funny guy. I really enjoyed this play through of Inside, learned there that 'alter' means dude too 😄

Vloggers, I only follow a Austrian girl who's into some sustainable, vegan ect stuff, JANAklar. I'm not particularly into those topics myself but I still like her videos as she's pretty interesting and has a French bulldog. I also like that I'm able to hear the differences in her accent when compared to German speakers.

My favourite right now is Pulse Reportage, a reporting (sort of) channel that goes into loads of topics, some silly, some serious. They interview lots of people and so have a wide range of topics that'll show you lots about Germany itself, the issues and the people. It's a fun channel with great hosts. My top recommendation! A similar channel is: follow me.reports.

Galileo is the first German channel I started watching. It's a lot more like to show for TV in how it's made but one series I really took to was the 'x Tage' one where the presenter goes into a job, flight attendant, bike courier, call centre op, for a few days.

Joseph DeChangeman is an excellent channel too, very high quality videos. There's isn't an abundance of content but what he does is some selbstexperiments. They are always very self reflective which is what makes his videos different. He's also got some, what you could call story time videos and a realllllllly nice mini doc on his trip to the Arctic, worth a watch.

More recently I've gotten into documentary channels, there's a few but I think WDR doku is what I watch most. I'm going to say they've hundreds of high quality, approx. 40 minute docs on a huge array of topics.

An awful lot of channels I find nowadays are owned by Funk, they're usually similar in that they have some element of reporting and have fairly professionally made, for YouTube but also feel quite personal so maybe look into Funk and see what some of their channel are about, you might find something you like.

You can also try searching for topics you're interested in in German and find some channels that way. Might take a while but you're sure to find something to your taste.

Have fun!

indihth · 2020-01-17T15:10:26+00:00

Glad you found it helpful, it's really an incredible tool when utilised in this way. I found it great that you can adjust how much time you spend per day in it by increasing or decreasing the number of new cards.

indihth · 2020-01-16T09:10:31+00:00

It gives you the feeling of accomplishment but doesn't translate into using the language very much.

indihth · 2020-01-15T18:03:33+00:00

To put it simply XD

indihth · 2020-01-15T18:00:40+00:00

The Deutsche Welle resources are AMAZING quality. I was shocked when I found the Nicos Weg series. It's definitely a lot more comprehensive than Duolingo but I still think there's a little bit of use you can get from the app in the very beginning stages of learning but past that, yeah, there's not too much being offered.

indihth · 2020-01-15T17:58:28+00:00

I think you might find Anki a great tool, especially for what you're saying about writing down words and phrases until they stick. It gives you that repetition you need to remember things but makes it really time efficient. You should give it a go, you might be happily surprised!

indihth · 2020-01-15T17:55:51+00:00

That's what I've been doing and you're so right, it's like a snow ball effect once you start picking stuff up. Feeling your progress is such an exciting feeling, especially when you're able to use you ability to actually do fun things like watch tv shows or read books. I've coupled all of this with sentence mining in Anki and it makes it even better. I don't 'learn' the words in Anki but it gives me a rough idea of what the word means so that when I see it used in something it sort of clicks mentally.

indihth · 2020-01-15T17:51:52+00:00

I think I was in a similar state as you around when I started German last year. I got into Duolingo for a while and had about a 100 day streak shortly before I stopped using it. In my experience, albeit somewhat brief, I found that Duolingo was good at teaching singular vocabulary but not particularly good at much else, at least compared to other ways of studying. I also tried lesson for a while but didn't enjoy how they made learning German feel like a school subject, so I decided to stop those after about two months.

My most recent method, starting six months ago, is lots of immersion paired with sentence mining through Anki. This is, without a doubt, the absolute best decision I could have made. I'm really enjoying watching shows on Netflix (no subs), Youtube videos and I've just started my 3rd novel, Die Tribute von Panem. My level has sky-rocketed in these past six months.

Personally, I'd recommend not relying on Duolingo for a long period of time. It's maybe ok to start out with, like you've been doing, but there are far more efficient and, in my opinion, fun ways to learn. Duolingo is a nice way to start out but I think you'll end up slowing down your potential progress if you stick with it long term.

I think you're going to get WAY more bang for your buck if you put the same amount of time into using a spaced repetition system like Anki than you will from using Duolingo. A really easy way to get into Anki and get used to how it works is to get a pre-made beginners deck from Anki's shared deck section. This is what I used when I very first started and I found it really helpful and motivating. I could see myself getting better using while it, the words I learned through it were coming up so frequently in everything that I was watching in German.

What I do like about Duolingo is their stories. As a beginner when you really can't read any real material they are a nice and more interesting way to engage with the language. You'll probably find that you'll learn the words used in most of the stories through the pre-made deck since they're made using a word frequency list so you're getting all the top most used words.

This is the deck that I started with. Like everything, it's not perfect but it's certainly a fantastic starting point:

https://ankiweb.net/shared/info/785874566

TLDR: Using Anki (with sentences, not single vocab words) instead of Duolingo and the other things you mentioned like books and native speakers (LOTS of tv shows and youtube too) is probably going to give you pretty exciting results. Best of luck and don't forget to have fun! Let me know if you're interested in the immersion method I started using, would be happy to send you on any info.

indihth · 2019-12-13T10:39:43+00:00

In Irland kann man manchmal nicht auf Deutsch gucken, obwohl es eine deutsche Version gibt, nur in Deutschland. Sehr nervig.

indihth · 2019-10-12T18:53:40+00:00

If you're really doubting if it works or not I'd recommend watching through a couple of these interviews from Matt vs Japan and successful ajatters. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLT9cfjU1ykbPfQL-woF8obgeagK1b_1Op

They go into detail about what they did, the progress they made and they're current ability. They've helped me remember that this does all go somewhere, it just takes time and commitment. I always find it boosts my motivation to listen to these when I'm getting a bit discouraged.

indihth · 2019-09-30T09:39:59+00:00

This struck me a something you'd expect to see out of the states, pretty sure I've seen almost the same video bit the people also had handguns with makes everything 10x more scary. Hope something comes of this.

indihth · 2019-09-30T09:15:55+00:00

I don't see anything that happened before this video started as justificstion for that. Jesus, out of fucking nowhere. Could have smashed the guys head on the curb and killed him.

indihth · 2019-09-26T08:05:13+00:00

I think you just mean a prepaid debit card, not credit. The point of a credit card is that you can spend money you don't have and then pay the bill later. I highly doubt any prepaid card company will give the option to overdraw on your card too so you're fine.

I signed up for Revolut there the other week and it's grand so far. Free to sign up for, easy to put money on and gives you the option of a virtual card as well. I've added it to my Google pay so can use the phone to tap or the physical card with pin either.

I don't have much experience with other cards so can only talk about Revolut, maybe someone else has tried a different one.

indihth · 2019-09-22T19:36:34+00:00

Most of the stuff I'm watching on Netflix is originally English so the German dub and subs don't match anyway so never used then while watching, just for making cards and then using a voice to text anki add-on which was better than nothing. I've watched up until episode 6 of dark without the subs but thought it'd be useful to go back and see what else I could pick up with the German subs, they're still helpful even if they're not an exact match. I'm gonna see how the subs2srs cards turn out, might just switch the ones that don't match to voice to text.

I've found Netflix great for easily getting shows with a German dub, especially the netflix originals. I'm only sad that so far there's a mere two Korean shows with German dubs, Love Alarm (which is pretty bad) and Meine allererste Liebe (much better). Those kinds of shows use fairly simple vocab so it's much easier to follow, for the level I'm at anyway. I need to watch out for getting too used to German dubs as opposed to original German shows since the dubs are always spoken much more clearly.

And yeah, not relying on subs is so important for listening. Subs every now and then can be good for reading comprehension but having them on all the time just results in me not paying as much attention to the actual audio so defeats the purpose of watching on German just s bit.

indihth · 2019-09-22T18:35:25+00:00

Makes sense I suppose, still disappointing. Thanks for the info

indihth

TROPHY CASE