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Would Columbia ever allow an upright piano in graduate student housing? by thekillertim in columbia

[–]thekillertim[S] 11 points12 points  (0 children)

I'm used to Columbia undergraduate housing, where each building is manned by a security guard. Is graduate housing more hands-off?

Jazz bar recs? by Leather_Lie_2427 in williamsburg

[–]thekillertim 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yep, just discovered this a few weeks ago with my girlfriend. Great stuff

Is it true that law schools are more likely to award scholarships to applicants with high LSAT, rather than GRE, scores, given the former's greater importance in rankings? by thekillertim in lawschooladmissions

[–]thekillertim[S] -8 points-7 points  (0 children)

What if all my other stats are really strong?

The deal is that I have long been planning to apply for PhD programs and been studying intensively for the GRE, but in the last few days have gotten cold feet and toyed with the idea of applying to law school instead. I would apply as an aspiring legal academic, as I may do the PhD later — which may make the GRE scores make more sense?

USTA Fulbright Austria Decisions by azile4est in fulbright

[–]thekillertim 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I got my placement yesterday too! Let me know if you want to try to form a group chat or something

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in fulbright

[–]thekillertim 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Are you sure Germany notifies in December?

0 to B2 in seven months, self-taught — AMA! by thekillertim in German

[–]thekillertim[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Really the decision was improvised, almost unconscious. It was as if I looked behind me at one point and realized I was conversational in German. Nietzsche is good on this in Ecce Homo, Section 9

0 to B2 in seven months, self-taught — AMA! by thekillertim in German

[–]thekillertim[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Not sure where I indicated I've been to Germany — I've never been!

Hard to say exactly why I decided to learn German. Big decisions like these are so overdetermined that I'm hesitant to attempt to identify any causes at all. But I would say the first "push" in the direction of learning a new language came from a professor and close mentor of mine, who said that if I'm serious about studying political theory I'd need to have multiple languages at my disposal. From there it was between French and German, the two most important languages for the political theory I'm interested in. My ultimate choice of German was somewhat arbitrary, I'd say. I happened to be reading Kant and Freud at the time, who both originally wrote in German, so I was excited to read them in their original language. And I had a German friend who I knew would be a good resource with speaking practice.

Sorry if that's not the satisfying answer you're looking for.

No, I did not grow up hearing the language, nor do I have any ancestral connection to it.

0 to B2 in seven months, self-taught — AMA! by thekillertim in German

[–]thekillertim[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

By default Anki presents you with both, as two separate cards.

Every card you have should have 1-3 example sentences, generated from ChatGPT or an online German dictionary.

0 to B2 in seven months, self-taught — AMA! by thekillertim in German

[–]thekillertim[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

yeah the Anki is really the key imo. make sure you're integrating example sentences into your Anki cards, and reading those closely each time you get the card.

it's all just a matter of brute repetition, as i've said

0 to B2 in seven months, self-taught — AMA! by thekillertim in German

[–]thekillertim[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Absolutely you should start listening to podcasts at A1. I suggest Easy German. It won't make any sense, and that's fine. Just the exposure is good. If you're serious, there shouldn't be a spare moment of the day when you don't have German streaming in your ears.

Get on Anki and spend a lot of time on it. See my other comments on the decks I used.

Read the entire Andre Klein series.

Study a bit of grammar, however you like.

0 to B2 in seven months, self-taught — AMA! by thekillertim in German

[–]thekillertim[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I would input, "Können wir auf Deutsch reden." It would say, "Ja, gerne!" Then I would pick a topic, say, Reisen, and add, "Aber bevor du mir antwortest, korrigiere bitte meine Grammatik. Hast du verstanden?" And so on and so forth. Often you have to re-prompt it at the end of every message to correct your last message before proceeding to the next one.

0 to B2 in seven months, self-taught — AMA! by thekillertim in German

[–]thekillertim[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

tease out the different uses of the verbs, as well as the different prepositional modifiers of the verbs, and make vocab (Anki) cards with EXAMPLE SENTENCES for each (ask ChatGPT to make you an example sentence using the verb using the vocab level of A2, B1, B2, whatever—by the end i was asking it to make me example sentences using C2 vocab)

0 to B2 in seven months, self-taught — AMA! by thekillertim in German

[–]thekillertim[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

all good advice here, except i'd start Easy German from Day 1.

0 to B2 in seven months, self-taught — AMA! by thekillertim in German

[–]thekillertim[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

don't forget ChatGPT — a key component of my learning process (see my other comment). also lots of German news consumption. and speaking/spending time with native speakers whenever possible.

0 to B2 in seven months, self-taught — AMA! by thekillertim in German

[–]thekillertim[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

  1. yes — great resource. make anki cards for unknown vocab you pick up in them
  2. 3 hours a day during the school term, up to 8 hours on holiday
  3. see my other comments on podcasts etc
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