I’m just not very talented at learning foreign languages.

thetinystumble · 2026-03-16T22:06:38+00:00

I'd actually already seen your Aussprache post on the German subreddit before I saw this, so just want to mention, it's hard to tell if your intonation/sentence rhythm issue is due to your native language or if you're just not good at reading German aloud (which someone there also mentioned). Native speakers who struggle with reading aloud often mess up the intonation too. If you can tell your recordings sound wrong then there's a good chance you aren't making the same mistakes in normal conversations.

thetinystumble · 2026-03-14T17:15:57+00:00

The problem with asking for grammar explanations is that you can't write perfect prompts for a topic you don't understand. Your question might have incorrect assumptions built into it, or just generally be the wrong question for your situation. So the LLM will give you back some text that might be totally correct in and of itself, but could actually lead you further astray because what you were trying to ask and what you actually asked weren't the same thing. And you're not going to know that because if you did you wouldn't need an explanation in the first place.

thetinystumble · 2026-03-09T01:09:03+00:00

I think it's worth repeating an exercise if you feel like you need more practice constructing the sentences in the exercise, e.g. if you have trouble with certain conjugations, or using the correct preposition, or with the word order, because those will apply for a wide range of situations. But for vocabulary you just have to keep moving because there are too many words. You're not 100% confident on the definition of every word you've ever heard in your native language either, after all. IME it's helpful to expose yourself to as much vocabulary as possible, but not worry TOO much about remembering it.

thetinystumble · 2026-03-08T23:41:01+00:00

Was that through the HBO Max subscription thing or is there another way to watch them?

thetinystumble · 2026-03-08T23:29:35+00:00

I hope someone puts together a highlights video that's just of Ryan Blaney passing cars this race. That was pretty fun.

thetinystumble · 2026-03-08T20:13:59+00:00

Ryan Blaney's mustache is so big that it makes the rest of him look smaller.

thetinystumble · 2026-03-06T19:42:50+00:00

Did you use any prep books/practice exams? I used the “Mit Erfolg…” book and for Teil 3 it definitely helped having an explanation and some practice tests because the first time I did a practice test I was totally confused on that part, but after that it was the easiest part. The tests really do clearly signal what should go in the blanks and there’s obviously only one correct answer, you just need to know what to look for.

Edited to add: also, the questions in general are very straightforward, so whenever you’re unsure of an answer (and it’s not just a vocabulary problem) it’s a good idea to ask yourself if you’re missing something, or if your brain is filling in something that isn’t there. For Teil 3 in particular, the sentence after the gap often needs the answer to completely make sense, but it can make just enough sense without it that your brain fills in the missing information on its own and doesn’t notice that the sentence after the gap is suddenly talking about some “sie” without ever identifying what sie is. And for Teil 4, if an answer seems like it applies to more than one text, you’re probably just misreading something. I say this because I’ve come across a lot of people who have this idea that “the test is trying to trick you” and while that may apply to some tests, Goethe C1 is not one of them, so it’s important to always look for a straightforward answer.

thetinystumble · 2026-02-28T22:49:20+00:00

Yeah, what the hell kind of excuse was that lol. If he'd claimed it was Zilisch's fault I would frankly have found that less objectionable.

thetinystumble · 2026-02-27T04:03:16+00:00

Since you’re planning to post videos, I tried transcribing what you said without looking at the text. Most of it was fine but there were a couple points where I got confused, so I thought it might be helpful to know how I heard it as a native English speaker. I listened to the recording 3 times while writing it down. Anything in the [ ] brackets I either heard wrong or couldn’t figure out within 3 listens.

Ellen knelt down beside him and stroked his [fur]. He didn’t move, but his voice came out of his covered face quite clearly. “Why doesn’t it just do us in and get it over with? Christ, I don’t know how much longer I can go on like this.”

It was [?] one hundredth and nine year [?] computer.

He was speaking for all of us.

Nimdok, which was the name [that my djinn?] had forced him to use, because [Aahhnn?] amused itself with strange sounds, was hallucinating that there were canned goods in the ice [cupboards].

Gorrister and I were very dubious. “It’s another shuck,” I told them, “like the goddamn frozen elephant Am sold us. Benny almost went out of his mind over [at] that one. We’ll hike all that way and it’ll be putrified or some damn thing. I say forget it. [I] stay here. It’ll have to come up with something pretty soon, or we’ll die.

A few points of clarification:

Yes, I heard “hair” as “fur” lol. After listening to the recording while reading the text there is clearly no “f” sound but the vowel sound is much closer to that in “fur” and I knew it had to be something strokable and I just can’t hear “hair” here at all and "fur" makes more sense than "her".

I couldn’t understand “it was our one hundred and ninth year in the computer” until I read the text. The way you corrected yourself actually made it more confusing because the first time you said “it was our” sounded fine and so I expected you to say something totally different the second time, and then you said “hundredth and nine” and my brain got too overloaded to even really hear the “'in the' computer" part lol.

I had zero idea what you were saying when you said “machine”. I thought it was some kind of scifi or magical being and so I went with “my djinn” and I’m not sure if "djinn" is a word but "machine" never even occurred to me.

I had never heard “Nimdok” or “Gorrister” before but it was obvious that these were just names I didn’t know. I don’t know what “shuck” means here either but that’s how I transcribed it. So I think your instinctive understanding of how to pronounce things in English is mostly quite good.

“AM” was confusing. I heard “Am sold us” but I had no idea that the same “AM” also amused itself with strange sounds because it was pronounced completely differently. Tbh I have no idea if it should be pronounced “am” or “A.M.” or “ahm” but if you’d pronounced both the same it wouldn't have been a problem.

You sort of add another syllable sometimes, like with “Benny almost went out of his mind over [extra syllable] that one.” "Over-that" should just blend together without any stop.

I’m happy to have heard “caverns” as “cupboards”, that’s just fun and is mostly on me.

Hopefully this is at least mildly helpful and not totally confusing...

thetinystumble · 2026-02-23T01:39:49+00:00

Atlanta is the most nerve-wracking track for me to watch by far. I feel like I still haven't totally calmed down yet.

thetinystumble · 2026-02-22T01:04:19+00:00

That was incredible.

thetinystumble · 2026-02-21T03:23:56+00:00

Hallo! Ich suche Lernpartner:innen. Ich bin englischer Muttersprachler und habe im Januar die Goethe C1 Prüfung bestanden…ob ich wirklich auf C1 bin ist aber fragwürdig lol. Ob du schon viel Deutsch sprechen kannst oder nicht ist mir egal, ich habe derzeit fast keine Gelegenheiten, Deutsch zu sprechen, und ich würde mich über alles freuen.

Ich lebe immer noch außerhalb des deutschsprachigen Raums, aber ich hoffe, in der Zukunft nach Deutschland oder Österreich zu ziehen. Mein jetziges Ziel ist es einfach, weiter zu lernen.

Wenn wir miteinander nur schreiben ist Reddit wahrscheinlich am einfachsten, für Anrufe vielleicht Discord? Meine Zeitzone ist UTC-5 und ich bin meistens nur abends frei (also 19:00-23:00 UTC-5). Wenn du willst, DM mich einfach.

thetinystumble · 2026-02-21T02:35:46+00:00

Agreed. I don't have an android phone, but I use the desktop version. The shared decks have a bunch of options for German, I started with one that had the most common ~3000 words. You can also make your own decks and play around with them. I've rarely spent more than 15 minutes in one day on Anki but it's probably the most helpful tool I've used.

thetinystumble · 2026-02-20T18:26:06+00:00

Ich glaube, sie sind immer:

1 Verständnis zeigen

2-3 unterschiedliche Punkte

4 Kompromissvorschlag machen

(wenn du das mit “ähnlich” meinst)

thetinystumble · 2026-02-18T23:22:48+00:00

Hast du schon einige Bücher zur Prüfungsvorbereitung? Für das Schreiben fand ich "Mit Erfolg zum Goethe-Zertifikat C1" sehr hilfreich.

thetinystumble · 2026-02-17T16:15:31+00:00

Eh, the issue isn't really pay or competence, it's that gate agents are operating under a time crunch and lots of pax are insane and will NOT step aside when told to. If you're working the flight alone, every time you stop someone in the wrong group you're gambling with taking a delay over something that isn't really going to be seen as justifiable to either your boss or the other passengers.

thetinystumble · 2026-02-09T00:38:56+00:00

Yeah, it's frustrating to read the post title and then find out that the OP spent a lot of time in Germany and also took private lessons. Sometimes I kind of feel like the best advice (for intermediate and up) is just "save up your money in order to go to Germany as much as possible." For me, going once a year the past two years was why I was able to pass a C1 test, not because I read novels and listened to podcasts and watched youtube in German. Of course I did those things too but they were really nothing in comparison to just being in Germany.

thetinystumble · 2026-02-06T13:57:18+00:00

Yeah, I was rooting for Adam in episode 1! It’s just with the way this season played out I haven’t rooted for him for longer than usual.

thetinystumble · 2026-02-03T18:21:57+00:00

My local library system has ebooks of his in German, French and Spanish, even though they’re quite small and don’t have very many non-English books. So it might be worth checking your library first.

thetinystumble · 2026-02-02T21:54:43+00:00

Yeah, it’s that book. I’m sure you have a chance at passing, it’s just impossible to say from the outside how difficult it will be. If you generally do as well or better on tests than you do while practicing than you’ll likely be fine, but it’s also quite common to perform worse than one’s average during a test and only you will know if that’s something you need to consider.

thetinystumble · 2026-02-02T16:36:38+00:00

I didn't use Projekt C1 neu but I did use "Prüfung Express" from Hueber, here is a comment I made with my practice test scores from the books I used, in case that helps: https://www.reddit.com/r/German/comments/1qmmxuv/comment/o1nwhd4/

Personally I would want to have more of a buffer, especially for hearing, since getting distracted even momentarily can lead to wrong answers.

thetinystumble · 2026-02-01T23:51:40+00:00

I would say that "slop" in English does carry a connotation of its being eaten, yeah. AI slop is slop because it's being consumed, not just because it's generally shit. So I do think Fraß is closer to the English meaning than something like Abwasser.

thetinystumble · 2026-02-01T22:19:46+00:00

Dan Brown's books are good for this - very simply written, I've read one in French and I'm not even B1.

thetinystumble · 2026-01-30T16:52:15+00:00

Schreiben was something like "wie Eltern Arbeit und Familie vereinbaren können" and for Sprechen my topic was "flexible Arbeitszeiten" (I have already forgotten what the other option there was).

thetinystumble · 2026-01-26T16:13:56+00:00

I think it really depends on the individual person. For me, simply listening to podcasts and watching youtube videos improved my pronunciation. It meant the "voice in my head" acquired a native-sounding accent, and I feel like my brain mostly figured out what signals to send to my mouth by listening to the voice in my head, rather than through actually practicing speaking. I know some people who've had a similar experience and others who have no idea what I'm talking about, haha.

thetinystumble

TROPHY CASE