Language Courses

[Young Un]

You've done the same German course as the bloke who runs the local Döner Kebab place near me, haven't you?

Not unless he is in year ten at alcester grammar schhol, I havent.

Steve

 

[Unkraut]

I'm currently studying German at University as a mature student.

Only the very finest and best study German at university!

To answer the question in the thread, I was initially self-taught, and used A First German by Leslie Stringer in the Teach Yourself series. This is the only language book in this series that actually enabled you to get the basics of the language without much technical knowledge of grammar i.e. without really needing a teacher to explain it to you. I also eventually did the A-level by correspondence course, but you will appreciate that the weakness of this is in enabling you to speak the language rather than understand, read and write in it.
There is also no way round some hard graft and allocation of time to learning a language, and the old Hugo's German etc in 3 Months is more than a bit unrealistic.

 

[Auntie Helen]

I learned Hebrew at Uni (when I was a proper undergrad, a young thing of 18) and it certainly wasn't easy. I then picked up a copy of the Hugo book Hebrew In Three Months and looked at it and thought, 'No way!' Having learned the language myself, or at least attempted to, it was plain to me that there is no possible way one can learn a language properly in 3 months unless you are immersed completely in it or a Polymath or something; one of these books won't do it.

My husband tried to learn German using the Pimsleur course from the library; he got about as far as "Wo ist der Opernplatz?", which he's never had to use in anger, and that took him several weeks.

Although teach-yourself books have their place, I think it would be pretty difficult to really learn a language that way. You wouldn't have anyone trying to improve your pronunciation (hearing my husband's attempts at German pronunciation having used Pimsleur alone prove that) and it would be hard to know if you're getting things right. Of course the only real way to learn is to live in the country AND study at the same time but I doubt you're up for that.

My recommendation is, again, try to find a course at a local college or Uni and give that a whirl. I was surprised how cheap my Uni course is (£300 per year for the Advanced German module; this is odd as the Undergrads are paying £3,000 per year for four modules) and the fact they give me homework encourages me to do a bit more work outside the actual lessons. Plus trotting over to Germany every couple of months helps...

 

[puddleglum]

I'm really enjoying the BBC course and would recommend it to anyone. I also go to college one night a week, and the two sides kind of reinforce each other. and of course, I have PunkyP correcting my every 5th word....

 

[pedaling]

Learn the basics, then go there asap - it will improve your confidence with the language so much, and your fluency (by that I don't mean near-native level of speaking, I simple mean learning to speak fluidly) in a way it only can if you're surrounded by the language. Have you learnt any other foreign languages before?

I've been learning German for nearly 7 years - from my first visit my love for the language was reinforced, as well as discovering that I really enjoyed many German things.

If you want any suggestions for books, audio material, films, or places to visit in Southern Germany (haven't ventured up North yet!) please feel free to ask me, I am very willing to help if I can!

Viel Glück!

 

[punkypossum]

I'm really enjoying the BBC course and would recommend it to anyone. I also go to college one night a week, and the two sides kind of reinforce each other. and of course, I have PunkyP correcting my every 5th word....:wink:

Correction: Should that not have said every 3rd word???

 

[Unkraut]

If you want any suggestions for books, audio material, films, or places to visit in Southern Germany (haven't ventured up North yet!) please feel free to ask me, I am very willing to help if I can!

Viel Glück!

As a slight aside, for language learning purposes the north of Germany is better than the south inasmuch as they speak relatively dialect free 'BBC' German as it were. It's not without its attractions either. Our local dialect is Badisch, and it still take a lot of mental effort to follow what is being said when the locals lapse into it. My daughter, whose German is now ahead of her Engish, can do quite a good send up of it!

At least these days there is a wealth of language learning materials which are better suited to what you actually need, rather than learning sets of paradigms, conjugations, irregular verbs and ' rules' by rote, only to find some things are so obscure that even native speakers don't really know about them.

 

[Auntie Helen]

I'd echo that - it can be difficult to work out what's being said if the accent and regional words are particularly strange. I used to visit Austria quite a lot, the Zell am See region, and I got fairly good at understanding what was going on. I then spent several years visiting the Berlin area and other parts of north Germany (Lübeck, Bremen etc) and then this summer went back to Austria. Despite the fact that I now speak way better German than I could before, when I was watching the European Cup football in Austria I had to find a German, rather than Austrian, TV station so that I could understand the commentary. The Austrian accent had become too difficult.

Although Unkraut is right in saying there are language tools that don't focus so much on rules/verbs/conjugations, I have to say that it's that aspect of the language that I've found to be structurally vital... and which I still remembered from my days of doing O-level German when I came back to it. The irregular verbs are really important and I'm glad I learned them very well, by rote, when I was young enough and with a spongy-enough brain to take them in. It created a very good foundation that the rest of my German sits reasonably securely on. I only wish I'd worked really had at the time at getting my adjectival endings right; although they don't really matter as a foreigner speaking German, they matter far more in written work and I still make far too many mistakes with them.

 

[Unkraut]

Although Unkraut is right in saying there are language tools that don't focus so much on rules/verbs/conjugations, I have to say that it's that aspect of the language that I've found to be structurally vital... and which I still remembered from my days of doing O-level German when I came back to it. The irregular verbs are really important and I'm glad I learned them very well, by rote, when I was young enough and with a spongy-enough brain to take them in. It created a very good foundation that the rest of my German sits reasonably securely on.

Funny you should say that, but when my wife joined me for my year abroad (in the Bremen area), she found that the O-level German she had done a few years earlier put her in very good stead for actually learning to use the language. Like you, I think grammar is important and doesn't have to be boring if the structure of language interests you. It is though a means to an end and not an end in itself.
On the other hand, I was taught French for 5 years as though it were Latin, and never began to be remotely good at the spoken language even though we did the past anterior. Never would have been able to order and pay for a coffee, for example, but recently in Alsace when this was needed they all spoke fluent German still!!

 

[Auntie Helen]

I think it's a balancing act between learning language structure, rules, grammar etc (the boring stuff) and just speaking the language, mistakes and all, to gain fluency.

My German learning was a great basic groundwork for O-level, then nothing to do with German for the next 12 years or so, then I started visiting Germany for holidays and various bits started coming back to me. I did an AS level for fun about 6 years ago and then last year did a month's intensive course at the Goethe Institut in Berlin. And now I'm studying at the local Uni with a bunch of 19 year olds, me almost twice their age.

What's really noticeable amongst my fellow students is that most of them haven't had much opportunity to actually speak their German. They've learned it, done A level, but their spoken German is very halting. Although they have a reasonable vocabulary many of them seem to struggle to say something if they don't know the one vital word in the sentence that they want to use; they just dry up. It's very different for me, who's been speaking German a lot for the last 8 years, no doubt making plenty of mistakes but feeling confident in what I say. Not only that, if I don't know the relevant vocabulary I just say the sentence in another way. My fellow students all seem to think I'm much better at German than I actually am because I speak fast and without lots of 'erm, um...' comments and without breaking off to mentally search for a word. If they really knew what I was saying they would notice the errors of gender and case endings and stuff like that.

I have also noticed that things that I find difficult (adjectival endings, case endings, articles) my fellow students seem better at; I don't have many problems with word order or modal particles (ja, mal, doch etc) and they seem to cause major problems to the students. I think it becomes clear what you can pick up through hearing the language a great deal and what you can't.

A couple of the students have a German parent or some other significant link and their German is clearly way better than everyone else's, very fluently spoken. I'm the only one with English-speaking parents who has spent significant time in the country and I think it shows in the variations in how we approach the language.

What that whole waffle was about was, in summary, that I think:
(a) Having a good grounding in grammar, structure etc is a vital foundation upon which to build
(B) Spending time in the country and hearing native German speakers talking is really helpful to gain confidence and fluency
(c) German can be a horribly difficult language to learn!

 

[Unkraut]

I think it's a balancing act between learning language structure, rules, grammar etc (the boring stuff) and just speaking the language, mistakes and all, to gain fluency.

Yes, there does seem to be a trade off between quantity and quantity, meaning if you strive for accuracy your fluency suffers and vice versa. I think it is better to go for the accuracy initially, as from experience I have found it very difficult to unlearn mistakes if you have got into the habit of speaking them.
One good thing though on the endings front: native speakers very often don't notice if you use the wrong ones, as they tend to hear what they expect to hear.
Do you have access to German telly, btw? Using even a really cheapo satelite system it can be an excellent resouce for experiencing the genuine language.

 

[Auntie Helen]

I'm one of those luddites who eschews satellite TV so no German channels. However I have quite a few German films which I occasionally watch. I struggled with my copy of Das Leben der Anderen, which had no English subtitles, but then I think people don't seem to speak as clearly on films as they do in real life. I'm off to Berlin in a week's time for a few days so no doubt I'll get plenty of opportunities to practice my German while I'm there.

And of course next May I'm planning a 2-3 week cycle tour along the Rhine and Mosel rivers on my tod which should give me plenty of opportunity to practice "Haben Sie ein Einzelzimmer mit dusche?"

 

[Maz]

I know a little German.





Her name's Eva.

 

[punkypossum]

It's not just the foreigners that struggle with the accents tho, I was watching a tv clip in swiss german the other night, and apart from catching the odd word, I didn't have a clue what they were on about...something about moutaineering (I think )

 

[Maz]

It's not just the foreigners that struggle with the accents tho, I was watching a tv clip in swiss german the other night, and apart from catching the odd word, I didn't have a clue what they were on about...something about moutaineering (I think )

There's the rub - knowing where one word ends and the next begins. My written/reading Spanish is reasonable, but understanding spoken Spanish at 'normal' speed is quite a challenge!!