I’ve got 3 days left for my class, so I’m beginning to work on my self study again.

Gramattik Aktiv feels the right level. The early exercises are easy for me but still useful. Being in 100% German makes it feel very efficient for german learning.

I’m maybe 80% memorized the song ,Mein bester Freund’'. https://youtu.be/A1I4GStK3Cw , pretty easy song so might as well start singing right?

The “Deshalb kampf’ ich jetzt” was the difficult part to get my tongue fast enough to say, in the last verse. Otherwise it’s all pretty easy!

Find the people who actually learn a new language to any respectable degree… and none of them use Duolingo. Duolingo is a gamified piece of crap designed to sell advertisements. It makes you think you are learning.

At best, Duolingo gets you maybe to A1 level (ie: understanding the alphabet of target language, sounds, and a few common words). There was a time when some select languages had strong community forums on Duolingo that the community would learn despite the shitty software, but all the moderators + teachers were fired and “replaced by AI”. So you don’t even get a community these days. The people are the key to any liberal art. And language is at its core, communication. A community of people can learn despite any level of shitty software.

The paid software (ie: Babbel, Rosetta Stone, etc. etc.) all have small but paid communities of teachers behind their exercises. Its not the best learning, but its better than Duolingo.

If at all possible, find in-person learning. Community college, actual college, or other language schools. iTalki is available if you want a cheaper online-only teacher. If you live in an area with lots of spanish speakers, it should be possible to find a local language teacher…

Private tutors are most convenient but are the most expensive. (3 hours a week private tutors are the cream of the crop, but very expensive). If you have a large enough community, there’s a chance you get into small-group study (4 people per class), which cuts costs down dramatically (half-off or cheaper per person). Community college and other courses are only a few hundred bucks for a semester, a bargain for what you get in comparison to private tutors. But you won’t get as much attention.

Self study options (ie: self-help software like Duolingo, Babble, Rosetta Stone) are the slowest and hardest way to learn. Its better than nothing, but you’ll really need someone to talk Spanish with in your life to actually practice. Plenty of people learn languages by themselves, so its completely possible. Just know you are taking the hardest path.

I probably should tell you about “intensive learning”. Some people go all out, which means quitting their job for extended periods of time, and joining a school for 4+ hours a day with 4-hours of homework per day, and spending months drilling a language. This includes Diplomats at the US State Department, Military Linguistics, and “Intensive Language Schools”. Its considered the most efficient way to learn, but many people fail and the lifestyle is incompatible with a regular life. (either that, or you use it to replace your job, like a military linguist officer).

Nicos Weg (from Deutsche Welle) is probably the best free source of German study in the whole internet.

So yeah, definitely use dw.

Have you tried shadowing?

Its not perfect speaking practice, but you can do it by yourself. You need a script + a recording. You listen to the recording, you read the script, then you play the recording AND talk at the same time (possibly reading from the script). Songs are a good start, but you also want to practice “normal speaking melodies / normal speaking rhythms” if at all possible.

I’ve been using songs + a German A2-graded news script here: https://learngerman.dw.com/de/kurz-und-leicht/s-69137519 . Its free for me, but you’ll have to search in your target language for a similar resource…

The idea is you want to match EVERYTHING with the native speaker. Accents, melody, rhythm. Exactly everything. Shadowing at EXACTLY the same time is your best shot at matching perfectly.

Reading of true native books is also a great option. French in particular has “Le Petit Prince”, an excellent book for the A2+ level or B1- level. 15000 words, pictures/illustrations to help you out. And a story that is simple enough for a child, but enough nuance for adults to have celebrated for the past century.

You’ll see what I mean about “frequency lists” when you read any book. You’ll have both common words, but also important “rare” words that you need to master to get through the book.

A2 is too early to completely understand the book. But you will get a better idea of how language is used by natives by reading native books.

This is where Anki’s true superpower comes up. Building your own cards. If you set your goal as “Le Petit Prince”, you simply put into Anki every card you don’t know yet and feels important (don’t aim for 100% understanding, its basically impossible at A2 level). Then you keep drilling until you can read the book. Easy and done. Its not as good as roleplay (where your brain starts to search for new words to continue a discussion). But its still better than a frequency list.

But yes, keep studying the frequency list! Its not bad. I’m just trying to say where you can get some “better” and more meaningful material.

1500-1700 of the most frequent words now

Hmmm. As a beginner I overrated the frequency list.

Yes, a vocabulary is necessary to grow. But it seems more important to have complete conversations. And the only way you complete a conversation is with using the words specific to a conversation.

To complete your shopping list might require more rare words. Fish (common word) isnt useful at all, grocery stores don’t sell “fish”. Instead, they sell “tilapia”. (Specific kinds of fish).

To complete a hypothetical grocery discussion to a realistic level… even as a beginner… requires study of words in the 5,000+ or even 10,000+ or less frequently lists. Just one or two such words, but yes it’s important.

The A2 vocabulary lists in any test include enough vocab to cover the expected discussions on a test. It might only be top1000 frequent words, and then 500+ more rare words needed to cover trains, airplane travel, hotels and other key test-based subjects.

The frequency list is IMO, the default study when you don’t know what else to study. But if you are seeking A2 certificate, study the A2 lists specifically.

The real life talking and roleplay is your best guide if you can get one. The rarer words pop up naturally as roleplay progresses.

But yes, we language learners need thousands of words memorized. So we must have default study options every day. Frequency lists are great for that. But try to seek out roleplay situations and get a feel for the necessary rare words.

Given the article about Anki and how that author was happily on 70%… I’ve decided to lower my Anki-FSRS from 90% (default) down to 80%. This should cut my workload significantly. It will take a week or so before the workload feels different, but the simulations suggest maybe 30% or 40% fewer cards-per-day and only losing maybe 5% of my memory. (Fewer reviews == more mistakes, which means more words “forgotten”. But at only 5%-ish, its a good tradeoff)

The simulator also says that 70% is my optimal workload for fewest-minutes spent per card. So maybe I should keep dropping it down all the way to 70%?

As of today, I’ve completed 5 months of study. 3 of which were self-study, and 2-months under a tutor (twice a week meetings, 3 hours total). I have 3 weeks left in my tutoring session, meaning I need to figure out where my next steps are. Tutoring is expensive, both in time and in dollars. I 100% needed it, my speaking skills have gone from non-existent (with huge numbers of “unknown” mistakes in my pronunciation), to passable. I feel confident with the skills I’ve gained from our in-person practice. But I’m no where near my overall goals even with all the tutoring.

I feel the need to do more tutoring, but maybe later? My current bottleneck is clearly vocabulary and grammar. Subjects I can handle on my own. I also have significant amounts of self-study that I’ve built up (ie: Pokemon, “Das Maus”, transcribing and/or translating songs, Grammatik aktiv. Vocabulary lists to memorize… etc. etc.). With all the tutoring sessions + homework, I barely have gotten any of my self-study done.

I’ll at least work through my self-study goals (finish reading my A2 book. Maybe complete a full playthrough of Pokemon, etc. etc.), before I consider additional tutoring. I know this will stunt my speaking skills, but I’m also confident that additional tutoring in the future can “fix” my speaking skills later.

I did have one moment of “achievement” this past week. I’ve begun to remove the children songs from my playlist. While I haven’t gained mastery of all the children songs of my previous playlist… I realize I am “strong” enough to be learning from real pop songs / normal German songs now.

I’ll probably go back to some of the harder children songs (or at least, the ones with more complex rhythms / less boring songs). They really are great for learning vocabulary. But my skill level has evolved that I can be sampling harder songs / harder books / harder material successfully. So I should move forward and leave the easier stuff behind…

Hmm. I was going to call bullshit in 10 words a day (20 new cards) but he claims 70% retention setting, which is much much lower than mine/default of 90%. I’ll start experimenting with some settings tonight…

It was a “wall” week for me, at least psychologically.

I started looking up a lot of the lyrics to the new songs I’m listening to, and am realizing that I’ve been totally mishearing the lyrics. It has taken me 2 hours (!!!) to reach the 1st Pokemon center in Pokemon Weiße. I’ve been getting like 70% on Anki this past week, etc. etc.

Its just one of those weeks, I’ll keep practicing but its a downer this time. Sometimes progress feels like a step back rather than a step forward.

I’ll share “Wann fängt mein Leben an?” (Tangled German version) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_S6l7Dazg-8

As far as Disney songs go, this one is on the easier side. Especially with the video. Its basically Repunzel going over her morning routine, so its a lot of “simple” and “beginner” words (ex: read a book, do a painting, clean and cook).

Example:

NPC: Also, dann werde ich dir jetzt aus dem Expeditionshandbuch vorlesen.

Hmm, I struggled with this sentence. I thought I understood it. I click next and…

Hier steht: Für Trainer ist der X-Knopf unerlässlich! Vergiss das nicht!

Ohhhhhh. He’s reading (vorlesen) from the Expedition-Handbook. The next sentence makes everything so clear, even if the grammar of the first sentence was so difficult for an A2- like myself. (Its… an A2 level sentence. I “should” have been able to figure it out, but I’m not very well practiced with this yet).

In a lot of these cases, there’s “play”. I don’t have to achieve full understanding from the first sentence, the 2nd or 3rd sentence helps explain the earlier sentences.

In Pokemon White / Black, it is the first time you depart as a group, a set of 3 where Bianca took the pokemon you were strong with, while Cheren is more of your traditional rival.

Professor to the group: Oh, ihr habt eure Pokemon schon kämpfen lassen. Das is ja großartig!

This is the first time I’ve had the opportunity of “someone” calling out to me with “ihr” (you-all in German). This is especially good practice because “ihr” also means “they” or even “hers”, depending on context (yeah… German is weird). It actually took me a while to “understand” that ihr in this sentence was referring to me + Biana + Cheren all together.

It makes me appreciate the changes Pokemon did over the years. Earlier games was just “you” vs “rival” (You vs Gary, for example). Adding additional “friends” so that more group words, or other such “roleplay” situations really adds to the language-comprehension of this game.

I started Pokemon Weiße. It starts with…

https://www.pokewiki.de/Professor_Esche/Zitate

„Hallo! Wie geht’s? Willkommen in der Welt der Pokémon! Ich bin Prof. Esche! Die Leute nennen mich auch die Pokémon-Professorin. Wie du vielleicht weißt, wird diese Welt von Wesen bevölkert, die man Pokémon nennt. In den Pokémon schlummern geheimnisvolle Kräfte. Begegnen kann man ihnen beinahe überall und es gibt eine große Vielfalt an unterschiedlichen Arten unter ihnen. Die Pokémon und wir Menschen ergänzen uns ganz ausgezeichnet! Wir führen ein Leben in Eintracht mit ihnen und helfen uns gegenseitig, wo wir können. Um das Band der Freundschaft zu seinen Pokémon zu stärken, ist es sehr beliebt, mit ihnen gegen die Teams anderer Trainer zu kämpfen. Tja, und ich habe mein Leben der Erforschung der Pokémon gewidmet! Aber genug von mir… Erzähl mir doch lieber ein bisschen was über dich! Bist du ein Junge oder ein Mädchen? […] Aha, ein <gewähltes Geschlecht> bist du also! Habe ich das richtig verstanden? […] Jetzt wüsste ich noch gern, wie du heißt. Verrate mir doch bitte deinen Namen! […] <Name des Spielers> heißt du also. Ist das richtig? […] <Name des Spielers>… Das ist aber mal ein toller Name! Gut, dann will ich dir jetzt noch mal deine treuen Weggefährten vorstellen. Ihr seid ein unzertrennliches Gespann! Dieser Junge hier heißt Cheren. Manchmal gibt er sich ein wenig mürrisch, aber er ist ein aufrichtiger Bursche. Dieses Mädchen hört auf den Namen Bell. Sie geht alles ein wenig gemütlicher an, aber gibt immer ihr Bestes… Ich werde euch dreien jetzt einfach mal vertrauen und jedem von euch eins meiner kostbaren Pokémon schenken. Hör mir gut zu, <Name des Spielers>! Von dem Augenblick an, an dem du dich für ein Pokémon entscheidest, beginnt dein ganz persönliches Abenteuer. Auf deiner Reise wirst du mit unzähligen Pokémon und Menschen in Berührung kommen, die nicht immer dieselben Ideen und Auffassungen teilen wie du. Ich hoffe, es gelingt dir, durch diese Begegnungen herauszufinden, was für dich im Leben wichtig ist und was nicht… Ich sehe, du verstehst mich! Das große Ziel deiner Reise sollte es sein, über den Umgang mit Menschen und Pokémon reifer zu werden und innerlich zu wachsen. So, jetzt aber mal los! Geh und stürze dich kopfüber in die Welt der Pokémon!“

This is very above my level. But I can get through it by looking up every word I don’t understand. It takes me a long time to make progress, but I’m actually 100% understanding the grammar. Its only the vocabulary that’s tripping me up.

dict.cc is very useful at looking up set phrases that occur. Bianca (English) aka Belle (in German) exclaims “Hopfen und Malz verloren”, which actually means “they’re hopeless”. It used to be hard to look up set phrases/idioms like this, but fortunately dict.cc just has a good database of these and found it instantly. Aside from the idioms… the most advanced grammar is the “subjunctiv”. Which is a "hypothetical’ case in German. (Ex: the German word for “can” can be turned into subjunctive form, which then means “could” in English). You are greeted in this game with a few words from Professor Esche in the subjunctiv.

Aside from that, its banging my head against all the (tons) of vocabulary I don’t know yet. But with modern computerized dictionaries, it really isn’t bad to look them up.

Now the words may be difficult, but the game makes it easy. With graphics, sound-effects, and music playing over the text, you can get a good “feeling” of what any phrases are. And because Pokemon’s sound design / music design is so integral to the story and so iconic, you’ll always have a “gist” of what’s going on even if you cannot understand the words in front of you. So the only question is how hard do you want to work at understanding these words?

I haven’t made the decision yet on how “hard” to work on understanding everything… But I do think playing this game in German will 100% help me learn the language.

Based off of the A2 rubric, I’ve decided that I’m no longer A1+, but instead A2-. I haven’t mastered all the required A2 skills (so I’d likely fail any real test), but I’ve got enough A2 level skills that I think A1+ is selling myself short.

I’ve picked up significantly more songs from Spotify, especially by focusing on translated Disney songs. Disney does offer very high quality songs that I already know. Of all the Disney songs I’ve listened to, I’m finding that the Lion King, Tarzan, Princess and the Frog, Tangled, and Frozen, seem to be the best songs. At least in my opinion.

On an “Anki” perspective, I had a big review this Monday. I dumped all of my remaining vocabulary into Anki and had a 500+ review session day on Thursday last week. Which of course followed up with 200+ review session days for Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. That got me enough practice that I feel like my review session/test was done well on Monday. Because I feel a bit burned out, I prevented any new words from coming into my Anki reviews for ~3 days (Monday/Tuesday/Wednesday). I don’t feel so burned out any more so I’ll add new cards starting Thursday.

I enjoyed “Herr von Ribbeck auf Ribbeck im Havelland”, though I don’t fully understand it yet. I’ll probably watch more of “Die Maus” moving forward.

https://www.ardmediathek.de/video/die-maus/herr-von-ribbeck-auf-ribbeck-im-havelland/wdr/Y3JpZDovL3dkci5kZS9CZWl0cmFnLTI0ZDA1MWExLTBlZTgtNDFiYS05Njc4LWEwZjBjMDFiM2Q4MQ?isChildContent

Thank you. English was indeed turned off for some crazy reason.

I did check for Undetermined before making this topic… But I forgot to scroll down also check English lol.

It looks like everything is working again.

Oh, one more thing. There are also “Grammar Workbooks” which consist of hundreds of pages worth of drills.

If you are a nerd, these hundreds of pages of exercises might be more important than reference material. Buying a workbook so that you can DIRECTLY write on the pages and try immediately is also helpful.

Grammatik Aktiv by Cornelsen covers A1 through B1 pencil-and-paper drills. Very dry stuff but it kind of works…

You need a separate textbook to know what order to learn things (it sounds like your Goethe Institute course covers this). You need additional reference (Basic German: A Grammar and Workbook covers this, a 2nd clear perspective focusing on grammar). Finally you’ll find that various bits of your speaking + writing skills suck.

Using Grammatik Aktiv exercises to drill on your weaknesses just makes sense. Maybe an intensive would try to complete the whole book but uhhhhh… self study means you get to choose when you’re done with exercises lol. Do as much as you see fit.

Grammatik Aktiv is however, 100% in German. You probably need to wait until you are A1+ before you buy Grammatik Aktiv, if only so you have enough vocabulary to even figure out what the drills are asking of you.

Maybe your A1 goal should be to learn enough German so that you can start Grammatik Aktiv, lol.

Basic German: A Grammar and Workbook by H. Schenke.

It’s short. Too short. Too few exercises and only covers material up to A2+ or so. But at only 200 pages, it’s so ridiculously short!!! One of the fastest reads you can do on this subject.

As long as you use this book as an auxiliary, it’s great. It’s not a primary lesson material, it’s to help explain other books / other lessons.

There are 1000+ page comprehensive grammar books. But beginners shouldn’t use those. Instead, using a purposefully short book that covers wide all the basics is best for a beginner IMO.

Copying others is the easiest language exercise you can possibly do. Just listen then parrot them.

So don’t just listen. ALSO repeat, either in your minds eye or even out loud if you don’t find it embarrassing.

Although I don’t understand every word… the A2 level “Kurz und leicht” section of Deutsche Welle is surprisingly readable to me now (!!!). At least, today’s story is working out quite well.

https://learngerman.dw.com/de/30012026-kurz-und-leicht-video-nachrichten-zum-deutschlernen/a-75729803

I still need to look up around 30% of the words in the article. But notice: the page has definitions (albeit definitions in German). I can understand some of the definitions (and for the definitions I don’t understand, I think its a good learning opportunity to learn more vocabulary).

My Anki Deck is seriously too full and getting very difficult for me to push through as it is however. So I won’t “study” this new vocabulary from this source. Instead I’ll take it as a more “passive” kind of learning. I’ll probably forget all these words by tomorrow, but I’m almost stressed out from the amount of Anki flashcards I have to do already… so I really don’t want to do anything to add to my current workload.

Once I’m done my classes, maybe I’ll add these words to Anki and study them seriously. But while I have classes and “normal” vocabulary words to get through, it really doesn’t make sense to increase my work (or homework) load.

I cannot “listen” to Kurz und leicht yet. I mean, I can try but its not sticking at all. I can only read (and read at a relatively slow pace at that). But now that its “comprehensible input”, I can probably start working up the speed-ladder and work my way to understanding this stuff through listening.

Reading is always the first skill you unlock at a level.

Hmmm, I need to raise my daily routine to 10 new words/day minimum again. I’ve realized that my classes are adding about +60 words per week. 5 new words/day (10 anki cards per day or 35 new words/week) just isn’t fast enough to keep up with my classes… and I actually have ambitions to do “better than my classes”. (I have pronouns to learn/drill, numbers, new songs, etc. etc.)

I’ve also begun to put some grammar into Anki flash-cards. “Everything” can seemingly become a good flash card with enough creativity and though (not necessarily a reversible card, but at least a “one-way basic” card). When Anki is my tool, everything I’m learning seems to be a “flash card” I can organize with Anki…

Anki’s true superpower really is hand-crafting your own cards that work for you. Only YOU know what songs you’re listening to, what books you’re reading. Your vocabulary (and grammar) Anki cards really need to be created and customized to your daily life and routine.

Alice: Schön! Los geht! Wir sollten uns von dem Theater um 14:30 Uhr treffen.

Note: Wikitionary entry for “treffen” suggests that the standard usage of the verb is “Wir treffen uns”, as it is a reflexive verb. However, we have a modal verb “sollen/sollten” here – sollten … treffen complicates this but I think the reflexive-uns goes here?

I’m going to make a summary thus-far (using the “most correct” form made thus far…)

Hans: Hallo. Ich bin Hans.

Alice: Hallo Hanz! Am Wochenende habe ich veile Freizeit. Magst du das Theater gehen? Ich will Hamelton sehen.

Hans: Ich gehe gern in das Theater am Wochenende, obwohl Hamilton zu teuer ist! Hamilton kostet über 500€! Welche Theaterstücke sind billiger?

Alice: Naja. 500€ ist zu teuer! “Wicked” kostet am Sonntag um 19 Uhr nur 150 €. Geht das?

New sentence from Hans:

Das geht nicht. Obwohl der Preis nicht schlecht ist, müss ich Früh am Montag arbeiten. Der Preis um 15 Uhr ist 170 €. Dürfen wir um 15 Uhr gehen?

Hmm, I’m realizing I’m using a lot of stuff from my A2 lessons and A2 classes. Although I’m at A1+, I’m obviously trying to practice my new lessons closer to A2 level. Strict adherence to the “level of German” doesn’t seem too necessary… as long as we’re in the rough ballpark.