Ich mag Deutsch

[Jembru]

Re: Ich mag Deutsch

I took one year of German in 9th grade and still remember quite a bit, over 40 years later. I liked it.

Really? You have a better memory for languages than me then! I studied German for 2 years and while nowhere close to competent, I was able to do do groupwork with my classmates in German. I even sang the song I posted above in front of the class and got them all to join in, yet when I heard it again earlier, some of the words were totally alien to me now (it came back after a few plays though and now it's stuck in my head!).

I used to suspect I have something wrong with the language centres of my brain. When I quit German to pick up Japanese again, I had to go right back to basics after just a 2 year break. 6 years on my Japanese is coming along nicely but almost all my German is gone. It's really frustrating because it feels like all those hours I'd put in, and the cost of the night classes, was wasted.

[volcaniclastic]

Re: Ich mag Deutsch

I'm a hands on type of person, and I find that for Spanish, owning a few grammar books and English-Spanish (or in your case, German) dictionaries really come in handy.

Memrise and Duolingo are great (Have you checked out Lingvist? Hellotalk? Lang8?) ...but they are designed to teach you intuitively. They don't teach you the why of a phrase, only the phrase itself. It's more formal, but its definitely beneficial to learn the verb conjugates around the words you're going to use - past, present, future, conditional tenses.

Also, check out podcasts. I don't know any specifically for German, but there's loads for french and spanish, so I can only assume there are also for German.

Also...keep a notebook. Get a blank book, and every time you learn a new word - write it down. It helps with long term memorization. I do that for Spanish, and I organize it by type (did I just learn a piece of furniture? into the house pile of nouns!) - a colour - a number - a place, or a set of directions? Etc.

Watch German movies, read German children's books. For Spanish, I've been reading poetry, and writing the translations above it. Listen to German music, German news, etc.

Submerse yourself.

[Bjorn]

Re: Ich mag Deutsch

I found the entire Rosetta Stone for German for $50 and it's already installed and activated on my computer. SUPER! ^_^

That seems like a good start.