Signed up for German at my local community college. It's a non-credit German Discussion course. I'm hoping this will help solidify my skills to something that can be lined up to an actual German class level.
It really seems like Community College is one of the best opportunities for learning language. Check your local community college for summer semester (or fall semester if you wanna plan ahead a bit).
Actual self study has very much slowed down. It's harder to be motivated now that I have no trips planned. I joke with my friends that I need to spend money on a German vacation to motivate myself again lol.
I still do Anki each day but my Grammatik aktiv work has slowed considerably.
I will say that I've upgraded my level of effort on Anki cards. I now consider myself at the level where all verbs must be checked with infinitive, 3rd person present, 3rd person past, and 3rd person past perfect (lassen, lässt, ließ, hat gelassen). That has increased my error rate dramatically and wore me out a bit. But I don't think that I've worked as hard as before yet, even if I'm still studying each day.
My overall focus is to get my speaking up even if I'm going to be stuck at A2 a while longer. I know my speaking is lagging behind and I'm willing to put effort and focus on this problem rather than continuing to my B1 stuff.
I do have enough understanding that I'm beginning to enjoy German VTubers. But it's not a complete understanding of what they say yet... More like I get the overall gist and only with ample hints (exaggerated cartoon faces, meme images and other such context clues). I'm unable to just understand the native level German on its own / isolated.
I feel like you're approaching this incorrectly. Do you have graded readers?
An A2 graded reader would assume you knew all A2 level words and have definitions for the B1+ / B2 (or beyond) words in the text.
So instead of making software that does the work of making a graded reader, it is probably better to just start by using graded readers (where all this work has already been done).
Took a week off language studies after the trip... because the trip really wore me out. You know, actual training for my job is like, hard and brain-power sucking. Then coming back from a trip is still all this laundry, chores, catchup at work, etc. etc.
Okay, so my week in Berlin, what did I learn?
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The tourist areas are full of tourists. I walked up to many people to ask something (ex: can I cross the street here?) only for the response to be "I only speak English", be it an American, a Dutch/Netherlands couple, or Italian.
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City centers, subways are filled with German speakers who will respond with German. They're busy and often don't want a conversation, but they can answer one or two quick questions. Due to their impatience, they'll take one question in German and immediately switch to English (something in my accent must have reliably told them I'm American/English speaker).
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There were still situations where I was forced to use 100% German and I think it improved my language skills. Immigrant communities, such as the Turks who make all the Döhner Kabobs, they speak Turkish first, German 2nd, and don't really have the room for English. Same thing with the massage I got: Thailand immigrant, who also speaks German, but very broken English. There's also a substantial number of "older folks" who speak German only (but usually have a spouse who speaks English, or a younger person nearby, like an employee, who they'll redirect you for English).
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The actual computer training was all in English. I accidentally started to one of the staff in charge of the Hotel as I was looking for anyone who spoke German (she was sitting in the dining area, so I assumed she was part of the training at first, but she was actually in charge of organizing / watching over the conference as Hotel Staff). My German isn't at the conversational level yet though so we mostly talked in English after trying a few lines in German.
I did pickup a B1 textbook in German
So solid progress, but now I need to think about my push to B1. I'd like to finish Grammatik aktiv to get me a grammatical basis (mostly because I'm already half-way through Grammatik aktiv, but also because grammar is a good foundation for new stuff). That would leave mostly the vocabulary / practice when I get to the coursebook.
I'll probably start reading more for variety as well. I'll need to fill up my vocabulary banks / Anki again.
You don't have to go very far in German before you find words that simply don't exist in English.
ausgeshildert -- to have been marked well with signposts.
Ex in English: Don't worry about the guests getting lost. The subway to here is ausgeshildert.
And now ... the riskiest thing I've done.
I'm going to stop studying for a week. Because I'm going to be in Germany.
I've given this some though: there is no amount of studying I can do that compares to just the natural immersion of being in Germany. No amount of Anki cards or grammar exercises will be as good, or important, as another 10 minutes going to a store, bar, restaurant or other activity and just trying to soak in all the natural German I can.
So that's a rule I'm making for myself. No more studying until I get back from the trip. Catching up to a weeks worth of Anki backlog probably will suck though lol.
Grammatik aktiv 40+. I'm halfway done my current textbook.
Not much to say. I'm beginning to learn vocab from some exercises now, but I'm still worried that my overall vocabulary is lagging behind.
May is pretty soon. Are you going to try and attend the trade show this year? Curious if that was/is your goal.
Yeah. The goal was always to reach A2+ before May (meaning I had 6ish months staring in November when I decided to be really serious about my studying).
It's an trade conference in English. But in Germany. So now I have some "fire" and a practical exercise. I basically want to be able to take the train, listen to airport announcements and overall enjoy Germany without pulling out Google Translate all the time.
I think I'm like A2- though, slightly behind schedule. I'm not convinced that I can pass an A2 exam right now. But I know all the theory of A2 subjects (weil vs dann and sentence structure, comparatives, subordinate clauses, perfekt vs präterium) and have substantial numbers of hours in grammar practice.
Just not quite enough practice yet to pass a certification exam.
Thanks. The card I had, as well as Wiktionary, are both missing the context for zureden.
DWDS has the contexts and examples, but I'm not strong enough in German yet to consistently read DWDS yet. https://www.dwds.de/wb/zureden
I'm getting there however. I can understand the gist but not the nuance of DWDS.
Thanks!
Ich bin seit zwei Monaten "Zwei Welten" gehört! "The Wise Guys" singen klar und deutlich. Ich empfehle auch!
The Wise Guys sing clearly and precisely. I do recommend them. I have been listening to their album "Zwei Welten" since ~2 months ago.
Maybe I need to make a new topic for my music / listening list?
I've been listening to "Du bist schön" for months. I finally decided to "study" it today so that I can understand it. (IE: Google translate, Wiktionary, etc. etc.)
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Holy shit. I knew the words for mirror, beautiful, as well as Alligatoah makes it clear that this guy was talking to himself in the song. But the full understanding was lost until I studied now.
That's a lot of self deprecating humor all at once. With a huge amount of social commentary.
I can highly recommend as a German language exercise, though maybe it's a bit of a downer overall.
I knew this was a sarcastic and "biting" song even without study. But wow.
Du bist schön, aber dafür kannst du nichts
Weder lesen, noch schreiben, noch was anderes
Du bist schön, aber dafür kannst du nichts
Du kannst nicht mal was dafür, dafür kannst du nichts