Sgt Schultz knows nothing!

[tastyonions]

I've been following your German log. Did you do anything prior to Assimil? If not, did you find there was a major learning curve?

My German knowledge was more or less zero when starting Assimil. The learning curve is not very sharp. You just need to be consistent. And it has helped me to review lessons periodically as well.

[Sgt Schultz]

Earlier tonight I was browsing around Half Price Books and saw this. This is the first time I've seen something other than Foundation/Advanced or Total/Perfect. I'm assuming this is something new. I was tempted to get it at that price but resisted the urge.

[Fortheo]

Earlier tonight I was browsing around Half Price Books and saw this. This is the first time I've seen something other than Foundation/Advanced or Total/Perfect. I'm assuming this is something new. I was tempted to get it at that price but resisted the urge.

I actually recently started a thread about that series here:

viewtopic.php?f=19&t=3521

Speak easy reviews the german version of that series near the end of the thread and you can also find some reviews on amazon.co.uk


If you're a fan of the michel thomas method, which I am, minus his gurglish lip smacking and the frustrated students from time to time, then you might want to check out Language transfer, if you haven't already.

http://www.languagetransfer.org/complete-german


I've not used it myself, but I've seen many people on here compare it to MT and rave about how great it is. Anyways, keep up with the good work!

[Sgt Schultz]

Weekend update...

Spanish

I've been binge watching Gran Hotel. I'm currently on chapter 9 and will probably finish season 1 today. So far I'm really enjoying the show.

As promised, this weekend I started looking around for B1-B2 level books with audio. I'm a big fan of mystery/detective books and discovered a series called Lola Lago Detective. I downloaded a sample of one of the books titled "Eres tu, Maria?" and read the first 4 chapters yesterday, they were comfortable reading with only a couple of unknown words. It seems like it will hold my attention. It's also short at less than 60 pages and the chapters are 2-3 pages each. That should be perfect for reading and listening to the audible version.

I also watched the Barcelona match yesterday. I picked up a couple of new words from the Spanish adverts around the stadium. One that I thought was funny was "vehiculos seminuevos". That's almost as good as the English word "pre-owned".

German

I've finished with MT German Foundation. If I had it to do over again I probably wouldn't have done MT. I found it a bit frustrating. Sometime during the past year I completed the Paul Noble German course. I enjoyed that one a lot more and didn't find it nearly as frustrating. Since completing MT at the end of last week, I've moved on to Assimil. I've done the first 3 lessons.

For fun and also for tracking my progress as I go through Assimil, I'm going to record myself speaking German occasionally. I recorded today's Assimil lesson. Hopefully it's partially understandable

https://soundcloud.com/sgt-schultz/assimil-german-lesson-3

[Brun Ugle]

I understood your German perfectly, but you still have a pretty American sounding accent. I wonder what mine sounds like. I'm almost afraid to find out. I'm sure we'll both improve with time though.

I loved the vehículos seminuevos. Advertising is so funny sometimes.

[James29]

In terms of pretty easy adult mystery and thriller type books with audio in Spanish (that's my specialty), there are a bunch of Agatha Christie books. Also, there are several (sixteen, I think) of the Sue Grafton alphabet series. Those are all probably in the B2 range, especially the Christie books. Grisham and Michael Connelly have a ton of books out there with Spanish audio. They are a bit harder though.

I agree regarding Michel Thomas / Paul Noble. I find Noble a better product for a few reasons.

[tastyonions]

I guess you are using a different edition of Assimil than I am, since my lesson 3 is different, but I could still understand everything you said. A few things I noticed in your recording:

"v" should always be pronounced as "f" except in certain loanwords (like "nervös")
Same goes for "w" being pronounced as "v"
Need to Germanize your Rs!

Just practice doing this all the time:

[Sgt Schultz]

@Brun Ugle: Thanks, I'm glad it was understandable. I figured that since I'm only 3 lessons in that it would sound like gibberish

@James29: Thanks for the book suggestions, I'll check those out later today.

@tastyonions: Probably so, my copy is several years old. It's the one with a cube on the cover and has a castle/blonde girl on either side. Thanks for the pointers on pronunciation too.

[Sgt Schultz]

Quick mid-week update...

Spanish

I've started reading/listening to "Eres tu, Maria". I've been reading a chapter and then listening to it on Audible a few times. It's going well and the story is interesting enough to keep my attention so far. I'm really liking the Kindle/Audible combination.

Since the last update I've finished season 1 of Gran Hotel. I thoroughly enjoyed it. I'm planning on starting season 2 tonight. There are definitely differences between Spanish from Latin America and from Spain. Some of their word choices/phrases seem odd to me coming from a mostly LatAm Spanish background. They especially seem to like using the verb "echar".

German

Still plugging away at Assimil. Today is lesson 6. No issues so far. I'm waiting for them to crank up the difficulty level, I know it's coming

I've needed something to listen to on my morning commute to work so I decided to give the Paul Noble German course a second listen. It's been probably a year since I finished it so another pass through should compliment Assimil well. I'm 15 lessons into it and still believe it's a better product than MT German.

Until next time....

[Sgt Schultz]

Spanish

Since the last update I've been over doing it on Gran Hotel. I watched 19 episodes in only a few days. As you can imagine, my Spanish reading/listening has taken a back seat. But since I can't go outside without feeling unwell, this seems a good use of my time. I plan on reading/listening to several chapters today and not turning on the tv for a while

German

I'm staying with a lesson a day and haven't missed a day yet. Today I did lesson 10. I'm starting to see a little more difficulty. The pronunciation and spelling are both becoming issues.I'm starting to miss Romance languages, they seem much simpler in comparison. On the positive side, my comprehension of the lessons are still good.

Random

Lately I've been reading a lot of threads on this forum. I'm often curious about why people learn the languages they do. This is just my gut feeling but it seems that people are learning Spanish, French, German and Italian (not including English) in that order of popularity. I think it would be interesting to have something like the old forum had about why you are learning the language(s) that you are learning. I'm especially curious about French. My guess is it has to do with the amount of literature or possibly for traveling to France.

Anyway, enough of the stream of consciousness, I have a Spanish book calling my name...