Das Faultier der Deutschen Sprache

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WalkingAlone13
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Re: Das Faultier der Deutschen Sprache

Postby WalkingAlone13 » Wed Jan 18, 2017 12:19 am

vogeltje wrote:
WalkingAlone13 wrote:
vogeltje wrote:Hi chocolate fan

Your German plan sounds very organised! German is wonderful, I like it so much. Hochdeutsch sounds elegant and Plattdeutsch sounds funny, although I am not certain that what I think is Platt is truly Platt haha. Viel Spaß.


Danke, Vogelchen!
Eigentlich mag ich deutsch deshalb welche Art ist es. Natürlich sind sie anders aber auch gut in verschieden Weisen. Zum Beispiel Plattdeutsch klingt mir schneller aber vielleicht ist das nur weil ich es nicht so gut verstanden kann. Plattdeutsch und Bavarisch klingt sehr ähnlich und ich mag Bavarisch sehr, also ist das gut. Ab und yu schaue ich mich am Youtube Swiss und Östereich auch. Sehr interessant!
Hochdeutsch ist schön aber es gibt auch so viele unterschiede zwischen die Städte. Es ist ein bisschen kompliziert. Ich habe Freunde von viele Städte und manchmal sag ich was falsches zu eine was ist eigentlich wichtig in eine anderen Städt. Trotzdem finde ich Deutsch auch viel Spaß!
Hattest du einen schönen Weihnachten, wenn du er feierst? Ich hatte glück davon meine Freunde von andere Länden haben mir Schokolade geschickt! Sogar meine lieblings Schokolade Milka mit Jelly Bohnen und Bonbon das in den Mund explodiert hat. Ich hatte auch spezielitäte Schokolade von eine Brücke in Erfurt bekammen. Es war sehr stark. Haha.



Deutsch wird überhaupt nicht schnell gesprochen, finde ich, also in Vergleich mit Englisch oder Spanisch. Niederländisch auch nicht, noch langsamer als Deutsch eigentlich. Das ist ganz praktisch!!

Ja, stimmt, die Unterschiede sind groß zwischen die Städte, das denke ich auch, obwohl ich wenig kenne außer wie es im Westen des Landes klingt.

Ja, ich feie Weihnachten. Die Dekorationen finde ich am schönsten. Mein Freund hat mir eine ganz tolle Uhr gegeben, mit einen Hund darauf (ich habe einen echten Hund, den ich total liebe) und Schokolade habe ich auch bekommen. Super, dass du deine lieblings Schoko bekommen hast!!!

Dein Deustch ist kein A1 Niveau haha. Ich würde sagen B1, oder?


Stimmt, Deutsch ist nicht besonders schnell aber wenn für mich ist Schweizerdeutsch und bavarisch ziemlich schnell. Natürlich ist es weil ich sie nicht verstanden kann. Spanisch ist sehr, sehr schnell wie du gesagt hast. Glücklicheweiser muss ich noch nicht Spanisch sprechen! Fränzosisch ist auch ziemlich schnell, denke ich.
Prima! Schön zu hören, dass du eine schöne zeit hast! Ich bin einverständen. Weinachtbäume und Dekorationen sehen sehr schön aus. Ich wollte Schnee, alle Weihnachten braucht Schnee in meiner Meinung. Also gibt es hier gar keine wie immer! Boo. Deine Uhr klingt wirklich hübsch! Hast du Haustiere? Ich habe keinen Hund aber ich hatte in der Vergangenheit drei Katze. Ich liebe alle Tiere. Dankeschön! Weiß ich schon, wenn ich eigentlich in deutschland bin, kaufe ich wahrscheinlich zu viel Schokolade! Haha, vielleicht ist das nicht so schlimm. Mal sehen! :D

Glaubst du wirklich, dass meine Niveau wirklich höher ist? Ich sollte B1 Niveau sein, aber mache ich zu viel Fehlern glaube ich. Deshalb sage ich noch A1 oder vielleicht A2.

M23: You guys were on fire all last week! I had no chance of catching up after the first few days, but great job for that! I can hopefully put up a little bit more of a challenge this week. (At the time of writing, I have not checked to see how the leader board looks) So if it's an insurmountable feat, I claim nesscience over nievety!

..................................................................................................................................

Okay, so I did not have time to write up my end of week successes or lack thereof. I will try to do so now, however some of which is now reliant on memory. Unfortunately I did not manage to read as much as I would have liked, and due to more upcoming exams, I have had to miss out on a few of the activities I set myself as weekly goals.
Basically, last week ended up being mostly Memrise and a little bit of reading and Duolingo. I did however manage to have my first German Skype conversation of the year. We ended up speaking for just shy of three hours - time flies when you're speaking German and having fun! We also arranged to speak again this Sunday, so it will hopefully be a weekly thing from now on, though I doubt it will be three hours every time.
The reason I mention the above is actually more to do with the fact that I had already had two Polish Skype conversations this year before the German one, which I thought was quite funny. I can have weekly conversations in Polish now, which I absolutely love. I just wish it could have been that way before I forgot all of my Polish previously. I remember bits and can understand other bits from context, but if I still knew what I did, it would be so much better. It also gives me motivation, however, as I know I can get back to at least the same level if I try. Speaking at least, I was never very good at writing. I seem to have languages that I can speak but not write and languages which I can write but not speak. My fault, of course.
French is killing me. I have just started trying to learn 10 words a day on the French A1 course on Memrise. I still stick to two lessons a day on Duolingo. I still don't like French but I am trying to at least warm to the idea, in the hope that it will make it easier to learn. I have some very scary sounding exams coming up for French, when you take into account how long I have actually been learning it. So I have to try and up my pace and do more with it.

Anyway, I digressed several times. Typical me. I finished the Hueber A2.1 Vocab list on Memrise. I will spend the rest of this week catching up on my reviews for it and hopefully next week I will get back to the B1 vocab course for the Menschen book. I do not really get how they decide which vocab is which level. I have already done some of the course and I do not really see anything in the course that I do not already know. I do not mean that I have everything as active vocab, of course, just that a lot of it is, and that which is not, I know passively. Anyway, I will finish the course and see which vocab list to do next. I might have to finally finish one of the frequency lists. Speaking of, I know why I abandoned the 5k word one on Memrise now (after close to learning 4k words >_<) it was because of some of the annoying spaces in the answers, and not giving prompts for words that have a lot of synonyms. The space error, is most annoying, an example would be, the answer is die Katze but you have to write die Katze(type a space after the word) and then press enter. If you type the answer without a space after it, and then click enter, it is marked as wrong, leaving you very quizzical before you realise what the "error" was. And of course the lack of hints, whether something is a noun, adjective, etc. can be annoying for obvious reasons. I kept getting "enough" and wanting to write "genug" every time but having to remember it is actually looking for the verb "reichen" - to be enough.
The 4k word list is better but still has some annoyances. I will probably do this one anyway.

And, it looks like my German university is pretty much finalised! I got where I wanted, thankfully, but I am not celebrating just yet as, although very small, there is still a chance that the list may have to change. For now, I can be happy though, and that's lifted a lot of stress for me. I just have to quietly hope that nothing changes in the next few weeks and then I can really celebrate the news.

We are also expected (as in, the guesstimate of what level we will reach by the end of the semester) to be at a B2 level before we go. I do not really know what my level is, and never feel comfortable guessing so I always play it safe when telling other people what level I am. We still have 10 weeks at least, so I do not know what the likelihood of me attaining a B2 level in such a short amount of time, but we will see. I honestly do not think it is very likely. I am going to try to up my German as much as possible, even if it means spending a lot of time with my head stuck in German grammar.

Annnd, one disc left before I start season 3 of Stargate Atlantis! I am getting through this series quite fast, but luckily I have my Christmas purchases to fall back on.
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Re: Das Faultier der Deutschen Sprache

Postby Elenia » Wed Jan 18, 2017 10:55 pm

I also think your German is way better than you give yourself credit for. My German is too non-existent to judge properly, but I can understand what you write and they don't say A-anything.

EDIT: To say that I think it's always better to underestimate your own abilities rather than overestimate them - but you have to be careful not to hold yourself back because of this. I think you get in a good amount of native audio (not sure about how much you read, but I believe it's probably sufficient, too) so you don't need to worry so much about your courses, but you could probably move on to some more advanced courses without hurting your progress at all.
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Re: Das Faultier der Deutschen Sprache

Postby Cavesa » Wed Jan 18, 2017 11:18 pm

WalkingAlone13 wrote:French is killing me. I have just started trying to learn 10 words a day on the French A1 course on Memrise. I still stick to two lessons a day on Duolingo. I still don't like French but I am trying to at least warm to the idea, in the hope that it will make it easier to learn. I have some very scary sounding exams coming up for French, when you take into account how long I have actually been learning it. So I have to try and up my pace and do more with it.


Perhaps a part of your dislike towards French is due to the resources. I rushed through the French Duolingo out of curiousity some time ago, and I must say the quality is much worse, compared to the German Duolingo course. I didn't like much the content, and the computer voice's pronunciation. And I must say I was pretty unimpressed by the official Memrise courses either.
Perhaps something more worthwhile could make your time with French more enjoyable and progress faster? I don't know what all have you tried so far, though.

Anyway, I digressed several times. Typical me. I finished the Hueber A2.1 Vocab list on Memrise. I will spend the rest of this week catching up on my reviews for it and hopefully next week I will get back to the B1 vocab course for the Menschen book.

Congratulations!!!

Speaking of, I know why I abandoned the 5k word one on Memrise now (after close to learning 4k words >_<) it was because of some of the annoying spaces in the answers, and not giving prompts for words that have a lot of synonyms.
...
The 4k word list is better but still has some annoyances. I will probably do this one anyway.

Thanks, this is the first time I see a review of those two! I'll go for the 4k course too then.

And, it looks like my German university is pretty much finalised! I got where I wanted, thankfully, but I am not celebrating just yet as, although very small, there is still a chance that the list may have to change. For now, I can be happy though, and that's lifted a lot of stress for me. I just have to quietly hope that nothing changes in the next few weeks and then I can really celebrate the news.

Congratulations! Awesome!

We are also expected (as in, the guesstimate of what level we will reach by the end of the semester) to be at a B2 level before we go. I do not really know what my level is, and never feel comfortable guessing so I always play it safe when telling other people what level I am. We still have 10 weeks at least, so I do not know what the likelihood of me attaining a B2 level in such a short amount of time, but we will see. I honestly do not think it is very likely. I am going to try to up my German as much as possible, even if it means spending a lot of time with my head stuck in German grammar.

I am sure you can get at least much much closer to your goal, given your attitude and hard work!

Annnd, one disc left before I start season 3 of Stargate Atlantis! I am getting through this series quite fast, but luckily I have my Christmas purchases to fall back on.
What is the German dubbing like?
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Re: Das Faultier der Deutschen Sprache

Postby WalkingAlone13 » Sat Jan 21, 2017 7:09 pm

Thanks a lot, Elenia! I think this is something I have always struggled with, mostly because I have never actually taken an exam as such in languages, not including university exams, of course. I should probably try to throw myself in at the deep end as much as possible now and try to start using some more advanced courses like you suggest. It is not long now before I am in Germany, it may end up being too late to reach the B2 level if I do not go full throttle soon. I should definitely read more, as well. Unfortunately, I find this hardest because I never have a "quiet" place, as such. I may try to read before bed but then I forfeit some TV time.

Hey, Cavesa! Good to see you here :)
Unfortunately my "dislike" of French is mostly due to choosing Spanish but being told I would not be able to go ahead with it as I studied it in school and only absolute beginners are able to do these courses. It is hard to explain, but basically as I am taking a German degree, my second language choice has to be a complete beginner level. I find this silly as I do not remember much Spanish anyway. Still, that's my reasoning.

French is growing on me, though. I like how reflexive verbs work in French, not that I have looked much at them yet, but they seem simpler than German reflexive verbs. I have totally jinxed myself, right? Can you recommend a beginner course on Memrise for French? (I am a complete beginner - though I have to cover a vast amount in a very short time)

Yeah, I would definitely give the 5k word list a wide birth. It's okay at first, but that just makes it more annoying when you come across the annoying course errors later on, as you feel bad for abandoning it. The 4k definitely seems better. I will get back to it properly soon, so will be able to give it a better look then. Do you know when you're starting it? We could be leader board buddies! :D

Stargate Atlantis has quite good dubbing. There is a scene where one of the characters sings in English where the dubbing is cringe worthy, but that's it so far. You also get a little bit of an extra listening comprehension challenge from the end of season two throughout season three, where (no spoilers) the enemies have a distorted voice. I still managed fine, so I think you will definitely be fine.

Image

^ That was my main goal for this week. Completing the course was not too bad but keeping everything reviewed was a little challenging at times and I did not want to fully commit to another course (resuming the B1 course) before I had cemented a fair few of those words in my LTM. My reviews for the course should not be too frequent now, as I have been on top of my reviewing for a few days now.

I was also thinking more about my level conundrum and came across a follow on to the SmarterGerman challenge , this one was conducted in March I think, and the guy had 14 days to take his B1 TEFL exam. He passed, acing certain parts and with an impressive overall score. I was confused throughout as he had studied for five years, but his starting level was...strange. In one part he could conjugate with adjective endings in dative, for example, but could not answer the question "Wie geht es dir" correctly. Still, after watching through the videos, I would gladly take the same exam with confidence. Perhaps I am a B1 level, despite my errors. One can dream :D

It's here for anyone that wants to watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1z7P4UK ... wU1hqh4WoD

Other stuff
I have been battling to keep my German tree golden on Duo. I have no idea what's going on but at the moment I could blink and something will "ungold". It feels like I am playing that arcade game where you have a mallet and have to hit the crocodiles as they pop their heads up.
Duo French, not too bad. I constantly redo the first lessons by choice, due to not being confident at all in French. I try to do at least one "new" lesson on top of my reviewing. It does not feel as hard as it did in the beginning, which I was very worried about when I first started as absolutely nothing would stick.
Duo Polish. Erm, yeah. Haha. It's a bit frustrating as I remember a lot of my former Polish but my spelling abilities have vanished. I often know what the sentence means or what to write, but spell it completely wrong. Duo is quite forgiving but it still is not enough for my terrible Polish spelling.
Duo Swedish, I still feel like I am cheating with this. I still have a good passive knowledge of Swedish, which with basic translation exercises such as Duo, is not too complicated to transfer to active skills. I complete these almost as easily as I do with the German tree now. I really like using this resource for Swedish as otherwise I would not have any opportunity to practise and although I have been lucky so far, there's no doubt I would lose it. So this is handy for keeping it just about in my mind.

I had my Polish lesson on Wednesday as per usual for this year. I really enjoy these, my pronunciation is apparently quite good. When I first started learning Polish, this was what I was most often complemented on, and this time it's much the same. Too bad I can't say much.
We just speak a bit at the beginning of the lesson and then I read a dialogue from Polnisch ohne Muehe. I take a picture of the page and send it to my partner, and once I have read through it she points out my mistakes. I then read through it again amending my mistakes. Once I have done this and she is happy with my pronunciation for everything, I translate without looking at the German. If it's too tricky I get a hint, but if it is still too tricky, I just read the German to get the translation and check with my partner to see if the translation is accurate. Or if there are any nuances, which there have been so far. She also gives me some random sentences to try and translate.
Then I help her with her English, which is actually quite a lot of fun.

I am midway through season 3 of Stargate atlantis now, so that's another chunk of audio comprehension to check off. I have also watched some live concerts on youtube which contain interviews. These are quite fun when I do not feel like anything intensive. I also watch a lot of random German stuff on Youtube, vloggers and such.

Next German conversation is on Sunday. I like talking in general, and being able to chat aimlessly in German is a lot of fun. We do not really have any set topics, and because of this we cover a vast array of subjects. Last week we ended up speaking for almost two hours and twenty minutes in German before the last forty minutes in English. We do not really have a time limit as you may have noticed, just when we feel like ending, more or less. It's great having such an opportunity at the moment. I hope I can get my fluency up as much as possible all the time I am able to speak so freely.
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Re: Das Faultier der Deutschen Sprache

Postby Jar-Ptitsa » Sun Jan 22, 2017 7:33 pm

WalkingAlone13 wrote:
Stimmt, Deutsch ist nicht besonders schnell aber wenn für mich ist Schweizerdeutsch und bavarisch ziemlich schnell. Natürlich ist es weil ich sie nicht verstanden kann. Spanisch ist sehr, sehr schnell wie du gesagt hast. Glücklicheweiser muss ich noch nicht Spanisch sprechen! Fränzosisch ist auch ziemlich schnell, denke ich.
Prima! Schön zu hören, dass du eine schöne zeit hast! Ich bin einverständen. Weinachtbäume und Dekorationen sehen sehr schön aus. Ich wollte Schnee, alle Weihnachten braucht Schnee in meiner Meinung. Also gibt es hier gar keine wie immer! Boo. Deine Uhr klingt wirklich hübsch! Hast du Haustiere? Ich habe keinen Hund aber ich hatte in der Vergangenheit drei Katze. Ich liebe alle Tiere. Dankeschön! Weiß ich schon, wenn ich eigentlich in deutschland bin, kaufe ich wahrscheinlich zu viel Schokolade! Haha, vielleicht ist das nicht so schlimm. Mal sehen! :D

Glaubst du wirklich, dass meine Niveau wirklich höher ist? Ich sollte B1 Niveau sein, aber mache ich zu viel Fehlern glaube ich. Deshalb sage ich noch A1 oder vielleicht A2.


Ich kann es nicht genau beurteilen, aber ja, ich glaube schon, dass dein Deutsch besser ist als A1 oder 2. B1 klingt richtig :)

Was ich sehen kann, ist, dass du manchmal "ist" statt "sind" schreibst zB aber sonst ist es sehr gut! Meine Niveau ist ungefähr B2-C1.

Ja, ich habe einen Hund. Er ist jetzt 5 jahre alt und sehr lieb. Ich auch - ich liebe Tiere, fast alle, besonders die Vögel, natürlich. ich würde gerne noch einige Hunde haben! Hunde spielen so gerne miteinander.
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Re: Das Faultier der Deutschen Sprache

Postby WalkingAlone13 » Thu Feb 02, 2017 1:07 am

What's time? Where has it gone, and why do I not seem able to find it currently...
geesh.

I will reply properly once I have sorted somethings out. I currently have 5 important pieces of work to submit, because, you know, setting pieces throughout the year would be crazy talk. It makes far more sense to set everything on the same day to be handed in on the same day. Anyway, I still just about manage to do my usual tasks. I aim for 50k points per day on Memrise, be that reviews or actively learning new words is not all that important to me at the moment. I make sure to reach my goal of two lessons per language on Duo: German, French, Polish and Swedish.
I usually, but not always, manage to spend roughly an hour on DW. It is actually quite nice looking at what I previously found difficult on there but can now do with minimal effort.

My Uni place for Germany is basically finalised, as long as nothing unforeseen arises. I have already started browsing on and off at possible accommodation, and one of my friends has very kindly offered to view any place that I may be interested in. I also could not stop myself from sneaking a peak at the languages on offer at what will be my local Volkhochschule...haha, probably wasn't a good idea. I'll let you workout why;

Montag 17 - 18:30 (100 euros) Schwedisch A1.3
Montag 18:40 - 20:10 (100 euros) Niederlandisch A1.1
Dienstag 17 - 18:30 (100 e) Franzosisch A1.1
Dienstag 18:40 - 20:10 (100 e) Polnisch A1.1
Mitwoch 17 - 18:30 (100 e) Kroatisch A1.1
Mitwoch 18:40 - 20:10 (100 e) Spanisch A1.1
Donnerstag 17 - 18:30 (100) Russisch A1.1

Okay, so it's not likely I would actually take all of them, but hey, depending on my workload, etc. at least a few would be likely, Polish, Swedish and Croatian, I am looking at you. I guess there would be a possibility of making some more German friends by taking any of those as well, so ultimately I may even get some more German in somewhere along the line.

Was noch? I can not really think of anything else to write at the moment, plus I have to get up in five hours time and still need to watch an episode of Stargate, so I will leave it there for now. Possibly check back in in a week.
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Re: Das Faultier der Deutschen Sprache

Postby Elenia » Thu Feb 02, 2017 8:24 am

Good luck with those deadlines! I know how it is to be buried under all of them at once!

About the language classes - have you checked what classes are on offer at the University? When I was in France, there were extra-curricular classes available for students to sign up to, completely free. I know also many universities offer courses at a deep discount to students. Just something to bear in mind :)
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Re: Das Faultier der Deutschen Sprache

Postby WalkingAlone13 » Fri Feb 17, 2017 6:51 pm

Elenia wrote:Good luck with those deadlines! I know how it is to be buried under all of them at once!

About the language classes - have you checked what classes are on offer at the University? When I was in France, there were extra-curricular classes available for students to sign up to, completely free. I know also many universities offer courses at a deep discount to students. Just something to bear in mind :)


Vielen Dank! I have looked at what the uni offers, but it is not so clear what would be "extra" or not at the moment. I will definitely keep looking, once I know what I will actually be taking - I have a meeting or two regarding that coming up over the next few weeks - I will hopefully find it a little easier to sort through everything. A friend recently strongly advised I do not take the languages I wanted at the Volkhochschule because apparently it is mostly "Opas" and "Omas" there, and it would be unlikely that I make friends or learn much there. Her words. :P But she lives in a different city, so perhaps it will be different in the city I will be staying in.

I had a massive slump recently and I missed a week or maybe even two, not entirely sure, of Memrise and some Duolingo. Duo is so commercialised now that after losing my streak, it offered me the chance to restore it should I pay £1.30 or something like that. I did not. I really do not understand why people take the streaks so seriously. I was a little disappointed I lost them, sure, but it was disappointment at myself, not at a streak.

I dug out some of my grammar books and have started spending a little time on those. I spend some time on DW still, but basically I am just slowly trying to get back to studying again. I have had so many deadlines, and still do, that it disrupted my flow massively. I only have ten pieces left now, including submissions and actual exams, so it is a little more bearable now.

I recently found a series of magazines that I purchased a while back at a steal on ebay. I picked up the whole lot for £15 including postage about a year ago. It is just a light way of picking up new vocab while ensuring that at least some of it will be "technical" in some way. Plus, it's stuff that I do know already, at least I should already know. Cavesa, I do not know if you will be reading this, but if so you might like the magazine series called "Mensch!". Excuse the bad quality, and my shadow :P

Image

Image



Anyway, back to Memrise for a bit and then some grammar. Fun times!
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Re: Das Faultier der Deutschen Sprache

Postby WalkingAlone13 » Fri Mar 10, 2017 11:34 pm

My studies have changed how I practise for the time being, some of which is not so great, but actually some of these changes are quite nice.
I am fortunate enough to have rekindled a few friendships in which I am able to chat for hours at a time over Skype. I was not able to actually use my spoken German before, so I would just record a short "good night" story every night and send it to a friend, just so it would not feel so weird, you know, it would at least have more of a purpose that way. Very embarrassing. So being able to skype again is great fun, besides, we have so much in common and hopefully once I am there for Erasmus, I should be able to visit.

My next change actually coincides nicely with today being the 20th anniversary of Buffy the vampire slayer. I am probably too addicted to Buffy, but that is actually quite favourable as it turns out in terms of language acquisition. Buffy was the first series I watched in German (It was probably also the first series I watched fully in English as well) but for some reason, I completely forgot that there are so many books available!

I always hear how great reading is for expanding vocab and such and always got frustrated as I just could not really stick to anything in German. I finished books, but it would take me forever with huge gaps in between as I simply did not have any "Bock" so to speak. Now that I own some Buffy books, my reading routine has changed for the better. These arrived on the 3rd of March and I have already finished one. One book in seven days is huge for me (in German) so I am really pleased and hoping it continues, but I do not see why not.

Image

Random Buffy fact to end this entry. Did you know that Glory is considered to posses the power of "Omnilingualism", which is quite fitting for the forum. She is shown to speak and understand Czech in no place like home.
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WalkingAlone13
Orange Belt
Posts: 242
Joined: Mon Jul 20, 2015 3:03 pm
Languages: English (N) German (B2) Finnish (beginner) Swedish (beginner) Polish (beginner)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... f=15&t=742
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Re: Das Faultier der Deutschen Sprache

Postby WalkingAlone13 » Wed Mar 29, 2017 9:22 pm

I feel like I should write an introduction post as it has been so long! But, yeah, I should hopefully be a little more visible once more due to having finally finished all of my French exams. I was actually having quite a lot of problems studying German and French at the same time, which was quite a shock to me as I am so used to studying languages concurrently.
The difference being, I usually study languages I like a lot and because I genuinely really want to learn them, and not because it helps with my degree. I definitely learnt a lesson here. I have been thinking how different things would be if I did not enjoy German so much, and I guess it has actually helped me appreciate the relationship that I have with German.

In terms of actual language practise, well, I have been reading as much as possible. I still record myself quite often and listen to it back to check for pronunciation errors. Mostly I just do it as extra speaking practise so it is useful either way. In terms of classes, things are definitely more difficult. We have been covering reported speech and such, which is not always so bad actually, but there is a lot to remember. It is also quite unusual to see things such as "er habe" and a whole load of new verb conjugations.
Now I just have to revise as much as possible the grammar that we have covered already, so that I am prepared for the final exam. I have a speaking test beforehand, but I am usually quite comfortable with these type of exams. We shall see!

In other news, Erasmus creeps up on you like crazy! I have to apply for accommodation on the 1st of April, though I am unsure of this as I actually want private accommodation and I am a little worried now that If I put down for the student accommodation, I will have to pay for it whether I get private or not, or whether I leave it, and then something goes wrong with private accommodation. Bleurgh. Still exciting though, if you do not count the paperwork ; P
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