From weak A2 to strong B1

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From weak A2 to strong B1

Postby Keth » Sun Dec 18, 2016 1:17 pm

Hello, everyone! Nice to meet you all! I'm currently attending an A2 German course in a quite prestigious language school here in my country (Escuela Oficial de Idiomas in Barcelona). I did the A1 course there too, which I passed with flying colours, and I decided to do the next course although I felt since the beginning that the learning progression was a bit slow for my taste. This course the rythm is even slower than last year and I'm starting to feel really bored in class. I'm thinking about studying on my own to achieve a B1 level by the end of the school year (about May) in order to skip a level and get directly to the fun stuff (B2 level classes). I tried to study languages by myself in the past but the results were... not really good. That's why I'd like to ask you for advice: any thoughts about how to get from a weak A2 level to a B1 level? Methods, courses, exercices... any advice would be more than welcome. I don't mind studying grammar from a grammar book (I've studied linguistics in college), but I don't really know how to improve my listening (I'm really bad at this) and my vocabulary. Thank you for your time and sorry for the long post!
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Re: From weak A2 to strong B1

Postby rdearman » Sun Dec 18, 2016 1:33 pm

First I suggest you join the German Study Group on this forum, located here: viewtopic.php?f=21&t=5074

Then I would suggest you get yourself a ton of films in German, about 100-200 should do it (or a TV show with the same amount of hours 150-300 hours) and start watching, right down vocabulary you don't know and want to look up later. Download Anki ( http://ankisrs.net/index.html ) on to your phone or PC and start creating some German flashcards, or download some of the pre-made ones. Commit to doing 2-3 hours of your day, everyday in German.

You can throw in some grammar studies if that floats your boat. :)
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Re: From weak A2 to strong B1

Postby IronMike » Sun Dec 18, 2016 4:36 pm

You're a C1 in English. How'd you learn it? Maybe that'll work for German?

If that's not an option, I'd say surround yourself with German speakers, whether IRL or using media. Ask your teacher for more advanced materials/work. Good luck!
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Re: From weak A2 to strong B1

Postby gsbod » Sun Dec 18, 2016 4:53 pm

www.dw.de has loads of free materials for learners including plenty of audio materials. You could work through the audio course Warum Nicht which goes roughly from A1 to B1. Also have a look at Top Thema, which features two articles a week often based on recent news stories, simplified to around B1 level, complete with audio and vocabulary notes.

Are you using a textbook for your course? If so, could you study ahead to cover the grammar you need?

The approach that has worked for me with vocabulary is to make a list of new words as I study and then turn the list into flashcards. Anki is my preferred tool for this, but I have had some success with Quizlet too.
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Re: From weak A2 to strong B1

Postby Keth » Sun Dec 18, 2016 8:06 pm

Thank you all for your fast answers!

rdearman: I'd certainly like to watch films in German, but I struggle even with short and easier materials. It's certainly a very good idea, although I'm not sure how useful it would be if I've to look up every word (or at least 80% of them) in the dictionary. Nevertheless, I'll try to watch series in German with subtitles that I've already seen in English. Thank you very much for giving me this idea!

IronMike: I learned most of my English in primary school and high school. Now that I think about it, I guess that another tool that I used to learn English, specially when I was a teenager, were videogames... it might be a good idea to try! Thank you very much for your other ideas.

gsbod: I've read good things about the Warum Nicht 'series' so I'll certainly check it out. Never heard about Top Thema though and it sounds great! The problem with the coursebook that we're using is that it's not really 'self-teaching-friendly', but I'll see what I can do with it. Thank you!
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Re: From weak A2 to strong B1

Postby Axon » Tue Dec 20, 2016 8:06 pm

You don't have to look up every word! In fact, you shouldn't. The ideal media is something that you enjoy consuming even if you can't understand every word, because then more German is entering your brain and you're actively trying to figure it out from context.

If you keep seeing the same thing over and over and you can't understand it, that's when you look it up. But it's going to be demoralizing and slow if you have to look up everything you don't know. Give this approach time and let some of the vocabulary sink in naturally along with your separate vocabulary study.

Also, you should be watching the same things multiple times. You'd be surprised what you can catch just listening to something a second time, or even a third. Aim to have German audio going in the background pretty much all day, even if a lot of it is the same material on loop.

I highly, highly recommend these two series in German:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=P ... 8A38BB5F87 - Easy German street interviews. I think some of their older stuff (<100) is more entertaining because you get more videos outside of Berlin and with different hosts. Remember what I said about watching the same thing over and over? I think I've watched number 26 about sixty to eighty times. For some reason that one in particular is my favorite by far. So you should watch lots of them for yourself and see if you can find one that calls to you in some way, and watch it a lot. I absolutely credit these videos with improving my German listening, since the subtitles are accurate and they have a huge variety of speakers and accents.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=P ... u1oQ7sUySW - In a very different vein, this is a silly sitcom created for language learners. I honestly find this a lovely and endearing show, and it was the first German material I was interested in for the plot instead of just the language. I first watched it with only German subtitles, and by the end of the 13 episodes I understood a lot more than I did at the beginning.

Good luck!
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Re: From weak A2 to strong B1

Postby Keth » Thu Dec 22, 2016 1:34 pm

Thank you for your answer, Axon! After thinking about this and watching some videos/reading posts around here and in other forums, I've come up with these ideas:

Listening/Reading:

Assimil (listening & reading)
Graded readers with audio (listening & reading)
Novels with audio (listening & reading)
TV series/Films with subtitles

Speaking:

Assimil + shadowing
italki

Grammar: (I'll need to practice A LOT if I want to pass the exam, so...)

Themen Aktuell 2 (classbook)
Hammer's German Grammar and usage / Practising German grammar (I've read that it's a great book)

What do you think? Would you change/add anything?
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Re: From weak A2 to strong B1

Postby PeterMollenburg » Thu Dec 22, 2016 2:22 pm

Keth wrote:Thank you for your answer, Axon! After thinking about this and watching some videos/reading posts around here and in other forums, I've come up with these ideas:

Listening/Reading:

Assimil (listening & reading)
Graded readers with audio (listening & reading)
Novels with audio (listening & reading)
TV series/Films with subtitles

Speaking:

Assimil + shadowing
italki

Grammar: (I'll need to practice A LOT if I want to pass the exam, so...)

Themen Aktuell 2 (classbook)
Hammer's German Grammar and usage / Practising German grammar (I've read that it's a great book)

What do you think? Would you change/add anything?


Do you do any commuting or walking to go to and from wherever? You could potentially add in a podcast or two, starting off with easier material and building up to listening to native content eventually. Listening to Assimil, TV, Films and novels will all help, but if you have room for more listening that's not too slow and doesn't have the aid of visual cues, you could try podcasts as 'space-fillers'. Just a thought, otherwise considering your level I think your plan looks good.
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Re: From weak A2 to strong B1

Postby Ani » Wed Dec 28, 2016 5:39 pm

I think there is a good chance that three grammar books are stretching yourself too thin. Pick one that is the main book and use the others as necessary for reinforcement or review, but don't assume you will need to attempt to go through all three cover to cover. If you are working all three simultaneously, it will take you 3x as long to even see the advanced content, and Assimil has a fair bit of grammar too.
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Re: From weak A2 to strong B1

Postby Keth » Thu Jan 05, 2017 1:06 pm

Thank you for you advice, Peter and Ani!

PeterMollenburg wrote:Do you do any commuting or walking to go to and from wherever? You could potentially add in a podcast or two, starting off with easier material and building up to listening to native content eventually. Listening to Assimil, TV, Films and novels will all help, but if you have room for more listening that's not too slow and doesn't have the aid of visual cues, you could try podcasts as 'space-fillers'. Just a thought, otherwise considering your level I think your plan looks good.

Unfortunatelly, I don't have to do any commuting/walking to go to work, but one of my New Year's Resolutions is to walk at least 30 minutes everyday, so I'll use that time to listen to podcasts and/or other stuff.
Ani wrote:I think there is a good chance that three grammar books are stretching yourself too thin. Pick one that is the main book and use the others as necessary for reinforcement or review, but don't assume you will need to attempt to go through all three cover to cover. If you are working all three simultaneously, it will take you 3x as long to even see the advanced content, and Assimil has a fair bit of grammar too.

Sorry, I should have explained it better :? I'll use Themen Aktuell 2 as my main grammar book. The other two will be my reference + exercises books to use if I have problems with any particular grammar point.
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