german2k01 wrote:Caromarlyse,
Since you are pretty advanced in the German language. I think you are the right person to whom I should address my query with regards to tackling verbs in German. How did you approach learning German verbs and their different conjugated forms? Did you add sentences in Anki? Did you highlight verbs while reading?
What is the best way to tackle them so that you can use them spontaneously in a conversation?
I'm not sure how advanced I am - I did it (successfully!) at university, but then seriously neglected it for a long time. I can understand without much of an issue everything I
want to listen to (which doesn't include youth slang...) and can read "light" adult fiction as a restful activity. I've never been through a C-level course in full though (the CEFR didn't exist when I was studying it formally), and the
C-Grammatik book I've got definitely has a lot that is new to me. I do intend to go through it in full some day! My active skills are rusty.
Turning to your question, I'm also not sure how much use I can be. I definitely remember trying to memorise the verb tables you get at the back of German textbooks/grammar books (fliegen - fliegt - flog - ist geflogen etc), to varying degrees of success. I also have a German verb drills book from my school days, which I was never very diligent about using. I never had electronic flashcards way back then, and haven't come to like them since. I just don't find it works very well.
Things that have helped me, in various languages, are as follows.
Generally, I've always liked testing myself, so, for example, at random selecting an infinitive and trying to conjugate it correctly, or going through exercises. Sometimes I'll make myself my own question sheet, prepare my own answer key (all using bought materials so I know it's correct), and at intervals go through it and correct myself. I find I need to put myself in situations where I am forced to recall something again and again before I finally properly remember it. Marking what I've done wrong helps me, because I get a little annoyed at the mistake and pay attention, and that helps my memory. I do this alongside wider exposure to the language, with the idea being that you should come across what you're getting wrong/trying to learn in real life, which should further help your memory. I also just prefer to press on with novel things rather than beating myself over the head with stuff I can't seem to remember. Ultimately I'll end up circling back (by which time it should have become easier). Of course, the wider exposure also has the added benefit that some forms end up just sounding right without you even being able to remember how you learnt them.
I also think at the more advanced level it really helps to read high-quality journalistic articles intensively. So take something from
Der Spiegel/Focus etc and look at the verbs. Do you know why a particular tense was used? Would you have used a different verb/formulated it differently? How else could you convey the same meaning? If you understood the verb, would you have had it in mind to use yourself/been able to conjugate it properly? Are there Nomen-Verb-Verbindungen, and did you know them? German likes to nominalise more than English - note examples of this also and remember the phrasing that German naturally prefers. For completeness, you should probably pay attention to the preposition(s) + case used with the verb too. Summarising the text afterwards (in writing or orally) is, I think, an excellent test and exercise.
You can also sit down with a group of verbs that follow the same pattern or just a small number of verbs that you have decided you want to get right and make a concerted effort to use them. I've found with Russian that googling the past tense of a verb in the news tab will sometimes bring up headlines showing that past tense form in use. It then becomes a lot stickier in my memory. The use of a form in a song also does the same thing.
As for getting all of this right spontaneously in a conversation, I'm not sure I ever do
. But getting things wrong in a conversation is, for me, an important part of the memorisation process: by messing up "live", I can pretty much guarantee that I will never make the same mistake again!
I did do my workouts and stretching again, though. The highlight was a 16kg Turkish get up (with single arm floor press to start) on both sides.
. Thankfully the terrible one was with a teacher I'd had before, or it could have been even worse. As it was, I think she put my difficulty down to me having been on holiday, but in fact it was more tiredness/irritation at work stuff on that day and at that time.