gsbod wrote:I'm getting too bogged down with German vocabulary and I'm trying to figure out what to do about it. For the last year, I've taken a pretty consistent approach to vocabulary study, by making and reviewing Anki flashcards based mostly on unknown words I've encountered in learner materials, but also occasional words that have let me down when trying to speak or write German. Combined with words I am picking up incidentally from listening to music and reading with my Kindle, i.e. words I am learning without even trying, my vocabulary, both active and passive, is pretty strong compared to my overall level.
On the one hand, as a language learner, you can never known enough vocabulary. On the other hand, I am running the risk of turning into one of those people that can pull pretty arcane words out of the hat in their target language, but consistently screws up with basic grammar patterns or making small talk.
I don't exactly want to throw the baby out of the bathwater when it comes to vocabulary, but I am wondering how to change my routine (actually, it's been so consistent for so long now, it's more like a habit) in order to change the emphasis and start working consistently on the basic grammatical problems I am having rather than just learning more and more vocabulary, which in the long run may be useful, but is not solving my more immediate problems with the language.
Hello again
gsbod,
It sounds like you've been going great guns with your German reading, and I'd encourage you to capitalise on this success and carry on doing as much reading as you can comfortably fit in. You talk about your difficulties with grammar, and from some things you have said, I think your problem may be in
producing what are considered to be grammatical sentences, i.e. "active" grammar. However, if you can get through a 640 page book and not get a headache or mental indigestion, then your "passive" grammar must be enough to let you understand what is going on. So the more exposure you can get to native material, both written and aural, the better. While it's good to dip into a grammar book from time to time, I don't think you actually need to get too hung up on it, so long as you have the basics down. I mean, for example,, you must know by now the basics of gender, articles, and something about cases. You will know how to form the perfect tense, and will have been exposed to plenty of uses of the preterite (aka imperfect) in that book you have just finished. Maybe not so much the future, but that is fairly straightforward.
People make a big deal about the subjunctive/Konjunktive, but in practice, even that isn't as bad as it can seem, and not something to worry overmuch about at this stage. Gradually learn to recognise them when you read them and when you hear them (you will probably not meet it in speech as often as in writing), but don't worry at the moment if you can't produce it yourself. It will come.
Probably the single most important grammatical point (other than the absolute "basics" as above) that an English learner of German has to learn is the concept of a clause, and the idea of main clauses and subordinate clauses, and what happens in German which is different to English. (See also: relative clauses). Have a look to see what Martin Durrell has to say about this and understand it as well as you can, and then go back to reading and see if you can spot this in action, and then just enjoy the process and don't worry. But if it is still confusing then go back to the grammar book for a refresher ... but don't let yourself get too hung up on it.
And while you are reading, as well as watching out for clauses, look out for endings of words, and pay attention to them (without worrying about them). S_allard in another thread said an interesting thing which is that skills we consider to be passive (i.e. reading and listening) are not really passive, or they shouldn't be, or needn't be). We should be reading and listening attentively.
And on the subject of reading, if you have finished one book, you will want to be starting another, right? You might want to think about some books originally written in German. One author often suggested to learners is Heinrich Böll. He's written books of short stories and many novels, and I think his German is considered to be relatively straightforward. If you'd like something light-hearted I can recommend Erich Kästner. He is known as a children's author (most famously for "Emil und die Detektive"), but also wrote books for adults, e.g. "Fabian", and two I particularly like: "Der Kleine Grenzverkehr" and "Drei Männer im Schnee". I just found this which helps explain Kästner better than I could:
http://www.readliterature.com/R_grenzverkehr.htmHowever, I don't know if Kästner is available in Kindle form. I'd be surprised if Böll wasn't (and you can often get translations of the more popular Böll works).