Back to the roots and water them with coffee

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Cavesa
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Re: Back to the roots and water them with coffee

Postby Cavesa » Wed Sep 29, 2021 8:26 am

YES!!!!

She not only passed. She got 2! //our schools give grades 1-5, 1 is the best, 5 is failure
We had thought 3 would be the best possible, we would have been excited about a 4 as well. But nope. :-)

The first part was the written exam. No annoying damit/wofür, but also no opportunity to show off the praeteritum etc. But she got 82% right and used a lot of the advice I had given her. :-) The mistakes were exactly the stuff we've been aware of and working on. Du ist instead of bist, that is a recently acquired mistake, with roots in being nervous and also tons of grammar learnt quickly (she has conjugated sein a million times, but sometimes the brain insists on something like that). 2,5 preposition mistakes out of like 20 questions, that's solid! Once, she got half point for a partially correct answer, just as I wanted her to try. She wrote "an" instead of "ans" Meer, that's partially ok. One word order in a compound sentence wrong out of several, that's cool too. And I was right she should have always written nouns with capital letters, one mistake was due to this. Build the right habits! But her declinations, perfektum, adjective comparatives, superlatives, most prepositions, a comprehension task, that was great!

Just as we had strategized, the solid test result brightened the main teacher's day and got her finally and entirely on our side.

Truth be told, I was nervous, while waiting outside during the test, as I heard some weird noises, that could have been crying (or laughing), but I was unable to locate the source. Then I realized the class nextdoor was having maths, so that would explain even crying :-D

After the test, we were so relieved! It was obvious failure was suddenly very improbable, just as we had hoped.

Then the whole coven gathered, the three headed dragon. The two other heads were not too pleasant. But I was in the room, positioned so that I could be seen, in case of need (but the mask also solved any suspicion of trying to help). My sister looked mainly on the already convinced teacher, not the two bitter faces. As predicted, they stuck to the exam, nothing personal or unprofessional. No idea whether it was because of being seen, or my sister's performance.

She was good. The other tutor did a good job preparing the spoken topics. Presentation, a normal day, going to school, hobbies, talking about our dog, about the town and the city, describing herself, describing me (! :-D ), what she would have done yesterday, if she didn't have to study, and so on.

Yes, there were some mistakes, but it stuck together and made sense. So some wrong conjugations or forgotten articles, but that's no tragedy, we were not aiming for the best grade anyways, nobody needs that ;-) She didn't catch the hint to show off the Konjunktiv II the first time, but she did the second time and did well. The only thing I clearly failed to teach her enough was "Es gibt", she didn't use it even once. :-D Most questions and interaction came from her main teacher, the two others added some questions, especially one took on herself the taks of pushing her to the expected harder stuff. Not sure whether that was their usual strategy (a sort of good cop-bad cop thing. or rather bad cop, worse cop, the worst cop), or she was improvising. (edit: a confession added, my sister at one point couldn't understand the question, but saw the teacher nodding a lot, so she just went with "Ja". She camouflaged it really well :-D)

Then the three dragon heads took some moments to deliberate and we waited outside. Then we came back, expecting a 3. But no, it was 2! I think one thing really in my sister's favour was the date of the exam. A month ago, the teachers could have been delusional about the average level of the other students. But now, they've been seeing the consequences of the online classes followed by 2 months of holidays for weeks. :-D I think the expectations have been naturally lowered by this clash with reality :-D :-D :-D

So, we're all excited. Dad was there, waiting outside, and is happy. Mum on the phone. Friends are excited, and so on. And I get to say a lot of stuff like "of course I was right" and "I told you so" :-D My sister even told me "hmm, you're a very efficient person. But how do you manage to learn alone?" Well, I do the other person's tasks too. :-D :-D :-D

But it was a team effort. I'll have to thank the other tutor. The very solid half-spontaneous speaking was definitely thanks to that practice and guidance, but would have been impossible without the solid grammar base (that's an important take home message for anyone in a similar situation imho). And we would have also struggled to work just one on one at such an intensity, the third person was very useful, to let us take some rest from each other.

Dad has done the largest part of making this possible. The battles against the school, psychological support, financial support of this whole family (not everybody could just take a month off of everything and teach a family member, not everybody can hire another tutor, and so on), being here for us. We have the best dad on earth! I wish everybody had such a dad, the world be a much better place.

And thank you all, for your support in this adventure and cheering for us!

The next post will be about my plans again. My work here is done, I can go fully back to my life.
Last edited by Cavesa on Wed Sep 29, 2021 8:50 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Caromarlyse
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Re: Back to the roots and water them with coffee

Postby Caromarlyse » Wed Sep 29, 2021 8:44 am

It sounds as though it was a very demanding exam - and that she has a great basis in German as a result. Well done to both of you!
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Re: Back to the roots and water them with coffee

Postby rdearman » Wed Sep 29, 2021 9:53 am

Next time she has an exam, here are some tips.

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Re: Back to the roots and water them with coffee

Postby sfuqua » Thu Sep 30, 2021 1:06 am

So happy! My whole family was cheering for her.Wait until I tell my daughter!
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Cavesa
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Re: Back to the roots and water them with coffee

Postby Cavesa » Sun Oct 10, 2021 10:59 am

Thank you all for support in the last crazy challenge.

After a week and half of different stuff to solve, I am back with a new challenge! Get to B2 German and pass an exam asap. I'm looking at the available exam dates. 26th of October is no longer an option, I needed this time off. I'll aim for mid-November.

Not much new or rather good-new in my life. I've again been informed about being discriminated against (different conditions for locals and EU citizens in a concours, and even an official message "we only take locals, try again in a few years"), life sucks, and my plans for moving are postponed by a very lazy bureaucrat (really, an official max delay time that doesn't start with my papers arriving to the bureau, but by the person feeling like having a look?). I hate this.

But at least my country sent some good news, democracy has won these elections (held yesterday and the day before). It was fascinating to vote from abroad, truth be told, there were so many people going to the ambassade! My preferred party didn't get the optimum result by far, but I am still glad the situation may slowly start to improve in the country. Our new prime minister is not a criminal and actually speaks Czech! Yay!

My chance to finally get the life I want will grow enormously, if I pass a German exam, and if I do it fast. I still strongly dislike the language (hey, that's a positive trend, isn't it? :-D From hate to strong dislike), but I can tolerate learning it intensively for a few weeks. I cannot tolerate it for half a year.

Right now, online tests put me at A2, some more passive ones on B1. I've improved a lot while teaching my sister, I understand Star Trek considerably better, even though I still rely on the subtitles too much.

I've right now made a key decision for fast progress: how to streamline my path and the resources. While I admire enormously PM and his way of learning, it is a different situation. I need to get to B2 asap, with clear focus on passing the exam.

As the main coursebook, I was choosing between following Themen Aktuell up to B1 or DaF Kompakt. I am right now more at home in the Themen Aktuell, but I find the third B1 level to be of worse quality than the previous ones (actually, so does pretty much anyone else, the schools using Themen usually switch to something else after the still excellent TA2). I'll try the DaF kompakt. Then I have to follow with B1+ and B2 coursebooks, I am leaning towards Sicher, that I've already gotten and which does have exam oriented exercises, or the highly praised and more systematic looking Erkundungen. Before the exam, I'll need an exam preparation book too. From what I've read, the exam was revised and the format changed a bit in the last years, so I'll probably choose the newest one. Or do you know whether any is significantly better than the rest?

As my grammar drills go, I have to put aside a pile of workbooks and pick just a few. I'll go with the excellent A-Grammatik and B-Grammatik. I've already started A-Grammatik. I'll have to lighten a bit on the way I do the exercises, in order to work faster. I'll keep using the Green Monster Nová Cvičebnice Německé Gramatiky.

For vocab, I had to lighten the load too, for sake of efficiency. Had the goal been B1, I'd SRS the official Wortliste. But there are none for B2. So, I'll keep doing Speakly (the vocab is very good and very practical, but only up to B1, perhaps not big enough, as their count of 4000 is with verb forms, numbers etc it seems), and I will learn somehow from the Langenscheidt Grund- und Aufbauwortschatz Französisch. Yeah, it's meant for the opposite direction, but it is perfectly the same in mine too, and it is for A1-B2, it teaches the "boring" intermediate vocab, and it does include an example sentence with every word. That's a huge plus.

DAY 1 plan:
-revisiting DaF kompakt, review of known stuff, doing the easy lessons
-a hundred words on Speakly
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DaveAgain
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Re: Back to the roots and water them with coffee

Postby DaveAgain » Sun Oct 10, 2021 11:09 am

Cavesa wrote: Then I have to follow with B1+ and B2 coursebooks, I am leaning towards Sicher, that I've already gotten and which does have exam oriented exercises, or the highly praised and more systematic looking Erkundungen. Before the exam, I'll need an exam preparation book too.
Klett's Mittelpunkt series has been mentioned a few times, you might want to look at that one too.

https://www.klett-sprachen.de/mittelpunkt-neu/r-1/180
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Re: Back to the roots and water them with coffee

Postby BeaP » Sun Oct 17, 2021 10:59 am

Most German language books are a drudgery. I'm not surprised, that you don't love learning the language. The best option in my opinion is the 'Deutsch üben' series from Hueber: Hören und Sprechen, Lesen und Schreiben, Wortschatz und Grammatik. All 3 books are available for each CEFR level. They're to the point and comparatively entertaining. The Deutsch Intensiv series is something similar from Klett, also very good. If I was pressed to choose a real coursebook, I'd go with Mittelpunkt. But you'd need to buy the CDs and the Teacher's Book in that case, which I find simply outrageous. (At least, when I last checked, audio and solutions were not free.) Working through Mittelpunkt also requires a lot of self-disciple, which I find unnecessary. Language-learning shouldn't be this hard. On the other hand, I have to admit, that the content of Mittelpunkt is very useful. For exam practice Hueber has 'Fit fürs ...', and Klett has 'Mit Erfolg zum ...' Both are fine. If you need to revisit A1-B1, take a look at Aussichten from Klett. It's based on an on-going story with neighbours as main characters. It teaches the everyday language very well, and one of the protagonists works in a hospital, so you can get some medicine-related vocabulary. It's also quite entertaining, and extremely natural compared to the usual stuff. You might be able to download the transcripts and the audio free from the Klett website, I don't think you need the book with your level. The German TV series are among the best ones in Europe (Deutschland 83/86/89, Dark, Babylon Berlin, Beat), and there are some contemporary writers recommended frequently (Martin Suter, Julie Zeh, Daniel Kehlmann, Volker Kutscher). Just my two cents. Good luck with your exam!
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Cavesa
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Re: Back to the roots and water them with coffee

Postby Cavesa » Sun Oct 17, 2021 11:51 am

So, A week later. Much less done than planned for health issues and tiredness. However, I managed to get in 800 minutes of TV series in German. I found something, that is easier to understand for an unknown reason than Star Trek Voyager, in spite of being rather similar in topics. Another life, a scifi series with Katee Sackhoff (Kara Thrace from Battlestar Galactica). It is awesome, I recommend it. I was telling myself "again? the same stuff? At least it should be great for my German" and it turned out to be really well done, with solid characters, with a "realistic" take on the space travel, with no fairy tales, and so on. I am trying some original German tv series, but my dislike or prejudice or whatever is simply very strong.

In those 800 minutes, I improved enough to often not need the subtitles anymore, and mostly relying just on the German ones the rest of the time (and I stuck to that after finding a few hilarious mistakes in the Czech subtitles. Really, Netflix had enough subtitles translators and didn't take me, while employing a person who in a very clear memory loss context translated hippocampus as "bájná mořská příšera"="a mythological sea beast". And it was not the only problem)

It's a huge achievement, just not well timed. I should be at that point long ago, and it is not enough for the exam, as I need to work harder on vocab and grammar. I need to work on the more boring vocab, but I am pretty sure I can pass the listening and reading part of a B2 exam now. Which is cool. Now the harder part.

And I caught myself also getting the other effects of binge watching tv series in a new language: thinking in it for a moment right after watching, talking to the characters in German, etc. It works nicely. I just need to focus on the more boring stuff now.

I did some Speakly, the problem with this tool is the software. It is slow, it freezes, it glitches. It does all of this much less, if I progress very slowly. But that's the opposite of what I want from an SRS. It is supposed to let me profit from maximum of my ability, not to slow me down considerably. As an alternative, I'm considering some user made courses on Memrise.

Not that far in the DaF kompakt. For the follow up coursebook, I haven't decided yet. Thanks for all the recommendations! I think I'll go for the Sicher, perhaps Erkundungen, if I have time. They both have a huge advantage over some of the alternatives: key to exercises online, and accessibility. I don't feel like switching too much.

Deutsch Üben, I know that series, even got one or two books. They are not bad, even though they seem a bit diluted for the money, and one needs to buy plenty of books to really cover stuff. I might get the Deutsch Intensiv Schreiben, that's a good idea, thanks!

The exam practice books will be very useful.
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Re: Back to the roots and water them with coffee

Postby daegga » Sun Oct 17, 2021 12:15 pm

Cavesa wrote:I am trying some original German tv series, but my dislike or prejudice or whatever is simply very strong.

why bother? unless you watch very regionalized ones (which is not appropriate for exam prep), they don't seem more realistic than dubs ... and German has pretty good dubs
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Cavesa
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Re: Back to the roots and water them with coffee

Postby Cavesa » Sat Oct 23, 2021 10:13 am

You're right, daegga.

So, I'm about to finish another tv series. The Order (Der Orden). The choice was good at my level, mostly not too surprising plots but with a wonderful twist. It was harder than the previous series and I could again see the effects of starting a new series. When you're not that far yet, every new start feels like also becoming suddenly much worse at the language too. No, it's just a longer need for adaptation. But overall the dialogues were harder. 800 minutes, I'll finish the last episode during the weekend. The German subtitles are however very different from the dubbing. I know, I know, it's normal, but it is usually less of a problem in some series. Here, the differences were constant.

In general, I don't recommend this series too much, any other within the genre (supernatural beings at an american university) will do, but I think this sort of series is appropriate at this language level. And it did the job I had wanted from it.

Btw as I am talking about Netflix, there are two more shows I'd like to mention, one awesome and one horrible:

Le Bazar de la Charité: excellent! French, inspired by some real events but mostly fiction of course, well written, well played, thrilling, well worth the attention of any French learner. I'm excited this historical era gets much more attention on tv these days, there is a lot to be understood from well made fiction happening in the society of those times.

The Baker Street Irregulars: horrible. You know I am very far from haughty towards very popular genre series, but this was really too much. I got through one episode (I found it only in English, so at least I added some subtitles) and simply couldn't go on. The idea is not bad, and in spite of the tons of Sherlock themed tv already available, it could have been a success. Nope, the writers created something extremely dull, with dumb dialogues, shallow characters, not good either as a serious or a comedy story, boring bad guys, previsible plot combined with total nonsense.
....
I've been doing quite a lot of Speakly in the last few days. The plan was obvious, to quickly progress, use it as practice, and so on. It is much easier now than weeks ago, some grammar is also being strenghtened by the tv series, the same is true about the vocabulary. The problem is the platform. The bugs. The glitches, making me "fail" questions by simply jumping from one to another in the middle of me typing the answer. And now it restarted my progress again to zero. Ok, it got fixed with progressing, but I really panicked for a while. In general, the website is making me progress like twice slower than I could.

That's why I am pondering whether to continue with Speakly, as the content is really good and as I don't want to switch tools right now, or to switch now, rather than face all the problems in a few days again.

I need to focus more on the grammar books now.
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