German Minigroup: Escaping the Eternal A1

[lingua]

Prior week results:
WEEK 0 (test week)
Assimil: Work through 5-7 lessons
SRS: Work through the same Assimil 5-7 lessons
Clozemaster: 50 new sentences per day; 50 review sentences per day
Nico's Weg: Complete A1 unit 4 (Around the World) & unit 5 (Things)
PMP Verb Tenses: Complete unit 17 (Reflexive Verbs)

I completed six Assimil lessons (#11-16). These are taking about 40 minutes per lesson at the moment but this is still at an easy level for me. I'm a couple of lessons behind with the related SRS. It took longer than I expected to keep up. I ended up doing more SRS than I usually do.

I only managed one sub-unit of Nico's Weg however I added Speechling to the mix to fill some of the space. I completed the rest of PMP Unit 17 on reflexive verbs.


Upcoming week goals:
WEEK 1
Assimil: Work through 5-7 lessons
SRS: Work through the same Assimil course 5-7 lessons + catchup
Clozemaster: 50 new sentences per day; 50 review sentences per day
Nico's Weg: Complete A1 unit 5 (Things)
Speechling: Do free-from using sentences from Assimil Lessons 1-5
PMP Verb Tenses: Start unit 18 doing 18.1-18.7

I believe last weeks test goals were reasonable. Challenging but still doable with proper time management. Changes made this week are minor since I'm incorporating Speechling and will be doing more PMP exercises than last week. I also signed up for 6WC with German.

[Chmury]

Hey guys, in case you're looking for some awesome podcasts to listen to, check out the following, as for me, listening to podcasts in German is not only one of the most effective and beneficial things I do for continuing to improve in the language, but also one of the most enjoyable (it's actually what got me started learning the language). Also, guckt diese Podcasts nach, wenn ihr Lust darauf habt:

Weltwach - A podcast all about adventures, travel, foreign lands and cultures
Easy German Podcast - about all kinds of things coming from Cari, Manuel, and Janusz over at Easy German in Berlin.
Radio Wissen - awesome podcast which spans so many different subjects, from science, to culture, to medicine, to history, to people, everything! And incredibly well produced too. Pure pleasure for the ears
SWR2 Wissen - very similar to the above and equally great.
Frei Raus - A podcast about trying to get more Mikroabenteuer in your life and all things travel, outdoors, and getting outside.

Right, that should be enough for now. Hope you guys enjoy them and good luck with your goal to reach B1 by December next year! German is such an awesome language so I really hope you all become hooked and end up exceeding your goal out of pure joy and having so much fun with it. Viel Glück und viel Erfolg!

[CarlyD]

I'm resetting my Weekly Goals to every Monday, since that's how I'm doing it in my day book.

Week 1:

German Uncovered--full review of Chapter 4.
Busuu--A1, lessons 65, 66 and 67, with reviews every day
Rocket German--lessons 1.5, 1.6, 1.7 and 1.8 with emphasis on speaking
Nico's Weg--(A1) Welcome 3 & 4, then A1.1 sections 1, 2, 3 and 4.
Textbooks: Step by Step--Chapter 10, Datives, pages 163 through 170
PMP German Grammar--Chapter 8, Irregular Verbs, hopefully full chapter
PMP Basic German--Chapter 12 Demonstrative Pronouns, and hopefully Chapter 13 Indefinite Pronouns
Clozemaster--every day, minimum of 200 points, so a review of 30 sentences or so
Memrise--every day, 5 courses--1000 Words, Journey to Germany, Duolingo, German 3 and German 4. Five minutes each (1500 points) of all but German 3, which is 15 minutes (6000 points.)

I didn't think I was doing that much, but that seems like a big list. And I still haven't fit in the reading that I'm supposed to be doing.

[Cavesa]

WEEK 1 Report
Daf Kompakt:
--review Unit 1 ✅
--unit 1 to Anki ✅
--Memrise keep up with the reviews
--Memrise deck: Unit 3
Speechling:
--Intermediate 1
--Verbs up to 300

Ok, this was not good. The week didn't go well, I didn't manage to learn daily. I had a few nightshifts and my brain doesn't tackle it well lately. Plus I've been lazy, nervous, stressed. Next week will be better.

I did put in 114 minutes in the end, which is not that bad, an equivalent of almost 4 days, I had feared worse.

Limited amount of resources is useful. I don't count Anki or Memrise as separate resources, as I'm using them together with the coursebook Daf kompakt. Speechling is nice, but takes ages, now that I am on limited internet. Btw Daf kompakt is great, but really needs further grammar exercise supplementation. I think one unit per week is a good pace for the first A1 part of the book. After that, it might be one unit per two weeks.

Next week will be better, goals in the next post. AND I WILL SUCCEED THIS TIME, to not let down my teammates!

edit:fixed a mistake in one word

[Cavesa]

WEEK 2 GOALS: (chopped into smaller and easier checkable pieces)

Daf kompakt: unit 2
-Unit 2 in the Kursbuch
-everything relevant to Anki
-Unit 2 in the Arbeitsbuch
-memrise deck: catch up with the reviews
-memrise deck: finish Unit 3 vocab

Speechling:
-second half of Intermediate 1
-Verbs up to 300

And most importantly: 30 minutes a day. I have two or three nightshifts this week, but I'll find the time somehow. Or no, it's perhaps not three nightshifts, but two 24h shifts, plus a few normal work days. I'm almost afraid to check my planning
I need to learn to how to fit German into that.

[lingua]

Prior week results:
WEEK 1
Assimil: Work through 5-7 lessons
SRS: Work through the same Assimil course 5-7 lessons + catchup
Clozemaster: 50 new sentences per day; 50 review sentences per day
Nico's Weg: Complete A1 unit 5 (Things)
Speechling: Do free-from using sentences from Assimil Lessons 1-5
PMP Verb Tenses: Start unit 18 doing 18.1-18.7

I completed four Assimil lessons (#17-20). I actually thought I had done more than that. They are starting to be slightly less easy and taking more time. I managed to do Unit 5 of Nico's Weg which introduced the accusative. I completely forgot to do Speechling for German and Italian this week. I ended up switching Verb books and did the first 9 exercises of German Verb Drills. This is review and so far it's relatively easy as it covered present tense and separable verbs. The other book was starting to feel like too much and too hard so I thought it would be wise to take a step back and review some of the earlier tenses before moving on. It has terse explanations compared to the PMP book which itself I find lacking at times. I averaged well over 30 minutes per day with the core Assimil/Nico's Weg/Verb Tenses. I'm also spending more time than I would like on Assimil memrise. I was trying to learn the words before doing the lesson but on the last two I did it afterwords and found the words actually stuck better perhaps because of recent context.


Upcoming week goals:
WEEK 2
Assimil: Work through at least 5 lessons
SRS: Work through the same Assimil lessons
Clozemaster: 50 new sentences per day; 50 review sentences per day
Nico's Weg: Complete A1 unit 6 (Living)
Speechling: Do free-from using sentences from Assimil Lessons 1-5
German Verb Drills: Exercise 10-15

Speechling will stay on my radar this week. Otherwise more of the same. I would like to average at least an hour per day with the core Assimil/Nico's Weg/Verb Tenses.

[CarlyD]

Prior Week Goals:
German Uncovered--full review of Chapter 4. Done
Busuu--A1, lessons 65, 66 and 67, with reviews every day. Completed 65 but did 3 sets of reviews.
Rocket German--lessons 1.5, 1.6, 1.7 and 1.8 with emphasis on speaking. 1.5 and 1.6 were alphabet only, 1.7 done.
Nico's Weg--(A1) Welcome 3 & 4, then A1.1 sections 1, 2, 3 and 4. Completed Welcome 3 & 4, then Unit 1, sections 1 & 2
Textbooks: Step by Step--Chapter 10, Datives, pages 163 through 170 Chapter totally done.
PMP German Grammar--Chapter 8, Irregular Verbs, hopefully full chapter Chapter 8 done, half of Chapter 9 done
PMP Basic German--Chapter 12 Demonstrative Pronouns, and hopefully Chapter 13 Indefinite Pronouns Didn't start
Clozemaster--every day, Done
Memrise--every day, Done

This Week's Goals:

PMP German Grammar--Chapter 9 (Separable Verbs)--finish chapter
PMP German Verb Tenses--Chapter 4 Separable and inseparable verbs
PMP Basic German-Chapter 20 Verbs
Busuu--Unit 66, 67 and several reviews (Listening comprehension)
Rocket German--Lesson 1.8 Bonus would be also doing 1.9 (Speaking)
Nico's Weg--Unit 1--sections 3 and 4. Unit 2--sections 1 and 2 (Listening comprehension)
German Uncovered--Chapter 5 review of vocab and re-do the Vocabulary Workbook.
Clozemaster--every day, at least 200 points
Memrise--every day, 5 courses.
Reading--pull out my various books and set up an actual schedule of books/pages for both this weekly post and my weekly/daily schedule book.

I have 5 more things on my to-do list, but I know they most likely won't happen. Next up in my main textbook, German Step by Step is chapter 11, Present Perfect. I might fit in starting that this week, but really want to finish the chapter and exercises on Separable Verbs first.

It's going to (hopefully) be a great week.

[CarlyD]

WEEK 2 GOALS: (chopped into smaller and easier checkable pieces)

Speechling:
-second half of Intermediate 1
-Verbs up to 300

Speechling looks very interesting--I'd not heard of it before. Right now I'm doing the voice recognition with Rocket--and not well--so I might think about it for the New Year.

[lingua]

Speechling is an excellent resource. When you choose a language they pair you up with a native speaker who then corrects you. You can record either free form or from their many canned sentences or words. It is quite useful for working on any problem areas. The downside is it's rather expensive. I paid $240 for a full year. They do have a limited amount of free each month so you might want to at least take advantage of that.

Interestingly to me they've set themselves up as a non-profit. The only negative I've come across is that some of their canned pronunciations are either wrong or possibly a regional difference because I've had a couple of corrections in Italian were I sounded like the canned pronunciation and not how I was corrected which was part of the reason I switched to free form. I also think the interface for switching languages is a bit kludgy but once you get used to it it's not a problem.

[Cavesa]

I totally agree with some of the complaints. I was also corrected on stuff that was clearly region affected, and basically, the tutor was correcting the native on the recording too And the price is quite high. But overall, speechling is much better than any normal tutor, as far as pronunciation goes, and also without all the sauce around this.