Chameleon's German Log

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Chameleon
White Belt
Posts: 20
Joined: Sat Nov 13, 2021 3:45 am
Languages: Native: English
Learning: German
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Chameleon's German Log

Postby Chameleon » Sat Nov 13, 2021 7:02 am

Moin! :D

BACKGROUND:
I started learning German in April with Matt vs Japan's Refold method. I did basically the minimum - an hour a day of (usually not so comprehensible) input - things like Lets Plays (LPs), German radio, and Easy German videos. I did however spend some of that time on comprehensible input for beginners, especially Kathrin Shechtman's Story Listening method videos. Phase 1 of the Refold method also involves studying the most frequent ~1,500 words in Anki, which I got from a frequency dictionary. The only explicit grammar concept I looked up was the modal particles, though I did hear about some other grammar concepts incidentally.

In September, after finishing Phase 1 of the Refold method, I switched to an approach using 1.5-2 hours a day of comprehensible input, mostly graded readers. I would spend some extra time watching LPs and listening to the Easy German podcast, but how much time exactly I couldn't tell you as I didn't log it.

In October, I read a lot of studies on second language acquisition, looking for ways to modify my approach. With meaning-focused input alone, I only got a feel for some of the grammar, namely those aspects that are important for meaning or also exist in English (verb conjugations, cases for pronouns like ich/mich/mir, etc.). Things like noun gender and noun cases, which don't exist in English and usually aren't critical to grasp the meaning, I got very little feel for. This is a common pattern for adult second language learners according to research, so in late October I added to my daily routine 20-30 minutes of "reading for form." I read slowly and pay attention to the form of each sentence, comparing the sentence to my expectations in terms of gender, cases, and so on and work out the patterns that way. I also added 20-30 minutes of "listening for phonetics", where I listen to native speakers and pay special attention to the exact sounds they use, sometimes mimicking them.

I'll probably start writing and speaking within the next couple months - gotta activate that passive vocabulary sometime. ;)

Here are some baseline test results, all recent (early November) after only a few days of my new protocol. I don't take them that seriously, but maybe they can give some sense of progress...?
=====================
wortschatz.tk vocabulary size test: 6,490 (average of 10 attempts)
NOTE: For words that (seem to be) obvious cognates of English words (like "Epistemologie"), I don't mark them unless I'm sure I've encountered them before in German content.

DIALANG:
Placement Test: 562
Listening: C1 (LOL, must have made a lot of lucky guesses)
Writing: A2
Reading: A2
Structures: B1
Vocabulary: B1

LEIPZIG VOCABULARY TEST:
Total: 123/150 (82%)
Top 1000: 29/30
Top 2000: 30/30
Top 3000: 22/30
Top 4000: 22/30
Top 5000: 20/30

I'll probably test again in a couple months.
=====================
FIRST SHORT LOG ENTRY:
Currently working my way through the Natürlich German (YouTube) intermediate playlist. The history of Ludwig II "Der Märchenkönig" and Neuschwanstein Castle is definitely one of my favorites.
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Chameleon
White Belt
Posts: 20
Joined: Sat Nov 13, 2021 3:45 am
Languages: Native: English
Learning: German
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Re: Chameleon's German Log

Postby Chameleon » Thu Dec 02, 2021 1:19 pm

UPDATE
Since last time, I:
- Finished the Natürlich German intermediate playlist.
- Read the first Harry Potter book (der Stein der Weisen). It didn't quite reach the ideal 98+% of known words (more like 95-96%), so it was a bit slow to read, but I could still follow the story perfectly fine. Having already read it as a kid (in English) probably helped with that.
- Then got back to the graded reader grind. I've also been watching Gronkh's Sims 3 LP - 14 down, 186 to go (or until I get bored of the Sims lol). Seems like a decent way of picking up some everyday vocabulary while also enjoying some funny commentary.

I've also discovered that the Antimoon guys advocate something similar to what I called "reading for form" - they call it "pause and think." (https://www.antimoon.com/blog/2011/11/i ... -worth-it/).

Let me first say a few words about “pause and think” in general. The “pause and think” technique is based on the observation that input-only (=immersion) learning in teenagers and adults does not always lead to correct grammar. There are people who have received a lot of input (such as immigrants who have lived in an English-speaking country for over 10 years), but still make basic grammar mistakes, such as saying he like instead of he likes. Clearly, being exposed to lots of input is not enough, at least for some learners. (In other words, adults cannot learn English the same way as children.)

What is missing? What are these learners doing wrong? One idea is that they “tune out” the grammatical details. When hearing or reading a sentence, they notice only the words that are necessary to understand the meaning (nouns, pronouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs) and ignore the “grammatical details”: articles, prepositions, verb forms, collocations, spelling, etc. Why would this happen? Because people (and their brains) usually take the path of least resistance. If they can ignore the grammar and still get the meaning, then that’s what they will generally do.

If people are blind to grammatical details, then it doesn’t matter that they’re surrounded by input. Some of the grammatical information never reaches the language module in their brain. (BTW, this view is known as Noticing Hypothesis in language-acquisition research.)

“Pause and think” is a technique designed to prevent this blindness. The idea is that you should care about grammar and make yourself notice it,


I've noticed that since I've started doing pause and think, a lot of the details I used to tune out in meaning-focused input, do "make it through." It's not 100% intake though.

I'm going to continue the same routine for another month, then change it up by slowly introducing output (writing and shadowing, probably).
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Chameleon
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Posts: 20
Joined: Sat Nov 13, 2021 3:45 am
Languages: Native: English
Learning: German
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Re: Chameleon's German Log

Postby Chameleon » Sun Jan 30, 2022 6:59 am

Test results from a few days ago:

DIALANG:
Placement Test: 626
Listening: B2 (Identifying main idea: 8/10, Inferencing: 10/12, Listening for detail: 6/8) - not so lucky this time I guess. ;)
Writing: B2 (Accuracy: 8/10, Textual organisation: 11/12, Appropriacy: 8/8)
Reading: B1 (Inferencing: 5/7, Reading for detail: 8/9, Identifying main idea: 12/14)
Structures: B1 (Adjectives and adverbs: 3/3, Pronouns: 2/2, Verbs: 0/2, Miscellaneous word grammar: 10/13, Parts of speech: 3/7, Miscellaneous sentence grammar: 3/3)
Vocabulary: B2 (Word formation: 4/7, Semantic relations: 2/3, Meaning: 10/13, Word combination: 6/7)

wortschatz.tk: 12,240 (average of 10 attempts - same rules as before)

LEIPZIG REZEPTIV:
Total: 140/150 (93%)
Top 1000: 30/30
Top 2000: 30/30
Top 3000: 27/30
Top 4000: 25/30
Top 5000: 28/30

LEIPZIG PRODUKTIV (first time for this one):
Total: 61/90 (68%)
Top 1000: 17/18
Top 2000: 16/18
Top 3000: 10/18
Top 4000: 10/18
Top 5000: 8/18

For the last month mostly a mixture of graded readers and the Easy German podcast, and some occasional LP videos from Gronkh and Domtendo. Now reading the children's book "Eine Woche voller Samstage". A funny scene from the book for German learners:

"Doch, man lacht hier", stellte das Sams richtig. "Schau her!" Es begann schallend zu lachen. Die Kinder lachten mit, so ansteckend wirkte das.
"Ruhe!, schrie Groll wütend. "Außerdem sagt man nicht Du zu mir. Das solltest du in dem Alter längst wissen."
"Wie denn dann?", fragte das Sams erstaunt.
"Du sagst Sie zu mir, verstanden?", sagte er.
"Sie?" fragte das Sams. "Bist du denn eine Frau?"
"Nicht zu fassen!", schimpfte Herr Groll. "Mich als Frau zu bezeichnen, so eine Frechheit!"
"Ist eine Frau denn etwas Schlimmes?", fragte das Sams.
"Nein, natürlich nicht", lenkte Herr Groll ein.
"Warum schimpfst du dann?", fragte das Sams.
"Sie!", verbesserte Herr Groll aufgebracht.
"Sie schimpft?", fragte das Sams und schaute sich um. "Ich kann sie gar nicht sehen."
"Wen?"
"Die Frau, die schimpft."
"Wer hat denn was von einer Frau gesagt?"
"Du", erklärte das Sams.
"Sie!", verbesserte Herr Groll erregt.
"Schon wieder sie. Das scheint aber eine freche Frau zu sein. Überall mischt sie sich ein."
"Hör jetzt endlich auf, von deiner Frau zu faseln", schrie Herr Groll.
"Das ist nicht meine Frau", sagte das Sams. "Ich bin nicht verheiratet. Ich bin viel zu jung, um..."
"Ruhe!", brüllte der Studienrat dazwischen.
"Meinst du mich?", fragte das Sams.
"Sie!", verbesserte Herr Groll gereizt.
"Ach so, die Frau", sagte das Sams verstehend.

Also did some free writing, ~10 hours total, plus ~20 mins per day of shadowing for the past few weeks. The shadowing is pretty tough physiologically - I can't speak as fast as native speakers, so it's far from "perfect shadowing", you could say.

Stopped a few days ago with the writing and started an input binge (over 2 hours per day), but still doing the 20 mins of shadowing a day. Stopped pause and think for now as I don't think it's helping at this point. I may pick it back up again later when I'm at a more advanced level.

Gender/inflection is part of "intake" for me at this point. You can probably attribute that to a combination of earlier conscious attention and more automaticity with other features. Van Patten argues that exposure -> greater automaticity over time, which makes it easier to process more formal features without being overwhelmed.
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Sonjaconjota
Green Belt
Posts: 271
Joined: Tue Apr 13, 2021 8:12 am
Location: Barcelona
Languages: German (N) - English, Spanish, Catalan (advanced) - French, Dutch, Italian (intermediate) - Turkish (beginner)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 24#p192024
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Re: Chameleon's German Log

Postby Sonjaconjota » Sun Jan 30, 2022 5:18 pm

Chameleon wrote:Now reading the children's book "Eine Woche voller Samstage". A funny scene from the book for German learners:

"Doch, man lacht hier", stellte das Sams richtig. "Schau her!" Es begann schallend zu lachen. Die Kinder lachten mit, so ansteckend wirkte das.
"Ruhe!, schrie Groll wütend. "Außerdem sagt man nicht Du zu mir. Das solltest du in dem Alter längst wissen."
"Wie denn dann?", fragte das Sams erstaunt.
"Du sagst Sie zu mir, verstanden?", sagte er.
"Sie?" fragte das Sams. "Bist du denn eine Frau?"
"Nicht zu fassen!", schimpfte Herr Groll. "Mich als Frau zu bezeichnen, so eine Frechheit!"
"Ist eine Frau denn etwas Schlimmes?", fragte das Sams.
"Nein, natürlich nicht", lenkte Herr Groll ein.
"Warum schimpfst du dann?", fragte das Sams.
"Sie!", verbesserte Herr Groll aufgebracht.
"Sie schimpft?", fragte das Sams und schaute sich um. "Ich kann sie gar nicht sehen."
"Wen?"
"Die Frau, die schimpft."
"Wer hat denn was von einer Frau gesagt?"
"Du", erklärte das Sams.
"Sie!", verbesserte Herr Groll erregt.
"Schon wieder sie. Das scheint aber eine freche Frau zu sein. Überall mischt sie sich ein."
"Hör jetzt endlich auf, von deiner Frau zu faseln", schrie Herr Groll.
"Das ist nicht meine Frau", sagte das Sams. "Ich bin nicht verheiratet. Ich bin viel zu jung, um..."
"Ruhe!", brüllte der Studienrat dazwischen.
"Meinst du mich?", fragte das Sams.
"Sie!", verbesserte Herr Groll gereizt.
"Ach so, die Frau", sagte das Sams verstehend.

Eigentlich mag ich das Sams ja, aber:
Als ich im letzten Sommer zu Besuch bei meiner Familie in Deutschland war, habe ich abends manchmal meinen Neffen ins Bett gebracht. Das hieß: vorlesen + noch zehn Minuten zusammen mit ihm im Bett liegen bleiben, während er ein Hörspiel hört. Das Hörspiel war Eine Woche voller Samstage. Jedes Mal. Manchmal habe ich noch versucht, es ihm auszureden: „Nimm doch mal das da. Oder das zweite Sams-Buch.“ Aber nein, immer Eine Woche voller Samstage. Mann, die ersten zehn Minuten davon habe ich so oft gehört, dass sie mir zu den Ohren rauskommen.
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