Re: AlOlaf's Log (Danish/German/Norwegian)
Posted: Thu Nov 07, 2019 9:16 pm
I failed the exam. Now what?
I could:
A. go back to learning Danish, in the hopes of one day achieving a mediocre level.
B. dust myself off and push on with German, with the goal of retaking the exam and kicking its ass.
or
C. cease all language-learning activities and take up bowling.
After much deliberation and soul searching (during which time I often found myself leaning strongly towards C.), I’ve decided on B. Correspondingly, I’ve developed a three-pronged plan of action, outlined below in order of implementation:
Prong 1 (in progress): Audio/visual carpet bombing: Although it may turn out this act of desperation comes too late to improve the listening comprehension of an already unresponsive brain, I don’t know what else to do, so I’m on board 100%. The concept is simple: I watch every German film and TV show I can get my hands on, without subtitles. Instead of the documentaries I normally gravitate to, I’m forcing myself to watch stuff rich in conversational content, starting with 86 episodes of “Tatort” on DVD, the result of an Amazon.de buying spree some years back. When I’m done watching them, I’ll move on to my “Heimat” trilogy, after which I’ll watch all my German movies and finally, all my German-dubbed American/British/Danish/Norwegian movies and TV shows. We‘ll see if that does anything.
Prong 2: Read every German book I own aloud: Self-explanatory. See what that does.
Prong 3: Learn to talk like a German diplomat from 1963: Here I’ll repeat after the native speakers on my FSI recordings until I can say things like “die neue Tannhäuser-Inszenierung” and “Bürgschaftsbrief” just like them.
I’ve set preposterous, unattainable goals for myself in the past, and they didn’t do me any good. Now I realize what the problem was: They weren’t preposterous and unattainable enough. This should fix all that.
Activity suggests a life filled with purpose.
I could:
A. go back to learning Danish, in the hopes of one day achieving a mediocre level.
B. dust myself off and push on with German, with the goal of retaking the exam and kicking its ass.
or
C. cease all language-learning activities and take up bowling.
After much deliberation and soul searching (during which time I often found myself leaning strongly towards C.), I’ve decided on B. Correspondingly, I’ve developed a three-pronged plan of action, outlined below in order of implementation:
Prong 1 (in progress): Audio/visual carpet bombing: Although it may turn out this act of desperation comes too late to improve the listening comprehension of an already unresponsive brain, I don’t know what else to do, so I’m on board 100%. The concept is simple: I watch every German film and TV show I can get my hands on, without subtitles. Instead of the documentaries I normally gravitate to, I’m forcing myself to watch stuff rich in conversational content, starting with 86 episodes of “Tatort” on DVD, the result of an Amazon.de buying spree some years back. When I’m done watching them, I’ll move on to my “Heimat” trilogy, after which I’ll watch all my German movies and finally, all my German-dubbed American/British/Danish/Norwegian movies and TV shows. We‘ll see if that does anything.
Prong 2: Read every German book I own aloud: Self-explanatory. See what that does.
Prong 3: Learn to talk like a German diplomat from 1963: Here I’ll repeat after the native speakers on my FSI recordings until I can say things like “die neue Tannhäuser-Inszenierung” and “Bürgschaftsbrief” just like them.
I’ve set preposterous, unattainable goals for myself in the past, and they didn’t do me any good. Now I realize what the problem was: They weren’t preposterous and unattainable enough. This should fix all that.
Activity suggests a life filled with purpose.