A language learners’ forum

Posted: **Tue Jul 23, 2019 7:44 pm**

aaleks wrote:It seems I'm going to try to revive my German. As I've mention before technically German is my L2 (it goes like my L1 - Russian, L2 - German, L3 - English, L4 - Italian). German is the language I was learning for 7 years in school (unsuccessfully), and then later for about a year on my own - this time I actually managed to learn something but then I quitted and everything got lost. Later when I was learning English I thought of reviving my German but never got to the point to actually do it. Then I gave up on the idea, but sometimes I had that kind of wishful thinking that maybe one day if I found something I would like to watch or read in German I would try to revive or relearn it. The thing is the moment has come . I've found that "something" that I want to watch in German so for about a week my poor English has had to share its time not only with Italian but with German as well. I honestly don't know if that "German recovery" is going to last long but right now I think that it's worth at least trying. Besides I would like to try my new listening-watching approach on German too. And, of course, peppa-piging . I've noticed that I'm really learning new words from that cartoon.

I won't change the name of the log though because it's just too eary, I may quit German once again tomorrow, or after a couple of weeks, or ... And I'm not going to really learn it, just try to recall what I learned all those years ago. Besides, it's not exactly true that I forgot German completely, I still remember enough of the grammar and handful of words.

P.S. Is my English going to survive this abuse?.....

I lost the track of how many times I quit learning German in the past ten years, but this time I'm really enjoying it. I do not know why, but I believe I've found a routine that suits me. I study German for about 40 min in the morning using Assimil and a list of more frequently words. That's what I'm enjoying doing at the moment. Actually, you don't need to give up on anything you've been doing, just find something that you like. If you like Peppa Pig, then watch episodes. I confess that I like Pegga Pig ( :oops:

), but I don't watch it because my listening skills suck.

Posted: **Tue Jul 23, 2019 8:57 pm**

aaleks wrote:It seems I'm going to try to revive my German. As I've mention before technically German is my L2 (it goes like my L1 - Russian, L2 - German, L3 - English, L4 - Italian). German is the language I was learning for 7 years in school (unsuccessfully)...

That sounds remarkably like my experience with Russian.

It's the first foreign language I ever studied in school but I never got anywhere close actually speaking it. Our teachers used a very old-fashion grammar-translation approach with lots of rote memorization. The result is that I can still recite most of the conjugation/declination tables, however, when it comes to applying them in practice, I'm completely lost. :cry:

I've been tempted to take the language up again because I would love get to the point where I can comfortably follow a movie or have an actual conversation that doesn't only involve memorized phrases. What keeps me from doing it is the knowledge how much time it would take and that I don't really have that time at the moment.

Anyway, good luck with your German experiment!

Posted: **Tue Jul 30, 2019 8:04 pm**

Posted: **Tue Jul 30, 2019 9:23 pm**

aaleks wrote:It seems I've made a beginner mistake - starting a new language before reaching a good level in one I'm currently learning. Let alone the fact that I still haven't figured out how to deal with two langauges at the same time, and now there are three of them. But the thing is I don't want to drop any of them.

It's hardly a mistake unless you give up. (I'm not sure that giving up is a mistake either. You can always go back to that language later in life.)

Just keep in mind that things will go a bit slower for some time, and don't forget to do things in the other languages now and then. Sometimes you want to do the same activity in many languages, sometimes you want variation (read in one, listen in another, write in a third...).

Good luck! Take it easy. It's not a competition.

Posted: **Wed Jul 31, 2019 4:30 pm**

If you are looking for another site with articles, I recently started reading this one and I think it's pretty good: https://www.wanderingwil.com

Edited by Admin for unavoidable & external reasons. No "fault" of user.

Posted: **Thu Aug 01, 2019 6:16 pm**

Posted: **Fri Aug 02, 2019 6:06 pm**

A language learners’ forum

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