Massive Input in Berlin: Patrick's German/Spanish log

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patrickwilken
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Re: Patrick's German/Spanish log

Postby patrickwilken » Wed Aug 29, 2018 1:18 pm

Sgt Schultz wrote:I know this is a bit off topic, but I was curious what your thoughts on living in Berlin were? My soon to be wife and I want to live in Europe for a few years and Berlin has become a top choice due to me being a software engineer and the wealth of those type of jobs there. Have you liked the city/Germany in general? Thanks in advance :)


That's a big topic, but if you have any specific questions please feel to PM me.

I love Berlin. I can't really imagine living anywhere else in Europe. My wife and I had the choice to work in the US, or stay in London (or for that matter go to Australia), but we really liked the city and wanted to raise our child here. Things change, but I can't imagine living somewhere other than Berlin in the next few years. There is certainly no where else in Germany I would prefer to be.

Prices are going up and some of the gentrification is being blamed on tech start-up people. There is some concern that Berlin not end up like the Bay Area. There is even a big "Kugeln für Google" graffiti right next to my daughter's Kita. But don't let that put you off! :D

Image

A photo taken in my neighborhood.

Image

Literally: Bullets for Google.
Last edited by patrickwilken on Wed Aug 29, 2018 1:54 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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German Spanish
1500 Movies : 1389 / 1500100 Movies : 4 / 100
50000 Pages : 41089 / 500005000 Pages : 0 / 5000

All goals to be completed by 31.12.19.

garyb
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Re: Patrick's German/Spanish log

Postby garyb » Wed Aug 29, 2018 1:36 pm

patrickwilken wrote:I think I am very much wedded to input-first, output-later. Spanish is just a relaxed hobby. I wanted to learn a romance language and holiday in Spain and/or Italy each year, and in the end figured Spanish would give me more culture (i.e., books/films). My ulitimate aim in about 3-5 years is to be at a strong B2-level.

Small correction: I have never avoided speaking German here in Berlin. However, until you are in the B2 range most people automatically switch to English so it's hard to really communicate. If you do speak German people rarely correct you as they are interested in communicating and not teaching.

However, I found that the speaking came quite naturally along with the comprehension. While my speaking is (perhaps) weaker than my comprehension I can communicate about whatever I want. Mostly I fall down when it comes to specialist vocabulary (e.g., to do with the Berlin school system or something like that).

I would say that I have been at a rough C1 range for German for a while, though with some obvious weaknesses.

I am curious why you think you were faster learning Italian by concentrating on output. For me my biggest weakness has always been vocabulary, which you have to learn via Input (no?). Most of the grammar comes along for the ride given you do enough input.


Thanks for the clarifications, I might have mis-remembered the details from your log, and of course that was a few years ago and you've had plenty time to improve since then. I think you mentioned not speaking much German with your wife so perhaps that made me think you weren't speaking much in general.

To be honest I'm still trying to understand why my Spanish learning is so slow compared to Italian, especially as already knowing Italian should speed things up in theory! I believe my main issue is a big gap between understanding and speaking, which comes down to lack of practice. There's plenty vocabulary and grammar that I understand but when I try to use it I either can't remember it or have to pause to think about. I realise this is normal for any language learner, but the gap feels far bigger than in Spanish. With Italian I was speaking from a few months in, so was putting what I heard into practice much more frequently, whereas I only speak Spanish occasionally so it always feels rusty. That said though, even listening is more difficult than it did after a similar time learning Italian. Sometimes vocabulary is the obstacle but sometimes it's just fast speech and regional accents. But as I said I've simply put fewer hours into Spanish than I did into Italian over the same time period and that's not a factor to ignore.

In my case it just seems that speaking is something that requires lots of practice to learn and maintain, no matter how much input I get, whereas for others like you it seems to become natural with enough exposure. I've seen enough accounts of both types to conclude that there's no one true way and different people need different methods. I've also struggled with speaking in my native language - I had speech therapy as a kid and even as an adult I'm not particularly good at expressing myself fluidly and elegantly - and I'm terrible at pronunciation and accents, so it could well be that the mental and physical act of speaking is something that I have more difficulty with than the average person and that shows in my language learning.

It seems like you have a very realistic goal for Spanish, and I wish you good luck with it!
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patrickwilken
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Re: Patrick's German/Spanish log

Postby patrickwilken » Wed Aug 29, 2018 1:51 pm

garyb wrote:Thanks for the clarifications, I might have mis-remembered the details from your log, and of course that was a few years ago and you've had plenty time to improve since then. I think you mentioned not speaking much German with your wife so perhaps that made me think you weren't speaking much in general.


Well you'd would naturally think that with a German wife I'd be getting lots of practice, but our relationship is in English and it's very hard to switch. When my German was weaker it was just frustrating to talk about anything significant in German, and now that my German is stronger it's difficult to switch out of habit.

It's not just me though: When my wife was working in London, she used to have lunch with native German speaking colleagues, and they would all speak English just because they were used to it. I don't think it even occurred to them to speak German together.

I found that speaking came pretty naturally for me as my comprehension improved. It's just something I could do. I find speaking with the other parent's at my daughter's Kita that the big stumbling block is still vocabulary. I can talk about almost anything, but there are still lots of specific words I don't know, and moreover I need a better understanding of German culture so I can understand things like how schools work etc. I think this is about 90% of my problem at the moment, much more than poor grammar. And I am sure the best way to get around these problems is to do a deep dive into German - read newspapers, watch TV, read books, etc etc.

Having said that I have no doubt my grammar would improve by writing if I could ever motivated enough to try that.
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German Spanish
1500 Movies : 1389 / 1500100 Movies : 4 / 100
50000 Pages : 41089 / 500005000 Pages : 0 / 5000

All goals to be completed by 31.12.19.

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Progress

Postby patrickwilken » Tue Sep 04, 2018 7:55 am

German

I have been slowly reading through the scifi Quarantäne by Greg Egan. Egan is one of my favorite scifi authors and pleased to find this 1990s copy with it's lurid cover it a 1euro book shop around the corner. Sadly rising rents have forced the shop out of business. I got a great two-volume Spanish-German dictionary there for two euros a few months ago.

I continue to watch dubbed shows on Netflix and Amazon Prime. Finished season 2 of Jessica Jones and Amazon's Primes new Jack Ryan series, which I can count as nine films.

I got rid of my subscriptions to the Guardian and New York Times and switched over to an electronic subscription to Süddeutsche Zeitung, which has a nice app for my Android phone. It's a bit expensive, but need to understand German politics better, and it's nice to have a bit of a filter from US politics.

Spanish

I have been slowly reading through the first Harry Potter book. I started on my Kindle, but I was looking up too many words for the that to be practical. I switched over to Readlang, paid 5 euros for a monthly access (which seems to be a bargain) and have been systematically working through the book. This more translation than reading, but at page 55 now I do occasionally get full sentences that I understand, and it's not quite so terrible as before.

I was planning to use Readlang to generate an Anki deck from the text I am reading. I have done this previously for German where I generated cards where the question is a sentence from the book with the problematic word/phrase bolded, and the answer is either a blank or just a quick couple of word definition of the problematic word/phrase. These cards are much easier than vocabulary cards, and allow you to quickly reinforce vocabulary that you know, but that is still very weak.

However, out of curiosity, yesterday, I generated a complete Anki deck for the Harry Potter book, where every card is a sentence from the book and every answer the audio for the sentence plus its Google translation. I have no idea how useful this will be, but I'll try out the deck for a couple of weeks and see how it goes.

I've also finished two seasons of the children's show Peppa Pig without subtitles, which I can count as three movies.
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German Spanish
1500 Movies : 1389 / 1500100 Movies : 4 / 100
50000 Pages : 41089 / 500005000 Pages : 0 / 5000

All goals to be completed by 31.12.19.

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Re: Patrick's German/Spanish log

Postby DaveAgain » Tue Sep 04, 2018 9:01 am

patrickwilken wrote:I can talk about almost anything, but there are still lots of specific words I don't know, and moreover I need a better understanding of German culture so I can understand things like how schools work etc. I think this is about 90% of my problem at the moment, much more than poor grammar. And I am sure the best way to get around these problems is to do a deep dive into German - read newspapers, watch TV, read books, etc etc.
The Instituit Francais in London do one course around "French cultural icons"
Do you know L’Abbé Pierre, Belmondo, Coco Chanel, Catherine Deneuve, Coluche, la dictée, Perrier, la Cocotte-minute, Canard Enchaîné, les grandes écoles, ‘Métro, boulot, Dodo’, la 2CV, Sempé, la pétanque, la rentrée, le Tiercé, Victor Hugo?
Improve your communication with French people
Join in everyday conversation in France with confidence
Understand the underlying cultural message of your French counterparts

Aims: Enrich your cultural knowledge through reading, speaking and watching documentaries and film excerpts.

Teaching approach: You will read and watch materials related to iconic symbols (celebrities, gastronomy, institutions, daily life and language). You will discuss icons with the support of quotes, opinions and questions.

https://www.institut-francais.org.uk/fr ... e-society/

I think recognising literary/cultural allusions has been mentioned as the C+ marker :-)
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patrickwilken
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Netflix würde deine Augen ausreißen und dein Herz fressen

Postby patrickwilken » Tue Sep 04, 2018 10:11 am

netflix_small.jpg


Graffiti on discarded mattresses seems to be a thing in Berlin.
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50000 Pages : 41089 / 500005000 Pages : 0 / 5000

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Re: Patrick's German/Spanish log

Postby patrickwilken » Tue Sep 04, 2018 10:16 am

DaveAgain wrote:The Instituit Francais in London do one course around "French cultural icons"


The Goethe Institute does something similar for German here in Berlin (and probably elsewhere).

However, I think it's cheaper and more enjoyable to read the newspaper daily and start tackling some of the more interesting German books that have come out in the last few years.
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German Spanish
1500 Movies : 1389 / 1500100 Movies : 4 / 100
50000 Pages : 41089 / 500005000 Pages : 0 / 5000

All goals to be completed by 31.12.19.

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patrickwilken
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Weekly update

Postby patrickwilken » Mon Sep 10, 2018 8:19 am

German

It's been a bit of a slow week for German. I have been switching over as much as possible from English to German (newspaper, TV etc), which is working fine, but still have to finish off a book in English and still need to read another book in English on Sicily before I go there for holiday in a couple of weeks.

I have been enjoying reading the daily the Süddeutsche Zeitung on my phone. The app for the paid version is excellent, and to honest prefer the layout better on the phone than the paper version. It's very nice to be reading a German newspaper. It's very easy to fall into a English-language bubble here, where German events get filtered through an English-speakers prism.

I am also continuing to read the book Quarantine by Greg Egan. It's only 370 pages, which shouldn't take me more than a 3-4 days to read, but I been distracted by Spanish.

I have been mostly watching Netflix Avenger's TV shows in German. Rewatching the first season of Iron Fist in preparation for the new second season that's just come out. I have no idea how any of the characters sound in English.



I bought in a fleamarket a Spanish-German visual dictionary. That reminded me that my wife gave me the equivalent German-English visual dictionary when we first met about thirteen years ago. After dusting it off I realized how useful it is, and how many gaps I have in some low frequency words. For instance, when I go to dentist I know the word for gums, but not enamel; or when I go to get my bicycle repaired I know the word for wheels or brakes, but not for spokes; and so on. These are just words that do not come up in books or newspapers or everyday speech. I am considering creating a specific Anki deck to fill in these gaps after I get more comfortable with my Spanish learning.

Image

Strangely the Spanish-German dictionary claims 12000 words (not 6000 as the English-German does) even though it's identical in terms of layout and images.

Spanish

I have read the first 55 pages of the first Harry Potter book using Readlang. When I started it was incredibly difficult, but it's got a lot better since then. On a whim I converted the text into an Anki deck with about 7000 cards. Each card consists of an individual sentence from the book, with a English Google translation and audio as answer. The idea is to basically give me multiple exposures to the same sentence until I am comfortable with the grammar and word meanings.

I also discovered the Clozemaster app last week, and been totally hooked. I have been working through it's fast track for Spanish, which has about 24000 sentences. I am attempting to do one percent of the database a day, so it should take me about three months to complete. Whether that will be possible we'll see. It's incredibly useful for getting lots of exposure to basic grammar and words. I doing the multichoice "cloze" completion for sentences, where I am presented with a sentence which I try to translate, then check the translation given (which is often inaccurate), attempt to chose the correct word from the four given, re-read the completed sentence to make sure I understand it, look up any words I don't understand, and in the case of new words I don't know add another ten example sentences containing the new vocabulary. By intensively trying to read each sentence I am slowly getting a better intuitive understanding of Spanish grammar, though I am long way from being comfortable in it. I am not sure how useful it will be for more advanced study, but for me at the moment it's really useful for getting a sense of how sentences are put together. My other Anki deck now has 2400 words/phrases in it, which I've slowly added to over the last ten months, which makes Clozemaster much more useful than if I can come to it with no vocabulary at all.

I have finished three seasons of the children's show Peppa Pig in Spanish, which was helpful, and have started the Netflix movie Bright (which is insanely hard). Not really sure how useful watching shows in Spanish yet is. I did the same in German when I started and remember how I gradually understood more and more, but I think I understood the sentence construction better with German. Or perhaps that's just a false memory.

Anyway I feel like my Spanish has definitely taken a big step forward in the last week, and my German is slowly moving along in the correct direction.
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German Spanish
1500 Movies : 1389 / 1500100 Movies : 4 / 100
50000 Pages : 41089 / 500005000 Pages : 0 / 5000

All goals to be completed by 31.12.19.

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patrickwilken
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Children's books

Postby patrickwilken » Wed Sep 12, 2018 1:21 pm

I have the luck as a language learner to be raising a bilingual child and get to read lots of children's stories in my L2. It's remarkable how many new words even appear in children's books.

I particularly like this one: das Himbeermarmeladenhandelsschiff, which appeared in my daughter's pirate book. Quite a big word for a three year old. :)

lucy_piratin.jpg


BTW: My daughter's name is Lucy.
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German Spanish
1500 Movies : 1389 / 1500100 Movies : 4 / 100
50000 Pages : 41089 / 500005000 Pages : 0 / 5000

All goals to be completed by 31.12.19.

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Children's books

Postby patrickwilken » Wed Sep 12, 2018 1:35 pm

I like the rhyme in James Krüss's' circular poem "Es war einmal ein Kind" that starts:

    Es war einmal ein Kind,
    das spielte mit dem Wind.

    Der Wind war ihm zu kalt.
    Da spielte es im Wald.

    Der Wald war ihm zu dumpf.
    Da spielte es beim Sumpf.

    Beim Sumpf war’s ihm zu kahl.
    Da spielt’ es mit dem Ball.

es_kind.jpg


I particularly like the text in the classic Janosch books. The Tiger and Bär stories are good for younger children:

janoush_tiger.jpeg


I get the strong feeling this story is actually a parable for the changes that occurred after the DDR collapsed, but perhaps I am overthinking it.

You can catch some of the Janosch books on Youtube:

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