German group

An area with study groups for various languages. Group members help each other, share resources and experience. Study groups are permanent but the members rotate and change.
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MorkTheFiddle
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Languages: English (N). Read (only) French and Spanish. Studying Ancient Greek. Studying a bit of Latin. Once studied Old Norse. Dabbled in Catalan, Provençal and Italian.
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Re: German group

Postby MorkTheFiddle » Sun Dec 10, 2017 7:23 pm

Speakeasy wrote:
MorkTheFiddle wrote:Still, if I recall correctly, when this film hit the screens, the East German regime had recently completed a "major infrastructure project" in Berlin, nicht wahr?
As for myself, I don't know the answer to this question. I think you mean The Wall, begun '61 and probably finished by the time of the filming of the movie.
I am tempted to say more, but it would include a spoiler or two. ;)
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Many things which are false are transmitted from book to book, and gain credit in the world. -- attributed to Samuel Johnson

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aokoye
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Languages: English (N), German (~C1), French (Intermediate), Japanese (N4), Swedish (beginner), Dutch (A2)
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Re: German group

Postby aokoye » Mon Dec 11, 2017 3:21 am

I just to put this in the German resources thread as well, but I stumbled upon a free online German textbook and workbook that has levels from A1 - B1. The book is called Wolkenkratzer and it appears to have been produced by a german language school. I've clicked through some of the pages and there is audio and video to go with some of the exercises as well as an answer key. There are also ebooks aimed at B1 and B2 speakers. My main critique is that it's essentially a collection of jpeg files which makes it horrible in terms of accessibility.
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Prefered gender pronouns: Masculine

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reineke
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Re: German group

Postby reineke » Sat Dec 16, 2017 1:08 am

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Kraut
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Re: German group

Postby Kraut » Sat Dec 16, 2017 1:25 am

in real colour:

Hitlers Berlin in Farbe: 1933 - 1945

https://www.amazon.de/Hitlers-Berlin-Fa ... C3%B6lking
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reineke
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Re: German group

Postby reineke » Thu Dec 21, 2017 4:57 am

"Das sagt man nicht, weil das ist ja falsch"
The mystery of the many misplaced verbs in German weil clauses

APRIL 04, 2016
If you speak German natively, you may have experienced a little shock reading the title sentence above. And the reason should be clear: The verb "ist" in the weil clause comes too early. Most people probably think they never make such errors. This may be so when writing German. But when speaking German, according to new research from the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics and the University of Koblenz-Landau, there are systematic reasons for the misplacement of a verb like ist in a weil-clause.

Using computer technology, researchers Kempen and Harbusch inspected a large collection of spoken dialogues for all sentences ending with a causal clause (introduced not only by weil but also also by denn or da). They found that “incorrect” weil clauses become more frequent when there’s not enough planning time or capacity to end the complex two-clause sentence grammatically. That is, people then appear to encounter difficulty in planning the precise content for the upcoming weil clause, and in encoding this content in a grammatically correct form; or they have started planning for the weil clause too late.

Such planning difficulties raise the probability of miscoordination between sentence formulation on the one hand, and word selection on the other: the conjunction weil is chosen to open a causal clause, but the formulation system has decided, or is deciding, to terminate the sentence without adding such a clause. As a consequence, the remaining conceptual content—a cause, an argument—can only be communicated as a newly launched second sentence. However, new sentences have the verb in early position (like sagt in the main clause above), too early for a normal weil clause (which is subordinate and has the verb at the end).

Why don’t speakers insert denn instead of weil? After all, denn das ist ja falsch would be grammatically correct. The researchers speculate that weil is used in this space due to its high frequency in spoken German. This means it can be retrieved from the mental vocabulary more easily than denn or da, thereby suppressing these competitors.

https://www.mpg.de/10419987/misplaced-v ... ses?c=2249
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alexkelbo
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Location: Germany
Languages: German (N), English (C1), Spanish, Mandarin
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Re: German group

Postby alexkelbo » Thu Dec 21, 2017 4:49 pm

True, it's not correct grammar but I think sometimes misplaced verbs in weil-clauses may be used intentionally as a device for emphasis:

"Das sagt man nicht, weil: Das ist ja falsch!"

Kind of like you structure a sentence with embedded direct speech.
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Chung
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Re: German group

Postby Chung » Tue Jan 09, 2018 7:25 pm

For anyone who's interested in a few alternatives to what's on DW, check out the Austrian Mein Sprachportal, which I found while downloading the answer keys and audio for my copy of Fokus Deutsch - Erfolgreich in Alltag und Beruf (BTW this is not the same as Fokus Deutsch made in the 1990s).

It's a site meant for newcomers in Austria looking for information on building up their competency in German (i.e. integration courses, Austrian proficiency exams for German). For many of us on the forum, there's still a lot of useful stuff in the box on the left "Deutsch Lernen". Some goodies include:

- Short videos of situations from everyday life graded from A1 to B2 (e.g. parent-teacher interview, bank transaction).

- Short videos of everyday life at A1 or A2 for speakers of Arabic or Farsi (these are meant to familiarize Middle Eastern (im)migrants about life in Austria with each video about an everyday situation (e.g. job-hunting through the AMS (Austrian Public Employment Service), making a medical appointment on the phone) conducted in German, but then followed by commentary in Arabic or Farsi, presumably to acquaint viewers with tidbits on culture or etiquette. Despite the focus for Middle Eastern learners, watching these videos would be useful for any beginner wanting to see and hear German in action in everyday life).

- Audio interviews of European (im)migrants on their life in Austria accompanied by exercises graded from A1 to B2 (the transcripts are here). Each interview lasts about 15 minutes, but the competency required to answer questions ranges from A1 to B2 since the linguistic complexity of the interview depends on how the interviewees express themselves. Answering the questions isn't always as easy as lifting something verbatim as said by the interviewee.

- Supplemental online exercises for a few textbooks of Austrian German published by Cornelsen

- Handouts on life in Austria with exercises from A1 to C1 (this looks especially useful for teachers and tutors, or just anyone looking for exercises that incorporate vocabulary pertinent to everyday life)

- Sample proficiency exams (including audio and answer keys) from A1 to B2 for newcomers/(im)migrants and Online practice tests from A1 to B2
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reineke
Black Belt - 3rd Dan
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Re: German group

Postby reineke » Thu Mar 15, 2018 1:29 am

Lesen oder Zuhören - beides geht nicht
Er liest ein Buch, sie fragt ihn etwas, er hört sie nicht. Das menschliche Gehirn ist schuld, zeigen jetzt britische Forscher: Multitasking liegt uns einfach nicht.

http://m.dw.com/de/lesen-oder-zuhören-b ... a-18902193
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renaissancemedici
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Location: Athens, Greece
Languages: Greek (N), English (C2), French (B2), Italian (A2), German (beginner)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 25#p100832
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Re: German group

Postby renaissancemedici » Sat Mar 17, 2018 8:05 am

I'll join in as well. Hello!
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I use Assimil right now as a starting point, but at the same time I am building the foundation for further studies of German.

Assimil German with ease: 8 / 100

DaveBee
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Posts: 952
Joined: Wed Nov 02, 2016 8:49 pm
Location: UK
Languages: English (native). French (studying).
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =15&t=7466
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Re: German group

Postby DaveBee » Sat Mar 24, 2018 7:06 am

I just came across the comment below, and thought it might be of interest:

"The use of synthetic phonics to teach reading in the first language now has official blessing and there is no reason why the same approach can’t deliver similar success when learning other languages.

A number of years ago, I purchased an Austrian phonics primer for use in preparing a Year 7 girl for early entry to GCSE German. She had spent her early childhood in Germany but started her primary education in England where she learned to read English. Understandably, she wrote German using English sound-symbol correspondence, so “das Haus” was written as “das House”.

It was hard work for both of us, teaching her to write German using the correct spelling and I compiled a mini-course for her, which can be found after clicking the “Year 7 German” link next to the subheading “German course units” under the heading “Classroom-ready materials” on the web page at http://www.specialeducationalneeds.com/home/languages; the file name is “Spelling.pdf”.

At the end of Year 7, she obtained an “A” in GCSE German Writing as well as in the other skills, so the explicit spelling development intervention must have contributed something"

https://gianfrancoconti.wordpress.com/2 ... mment-1024

http://www.specialeducationalneeds.com/home/languages

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/ ... 2VtdElFRjQ
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