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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aokoye
Black Belt - 1st Dan
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Location: Portland, OR
Languages: English (N), German (~C1), French (Intermediate), Japanese (N4), Swedish (beginner), Dutch (A2)
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Re: German group

Postby aokoye » Tue Jul 11, 2017 6:15 pm

Speakeasy wrote:Der Weg zum Lesen, Van Horn Vail, Kimberly Sparks

I used this in my first year German class at Sarah Lawrence College and it was really good. I would highly suggest it to any true beginner, especially given that it's so easy to get used now (the new price was, and still is, absurdly expensive). I'll grab it off of my bookshelf when I get home but if I remember correctly it won't be of a whole lot of use to an intermediate student.
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Prefered gender pronouns: Masculine

Tatted
Posts: 1
Joined: Tue Jul 11, 2017 11:46 pm
Languages: Portuguese (N), English (C1), German (C1), Spanish (B2)
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Re: German group

Postby Tatted » Wed Jul 12, 2017 11:53 am

Hello everyone! I hope I`m not too late for the party :)

About me: I started learning German in college until A2, then I lived for a year in Germany (NRW) taking part in the European Voluntary Service. At the end of the year I took the Goethe B2 exam so that I could take a masters either in Germany or Austria. I passed with 92/100 and now I`m living in Vienna since September, taking a masters degree.

I have no idea where my level stands now, probably somewhere between B2 and C1. I still have some difficulty speaking spontaneously - if someone asks me something that I wasn`t expecting, sometimes I still stutter to answer. I definitly also need to work on my pronounciation. Does any of you also has the feeling around this level of hitting a wall, like you made good progress but that "fluency" goal is just inches out of reach and you don`t know how to get there?

Thank you all who shared their resources, unfortunately I don`t have any new to add. On the first levels i relied heavily on Deutsche Welle and their courses/resources, and then I jumped into native material or dubbed series. I was really excited about the Hueber Lesen und Schreiben for the Diktate, but was a bit disappointed that they were only about 2 minutes long. Does anyone know any other material like this? I think it is a good way to practice listening and writing.

If anyone is particularly interested in the Austrian Dialect let me know, I`ve got some funny podcasts stored somewhere ;) you can also watch the Komissar Rex series which was shot in Vienna.

Liebe Grüße
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Scogar
White Belt
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Re: German group

Postby Scogar » Thu Jul 13, 2017 5:41 pm

Hello all, my name is Scott and I'm new to this site and to the forum. I have surfed over the course of the day but thought I would post. I know some of the answers that I may directly ask or imply that I am looking for can be found by a deeper dive into previous posts so apologies if the topics I mention have been exhaustively discussed.

I am extremely frustrated. Background - I have been taking German at the Goethe Institute in Atlanta since September 2016. I started at A1.4 and am currently at about A2.4. Between 2001-2002/3 I took German at the same Institute from A1.1 to A2.1 or A2.2 and a rough placement allowed me to be at 1.4 to start. For most of this past year I have been in the 10 week courses. I think these are a waste. Those familiar with Goethe know that the textbooks are a little difficult to work with on one's own but for classwork and assigned homework the answers are actually usually quite easy. However I didn't think I was getting out of the book or the class what I needed. sure I was learning but just how to answer the few items from class.

So I opted for one on one tutoring which at Goethe is pretty expensive. I am now learning some incredible study strategies which incorporate things out of the book that are at best hinted about. For example, the book may cite a website pertaining to apartment hunting or job searching. I get on the website and fill out information or somehow follow through as if I were in Germany and print out my results for my tutor to grade and review. This has given me an appreciation for the course book that in the 10 week group class I never conceived. The problem is with the tutor I simply feel like a deer caught in the headlights. I feel like I should be at A1.2 and not 2.4.

The thoughts I have are do I step away from Goethe and attempt to backfill on my own, if so how do I have work reviewed? Do I plug along with tutoring and continue to be overwhelmed? Yes, I am seeing better how to study from these books but without some way to have someone look at my work I'm not sure I'll progress without bad habits or errors.

I have tried Lang-8, DuoLingo...you name it, Answers if they are forthcoming just don't typically cut it. I'll look at a lot of the recommendations on this site but I'm curious if anyone else has been in this spot and how they handled it. My goal was to test for B1 in April but now I think I'll be happy if I can handle A2.
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Speakeasy
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Re: German group

Postby Speakeasy » Thu Jul 13, 2017 10:52 pm

Hello, Scott, and welcome to the forum! First, I would like to congratulate you on your enthusiasm and perseverence. One of the great advantages of taking language classes is that the student has, from "day one", an opportunity (an obligation) to express himself in the target language. However, as you have discovered, the “true” time available for conversing with your instructor and the other students during the sessions is a rather small portion of the total class time. It is, perhaps, one of the main reasons why many of the members of this language forum, many of whom are independent learners of languages, tend to shy away from classrooms and their associated course materials. Most members of this forum tend to choose materials that are specifically designed for self-study and move on quickly to authentic materials. Nevertheless, developing fluency and self-confidence through actually speaking the target language often presents a serious challenge.

Second, taking into consideration your experiences to date, I suspect that your one-on-one work with your tutor has provided you with the ability to speak more fluently and with greater self-assurance than many of your fellow students who have not sought out this supplementary contact with the language. I find myself wondering whether or not you are underestimating your actual progress. If it is any comfort to you, please rest assured that, depending on the context, the feeling of being “like a deer caught in the headlights” is rather common amongst language-learners, so much so that even graduates of the very demanding DLI and FSI language courses, initially at least, express similar feelings once they find themselves in conversation with native speakers. As an example from my personal experiences, even though I had been living and working for a full year in a “truly” full-immersion environment in Quebec, even though I had just passed the Quebec government’s mandatory CEFR B2 level French exam for professionals wishing to work in the province, even though I could speak fluently and with self-assurance in a one-on-one setting, whenever I was required to participate in a conference involving a wide range of topics that seemed to switch back-and-forth with the speed of light and in which several people were “vying for the attention” of the moderator and cutting one another off in mid-sentence (with a view to advancing their respective careers), I continued to feel “like a deer caught in the headlights.” In other words, it is possible that you are expecting too much of yourself at your present stage. A CEFR A2 level is a great achievement, but it is not equivalent to B2 or higher.

It is difficult to provide advice without knowing the exact, or at least the proximate, cause of your difficulties. When you say that you feel “like a deer caught in the headlights”, is this because you have to formulate your thoughts carefully before expressing yourself? At the A2 level, this is to be expected. Still, have you discussed the situation with your tutor? If so, how has he responded? From your brief description, you seem to be benefiting from your work with him. So, your situation might respond to some fine tuning. You might benefit from exposure to some self-study materials such as Assimil German (sadly, the second-stage course is not available from an English base). In addition, it is possible that working through the Glossika German files might be of some help. In any event, I suspect that at least a part of the fundamental issue at play here is related to your expectations. Stick with it, it gets better (slowly, painfully, but it does get better)!

EDITED: Minor correction to the text.
Last edited by Speakeasy on Fri Jul 14, 2017 12:42 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Scogar
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Languages: English (N), German (A?)
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Re: German group

Postby Scogar » Fri Jul 14, 2017 12:46 am

Thank you Speakeasy. I do believe I am progressing with the tutor. "By caught in the headlights" I mean that I don't think I have the vocabulary, aural, or verbal skills that would be expected at late A2. I actually believe my levels here are severely stunted. I feel like I am keeping up with grammar as that was what I focused on. And given time to write I can look up gender, consider nominative, accusative, etc. And of course declinate things and pick the correct order. I'm a long ways from perfect but this stuff I get given the time when writing or reading.

The tutoring has shown me what I really need to work on (listed above) and I think I have some new ways to accomplish that but I won't be able to backfill if I have as much work going forward as I do. Saying all of this stuff in email is giving some clarity in what i need to do. I think some time off (a month or so) or maybe a little bit longer between sessions may help. I expect I would like to keep the tutor close and not sever ties so I can get my work reviewed but I do want to better understand what is happening in my session.

For some reason I struggle explaining this without rambling. But here's the real scoop by analogy. I have made it from 1st through 6th grade in class and now that I'm being tutored for 7th grade math my tutor is realizing I really am at a 3rd grade level but the system allowed me to get to the 7th grade. And the material we are learning is 7th grade and can't be dumbed back down to the 3rd grade in order for me to understand it. There - two emails to say that!

Scott
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bpasseri
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Re: German group

Postby bpasseri » Fri Jul 14, 2017 3:04 am

What resources would you guys recommend for a complete beginner learning German on their own? I never really thought I would start German but I started the Duolingo German tree because of a bit of wanderlust and now I'm hooked! :D I'm more of a traditional textbook learner than someone who likes dialogues, so I've never really been all that interested in Assimil, though I would maybe try it if I could find it in a library. Overall, though, I tend to lean more towards heavier grammar explanations (I need to understand the grammar backwards and forwards to feel like I have any kind of control over my language learning).
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: 1900 / 2500 ES Books
: 390 / 4500 ES Movies

: 480 / 2500 FR Books
: 90 / 4500 FR Movies

: 0 / 2500 IT Books
: 0 / 4500 IT Movies

: 250 / 2500 PT Books
: 360 / 4500 PT Movies

Speakeasy
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Re: German group

Postby Speakeasy » Fri Jul 14, 2017 12:16 pm

Bonjour, bpasseri. It seems to me that, since the 1960’s, most Introductory-level language courses destined either for classroom use or for independent learning have tended to deemphasize grammar, preferring to make barely passing reference to it and treating it as a topic that is integrated into Intermediate-level courses on reading the language. You might be able to locate some "grammar-translation-method" textbooks for learning German from the period from the early 1900’s through the 1950’s, but you are unlikely to find audio recordings to accompany them.

The only language course that I have come across that includes clear, concise explanations of grammar is the Living Language German Ultimate series. Although it is out-of-print, the course books can be easily found on Amazon, Alibris, AbeBooks, eBay, et cetera. The audio files are available in many public libraries. However, as for the majority of self-study language courses, the language is introduced through situational dialogues. In addition, I found that the accompanying exercises were of little value compared either to the Assimil German dialogues or to courses that incorporate appreciable amounts of sentence-pattern exercises.

Given that German is one of those languages for which there are almost too many very good resources available, I suggest that settle on one course that you would otherwise enjoy and that you satisfy your craving for additional support of grammar -- which I share, by the way -- by consulting a “simple” grammar, for example: (a) English Grammar for Students of German, 2nd ed., by Cecile Zorach and Charlotte Malin, or (b) German Verbs & Essentials of Grammar, 2nd ed., by Charles J. James. I would advise that you resist the temptation to dive deeply into a more extensive study of grammar before having absorbed the basics of the language through the practice of dialogues and exercise sets. Otherwise, you could easily find yourself down a rabbit-hole.

EDITED: Minor correction to the text.
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smallwhite
Black Belt - 2nd Dan
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Re: German group

Postby smallwhite » Fri Jul 14, 2017 1:20 pm

Free online grammar
http://www.german-grammar.de/grammar/co ... ontent.htm
very detailed (35 chapters and 31 sub-topics under "Chapter 24: Adjectives")
with sound
with grammar tables with sound
with examples with sound
with exercises with sound
sister sites teach Spanish, Italian, French, German in Spanish, Italian, French, German (16 combinations and then some)
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Dialang or it didn't happen.

User avatar
aokoye
Black Belt - 1st Dan
Posts: 1818
Joined: Sat Jul 18, 2015 6:14 pm
Location: Portland, OR
Languages: English (N), German (~C1), French (Intermediate), Japanese (N4), Swedish (beginner), Dutch (A2)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=19262
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Re: German group

Postby aokoye » Sat Jul 15, 2017 5:19 am

Scogar wrote:Thank you Speakeasy. I do believe I am progressing with the tutor. "By caught in the headlights" I mean that I don't think I have the vocabulary, aural, or verbal skills that would be expected at late A2. I actually believe my levels here are severely stunted. I feel like I am keeping up with grammar as that was what I focused on. And given time to write I can look up gender, consider nominative, accusative, etc. And of course declinate things and pick the correct order. I'm a long ways from perfect but this stuff I get given the time when writing or reading.

I think it's great that you know what exactly you need to work on. That, for me at least, is better than studying aimlessly. How often are you seeing your tutor now? I think that widening the length of time between your tutoring sessions makes sense right now once you've done that you can reevaluate where you're at.
The course level systems at Goethe Institut locations outside of Germany are really odd in terms of how slowly they move. They aren't alone in that - I know the Alliance Francaise here does the exact same thing. That said if you're only getting three hours of German in the classroom a week and are not expected to study much then it's kind of logical (but just barely). All that is to say, I think that you'll be able to really make a lot of progress on your own with (or without) occasional sessions with your tutor.

Also as an aside, I haven't viewed any of your posts as rambely. There are tons of people, myself included, who write long drawn out posts.
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DaveBee
Blue Belt
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Re: German group

Postby DaveBee » Sat Jul 15, 2017 12:37 pm

German DVDs with english & german subtitles.

Hello all. I'm thinking of entering Mr Dearman's 'native materials' project with German as the TL and subs2srs as the main tool. I'm having a hard time finding German productions with both German and English subtitles. (I want to use German productions if possible, because I think the german audio and the german subtitles are more likely to match than a german dub + german subtitles.)

So far I've found Das Boot (Directors cut), and the second series of Weissensse. Can you suggest any others?
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