Learn German - Words

I recorded myself reading Grüße aus Deautschland 1 and was pretty happy about it.

So today I decided to start with Grüße aus Deautschland 2. I have done part of the subscription. I will try to finish it in a day or two.

Learning New Words

As far as my English is concerned, I haven't learned new words for a long time. The strategy I have been using is the "leaving as it is". It means that I just do what I usually do, reading and writing, without deliberately memorizing any new words. If they remain in my mind, then it is great. But if they just leave, it's up to them. 

But after reading Buzan's Studying Skills and The First 20 Hours, I think I need to do some new words learning stuff so that I can get out of my comfort zone and make improvements. 

There are many methods to do that:

1. You can do as what people conventionally do, i.e. using memory cards. 

2. You can do it the "Never Study English" way, i.e. reading from dictionaries. 

3. You can do it the creative way where you are supposed to use your imagination and association ability to come up with an image with sound. 

Learn German - Grüße aus Deautschland 1

I am still reading what I subscribed from the audio: Grüße aus Deautschland 1 (there is a link to it at the sidebar of this website on your right side of the browser). I can read it pretty well and fluently.

Today, I am going to record what I read and see if it is ok before I go to the next audio (which I have been listening to ever since the day I finished subscribing the audio 1).

Recently, I bought and read the book by Josh Kaufman: The First 20 Hours. Although I don't think it is worth of the money I bought it for, I learned ONE thing from it -- breaking your study into chunks of a short time, say 20 minutes.

And I also came across the book by the name of Buzan's Study Skills. It is also saying that

It is essential that any time period for studying be broken down into 20-50 minute sections with small rests in between.

Although the reasons might be different from each other. But I found out that doing that really makes it easier for me to do it persistently.

1. I have no excuse to not do it any more.

I am spending less time and having more breaks. If you are asked and want to read for 2 hours, what would come up in your mind? Maybe just think about it would make you step back. But now, 20 minutes would be something anybody can do. So you might as well just do it.

2. It is much more fun.

Listening or reading for 20 minutes and taking small breaks will make it much fun. You can do whatever for your breaks. No matter it is standing up and moving around your room or listening to a song, It does feel like a break than doing for 2 hours without rest and, therefore, is more like what breaks mean.

3. It is more efficient.

As supported by scientific researches, this pattern of study has much more efficiency. You can learn more and recall what learn more easily.

German Language Learning - Get Past Basic Level and Medium Level Fast

I didn't renew this journal yesterday because I traveled on business, picking up my colleague at the Gaborone Airport. I will just take it as a rest day. Because you are supposed to take a day's break per week so that the brains will digest what you have input to them.

People say that if you stay in your comfort zone for too long, you are going to be stuck there forever. It is also true if you just stay at the basic level when it comes to learning German, you are going to stay there without any improvement ever.

You are not going to learn new words. You are not going to try new usage. It doesn't feel good. I said that because I have been there and done that. I stayed there for years, as a matter of fact, until very recently.

Why do I recommend that you should get past the basic and medium levels as soon as possible?

1. It is time consuming.

 Like learning everything else, if you are stuck, you can not get enough impetus for further learning. Learning will become slower.

If you don't reach a certain level, each time you learn, you will have to start all over again, which is total waste of time.

2. It makes you doubt yourself.

The less you improve, the more questions you will give to your language learning potential. "Can I really learn it? Is what I am doing worth it?..."

3. You are repeating the same thing.

Starting over again and again will do nothing progressive for you. Breaking this circle means getting out of the comfort zone and learning nothing new.

How can you leap to the high level then?

1. Learn something new everyday.

Try to use your brains and learn something new everyday, anything new, a new word, listening to a new mp3, seeing a new movie or reading a new book. Actually, that should be something you should do even you have reached the native level.

2. Start with lower levels always.

If you go directly to the high level, it is really hard and will sabotage your effort. I heard that some people started with high level language learning and succeeded. But it might not suit everybody, especially someone who has learned any foreign language before.

What's more, it will damage your confidence. When there are too many new words that you need to look up in the dictionary and memorize, it is difficult for you to keep learning that way.

3. Start with something that you are good at.

I like reading aloud ever since I started school. So when it came to learning English, I just did what I liked. Then the teacher would like me to stand up and read to the whole class often, which encouraged me further.

I don't like memorizing things, like new words and chemical equations. I was doing bad at Chemistry although English was my favorite. So just avoid my disadvantages and tried to learn new words through reading

So what are your strengths?

German Language Learning - Pronunciation

A language without sound is lifeless. I don't want to learn a mute language anyway. So whenever I started to learn a language, I would start to learn its pronunciation.

It is also the easiest. Often if you open a textbook for a language, the pronunciation only occupies that first 3-5 lessons. If the book comes with an audio supplement, then I would listen to that part until I get familiar with the pronunciation. 

German is easier than English as far as the pronunciation is concerned because if you have learned the pronunciation rules, you would know how to pronounce any word.

http://joycep.myweb.port.ac.uk/pronounce/

Use this link to learn the rules of German pronunciation if you will.

If you really concentrate on it, this part will only take you a day or two.

What I need to point out is that once you get familiar with it, just leave it and move on to other parts of the language. As you go, you will come across words and your pronunciation will be reinforced and get better.

Due to the similarity between English and German, it is not difficult to learn the German pronunciation because it is much easier. What you need to pay attention to is the difference, which is what you need to learn and remember.

That is all. 

Let's Learn German - My Story about Language Learning

German is the fifth language I have tried to learn. But I have made it up toward the top of may list. And I am trying to make it my C language after A-Chinese and B-English.

It is not that easy really.

I started learning German at college. That was 17 or 18 years ago. But until now I haven't made it work. I may have some reasons like:

1. I don't have much time.

I have to work during the day. And during night, I have to hone my English skills. Also I have a long reading list of books in Chinese and English. I need to have my life.

2. How can I learn German well and seriously when I am still half way there as far as English, which is my second language, is concerned?

3. I don't want to go the old way in learning languages.

I really want to take a new route, which, you may say, a shortcut. But I really think learning languages should not be as hard as we learned English.

I don't want to memorize new words by spaced repetition. There must be a better way!

I don't want to read book like our fathers did. There must be a better way!

So I have spent the last 17-18 years on finding that.

It has been not a total waste time though because I found it with English and tried it on German. The pity is that it didn't work as well as I expected.

Here are some popular language learning methods that have been popular in the Chinese market, as well as the world. 

1. Learn English through Dictation.
2. Crazy English.
3. Learn English through Reading.
4. Don't Ever Study English.

Dictation. 
This is for listening comprehension improvement. In China, many people can read English well but can not understand what people say, especially those elderly scholars who didn't have much audible English learning materials.

So one of them found out this method and solved this problem for himself, as well as other English learners.

The method is basically do dictation practice. Find an audio and try to transcribe it. The more you do it, the better you will understand English.

If you have enough knowledge about the English language and lack capacity in listening comprehension. Then this is for you.

But this is not for beginners.

Crazy English. 

You may heard of this somewhere. The founder Li Yang said if you can speak it then you can write.

The core of this method is to practice your mouth muscles, making them English, i.e. making your voice the loudest, making your mouth the biggest and speaking as fast as you can.

I tried this. But it is really something that requires consistency and perseverance.

But it shouldn't be that hard.

Reading.

This one is easy and good. Reading is supposed to be the habit of our life. But the key is the time before you can read a book. You need to do something to reach such a level.

Only until very recently have I find out the fun of reading English books.

If you start reading books at the very beginning, it is a nice move. And many kids do that with their native language. But it is really hard to keep it going. I have been there and known that.

If I had started with easier books, that might have become different. But books that I can get my hands to in the bookstores around China are very limited, much less Children foreign language books.

Don't Ever Study English.

This is my favorite. It provides a whole solution package for English learners. By following the steps found in this book, I was able to make my English reach the native level.

There are five stages.

Stage one:
1. Find an hour long audio and listen to the voice twice a day until the voice is so clear to you that you can shadow along. (Rest for a day per week.)
2. Transcribe it on paper.
3. Use a dictionary to confirm it is correctly transcribed. (Tricky one)
4. Read it aloud everyday until your tongue is familiar with it. (Rest for a day per week.)
5. Look the new words up in the dictionary and write the definition as well as examples down.
6. Read what you copy from the dictionary out aloud until you are very fluent.

Stage two:
Find a movie. Do what you do in Stage one with it.

Stage three:
Get a native newspaper. Do what you do in Stage one from 4-6 with it.

I did exactly as it reads in the book with my English. And I was happy with the result. But it doesn't mean that I don't need to learn English any more. It is like making you reach the level of a native primary school graduate. And you can go from there and learn whatever you want to learn.

With that good experience, I started to use it in my German language learning. At first, I did stage one for one month at home and tried to look for a job as a German translator. You know what, some company did want me to join them.

Then boasted, I started to do Stage two. It always stopped at the 3rd step. Later, I found out that is because I didn't know enough about this language.

So to use that method, you need to be at a pretty high level. When I used it to my English, I was already graduated with good marks from college and listen to VOA everyday and understood it.

So recently, I have been making revisions to my method and making progress. This is this journal all about. I will use this to track my progress.