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.