Das wäre auch zu schön gewesen
August 20 2005
I've made a few references in the last
few weeks to my upcoming "Introduction
to conversational German"
classes. Having visited Germany fourteen times, almost all for business,
it seemed like it was time to move beyond "zwei brezel, bitte".
Unfortunately, the phone call came yesterday. "Your classes
have been cancelled due to the instructor's unavailability". :(
I guess it's time to pull out those "Learn German in 10 days"
CDs. I'm not cynical about them, but I was looking forward to the
social aspect of the German class as much as learning the language. Ah
well, next semester.
Post a Comment
- 2
Brian Benz http://www.benztech.com | 8/20/2005 2:45:08 PM
Yvette's happy to help with any questions/book references, etc....
- 3
Mike Brown | 8/21/2005 6:21:38 AM
Zwei Biere bitte und mein Freund zahlt.
- 4
Ralph http://allralph.de | 8/21/2005 9:13:00 AM
Uh, why would you bother to really learn german? Take this from me as a german: The german language as a "stand-alone" product doesn■t exist anymore anyways. The english influence mark has risen to somewhere between 40-50% I■d say. So if your english is good, your german can■t be bad. Heads up :)
- 5
Axel | 8/24/2005 4:32:24 PM
If you grasp the basics, you may test your german on Heinis blog :-) { Link }
Especially "older" english words do often have a firm root in a common language. For example "astounding" (erstaunlich). Once I've seen an english text from 12th century. At that time the order of the word were astoundingly similar to how we use to order our words in german.
- 6
Carl Kessler | 8/25/2005 10:09:00 AM
Ed, you mention having to drop to CDs. I've been teaching myself spoken Spanish, slowly over the past year, using the Pimsleur CD set.
Since it is really set up to be conversation only, I'm illiterate in Spanish; can neither read nor write. But I can get by fairly well in speaking, and I find it interesting and enjoyable enough that I continue to use the CDs nearly every weekday (great during drive to/from work, as you do only 30 minutes each day).
So (a) CDs aren't really a joke as a way to learn, at least one technique seems to work well; (b) but you won't learn to read or write this way; (c) I may be an oddity and most may hate Pimsleur.
Good luck.
- 7
Jesper Kiaer http://www.jezzper.com | 8/26/2005 6:30:29 AM
Hi
Being Danish we are "forced" to several years of being tought german in school. Most kids don't like the German classes, but to honest German is a very logic no-nonsense language.
Pronunciation is straight ahead, the grammar is well structured, and the exceptions aren't that many.
Just plain ol' hard work will get you far pretty fast.
BR
Jesper Kiaer
{ Link }
- 8
Stefan http://www.learn-german-links.net/ | 5/24/2006 4:16:12 PM
Hi,
I would stay away from books like "Learn language X in Y days". Those have never worked for me. The best way I found is actually to watch DVDs in the language you want to learn and to display the sub titles in English. Repeat this 3-4 time with a movie you really like and you'll pick up the natural spoken language (not the type of language taught in school) automatically without having the impression of actually studying.
Bummer about the classes, but I'm jealous. Germany is awesome. I spent 2 years there a while ago (92-94) and love the culture and food. I could speak fluently back then, but not any more. I've been back twice since then and loved it.
As a suggestion for learning, you might try and find some books in German that you already have in English. As you read through the German books, compare them to the English books. It should help you learn both the grammar and vocabulary.