ZairaI.Uranga's recent topics

For me, thinking or complaining about these little details is a lot of fun, for example:

There's no word for "girlfriend/boyfriend" in German. They call them "friend" ("Freund"), and whether you are talking about one or another, is inferred through context. I think it is cute but also inconvenient. I had a lot of German people thinking my best friend was actually my boyfriend because we weren't that fluent and couldn't explain properly. 

I wouldn't joke about that issue so much if I wasn't talking about the same language that has the word Kraftfahrzeughaftpflichtversicherung. If they have a word that long for "automobile insurance", I want to be able to call my special other lol.

They also say "two coffee" instead of "two coffees" and that's also cute.

Does your target language have funny phrases or idioms?

Recently I was talking to my family about why it is so great to know English in Mexico, and in my case also German.

As a bit of context, I recently left school and I was left only with my highschool degree but with still a lot of knowledge. Even tho I should have it hard, I have great job opportunities because I speak two and "a half" languages: I have found great jobs for bilinguals in my city, and even one that required no experience, only German, that paid enough for my rent.

This post is not meant to brag, I assume people on this forum are all in a very similar position, so I want to know. What kind of opportunities have languages given you?

I was having a conversation with my classmates the other day because many felt frustrated with their progress.

I think we all have hit that wall. Sometimes I feel stuck or think I haven't made much progress. Some days in class I feel like I am not retaining information or understanding. But I also think that it is a very common issue, that's why I don't get discouraged.

To help me deal with this I try to remember something I used to struggle with in the past. Something like:

"Remember one year ago, when you had trouble with using the "perfekt" conjugation? You rarely fail at that now!"

"You used to not know so many connectors, you use them automatically now!"

What helps you deal with frustration? 

This is a log that I will be updating with the grammar topics that I have seen so far in my B1 German course. It will help me (and maybe others) to have a good idea of what I should know to finish the B1 course, and will also serve as a topic resume. 

Hey! I always use the Cambridge Dictionary and Google Translate for German-English/Spanish, but I know there are many more options out there. So I would like to know which one is your favourite and why do you use it. 

-- Is it because it is reliable?

-- Because it is straightforward? 

-- Because it is easy to use? 

Should I change to another one? What do you think?

(And I do know Google Translate is not really the most reliable option and neither a dictionary, but it is very convenient when it comes to translation)

So I was hearing my usual German podcast and I came across a very useful tip.

"If you are learning a language, write at least 100 words in said language a day. Then have someone correct it."

Things they mentioned it was great for, and that I also thought about:

-->It's a very easy task doable in like 10 min, so it's a habit that you can commit to easily.

-->Writing every day and correcting your text will give you great awareness of your mistakes and will help you improve a lot. Consistency > quantity

-->It is also not a huge commitment for anyone who is correcting and you can do it for free. It is fun and helpful to interact with a native speaker or a teacher in this kind of "active language ability", you will learn a lot of things.

-->Writing is great! It helps you reflect on many things and also yourself.

What I also find cool about this is that we have here a very handy tool for essay correction that beats that exact purpose. I am very active in the blog and can always help you correct your texts in Spanish :)

I want to hear some input regarding this topic. I have had neutral experiences with an app called "Babbel". Good, not great, for German learning. 

However, I have heard that apps like "Duolingo" are actually not the best choice when it comes to getting serious about the matter. Not throwing hate here, I bet is a good app, It's just not for my needs. 

What are your thoughts? Do you have any apps you can recommend or have they proven to be not "good enough"? For what reason?

Hey! The year is over. I am not a huge fan of "new year's resolutions", but I am wondering if anyone has them for language learning. Maybe not really resolutions, but more like "I will do this during the year because it will improve my abilities in my target language".

I am going to focus on:

• Getting more sleep.
• A more consistent schedule for my German self-study. 
• Listening to more podcasts.
• Coming up with more techniques for learning vocab.

And so on. Does anyone have more "specific" habits that could help a language learner? What are you doing this year to get better? I'm honestly feeling a bit off track on would love to hear advice from fellow language learners.

Happy New Year!

Feliz año nuevo!

Frohe Neues Jahr!

I have posted a few times before about reading novels in a target language. I am recommending another group of books because they have helped me to stick to the habit better.

Hueber has this series of "Lesehefte" that contain short stories sorted by level difficulty.

https://shop.hueber.de/de/reihen-und-lehrwerke/lesehefte-deutsch-als-fremdsprache.html

What I like about them is that it is easier for me to stick to a complex reading in the format of a short story. They also have an appendix that clarifies difficult/rare words and a couple of exercises about the readings.

Right now I got lended "Das Wunschhaus" out of the library and it's also pretty comfortable to carry around. Give them a look if you are looking something like this :)

Also, I have many posts to related reading, so I may be doing a compilation about them on "logs". It may be more convinient. 

Hi! I made a post earlier asking for recommendations of novels in German. I just want to share an editorial named "Genua : Cideb Editrice" that helped me solve the issue. They publish novels dedicated to German learners, with definitions for difficult words in the foot notes, an adapted redaction for easy reading, and also with questions per chapter. I have been reading and enjoying the biography of Einstein, and I recently started "Die Verwandlung" by Kafka. 

Here's a link for that last one on a database, so it is clear enough what I am talking about.  

https://www.worldcat.org/title/verwandlung/oclc/166703123

Tell me if you find it useful!

Hey! I have been in my way of filling my weaknesses in German, so I started to look for diagnostic tests to see if they gave insightful feedback. What I am looking for are tests in the B1 level that tell me my weaknesses in specific topics of said level. For example, if I lack in subordinate clauses, adjective declension, connectors, Konjunktiv II, etc. I haven't tested these yet because I haven't had the time, but they seem promising. 

Alpadia Language School Test

Goethe Institut Test (I think this one gives more feedback on the level than mistakes in grammar)

I also found this page, also from Goethe, that has a very good compilation of sample tests for the official Goethe-Zertifikat B1. You can also find links to other level samples at the left of the page.

Sample Tests Goethe B1

I will leave this post as a resource for anyone who wants to try them. However, if anyone has any tests that think could help me, I would be very grateful. :)

I am curious about why people get into languages beyond their own. I think on many occasions it is because of the necessity of course. However, I wonder about what gets that spark ignited when there's no need and just curiosity.

In my case, for example, I started learning English before I could even process the benefits of a foreign language. It was a very "accidental" matter, and I was also very privileged. I am very grateful to be able to grasp it to the level I am able today. With my German is different, I just love learning it and all the things it is teaching me about other cultures.

What about you? :)

This isn't the best TED talk I have ever seen, but It places some very helpful principles on learning languages that I think everyone on this forum can get benefits from. This is a very rough resume.

• Message: recognizing patterns and the building blocks in a language is essential. "When you understand the message, you acquire the language"
• Importance: the brain holds better information that it regards as useful. The language that you are learning will be learned faster and better when you regard it as relevant in your life. 
• Observation: immerse yourself in the language and observe people's speaking and tone. Learn by listening and speaking with natives. 
• Comprehension: language is not about memory or vocabulary, but comprehending sentences and their structures. 

And mainly, have fun :)

I come to ask for advice. During a month's stay in Berlin, I was placed at the B2 course, however, now that I am in Mexico again, they have placed me in an A2 course. I believe it was because I have some serious knowledge gaps that originated when I skipped a semester in high school. 

I am quite frustrated by this situation because I believe I can take in way more information and fill the gaps myself. However, I could be wrong.

Does anyone here has been in a similar situation? Do you find yourself performing best in demanding courses? or do you do better in courses below your level that still offer some knowledge?

I had a lot of trouble finding good resources that explained conjunctions in German, so I thought I should share my findings here. It was important for me to see the three types of connectors in a single layout because they all modify sentence structure differently, but most pages included only two.  

Just for clarity, the three types are:

1. "Koordiniere Konjunktionen" meaning "coordinate conjunctions"
2. "Subjunktionen" meaning "subordinating conjunctions"
3. "Konjunktional Adverbien" meaning "conjunctive adverbs"

Or at least those are the ones I know about, please correct me if I am wrong. Many sites only cover the first two in one topic and the second as another one.

This site does a good summary of the three types of connectors and their following sentence structures. It is in German.  

Here are some other sites that I stumbled across. They do a pretty good job at explaining the first two types of connectors, and they are in English:

"Conjunctions in German"

"German Conjunctions (Konjunktionen): A Complete Guide"

May you use the one that is more useful to you  

I wanted to share a site I recently came across with. I have been struggling to find complete and straightforward explanations/exercises for prepositions and their cases in German. In this one, you can find explanations/exercises for local, temporal, and their declension in the four German cases. 

The site is much larger and covers much more than just prepositions. However, I have only been able to look into those exercises. Fell free to tell me if you found the rest of the site useful.

Hope you enjoy it!

Asides from learning German, I love playing music. In my opinion, it is deeply related to language. As a drummer, I cannot count bars if it's not in Spanish or in an Indian system called "konokol".

Also, I learned something very interesting recently while learning the piano that got me thinking about this. I already knew the US has a different note system than many Spanish-speaking countries. They read notes as "C D E F G A B", while in Mexico we use "Do Re Mi Fa Sol La Si". 

What I learned has to do with the Germans. My teacher told me that they, additionally from using "C D E...", say "D sharp" as "dis" and "D flat" as "des", and the same with the rest of the notes. I researched a bit and you can find the rest of the notes here. It probably has to do with their phonetics. It is amazing as well as problematic because there are just too many ways of doing the same thing. 

I just wanted to share, I also wonder what other people's experiences with music and languages are. Because I am not a linguist, I have no idea of how deeply connected they are. I would love if someone told me more about their relationship :) 

My all-time favorite series is called "Dark". It would have been good for learning, had it not be because the timeline, plot, and basically everything on it is amazingly confusing (that's part of its magic). However, the dialogs show at a good pace and the subtitles are also good.

Another German show I watched is "How to sell drugs online". The show is quite good in my opinion, but I wouldn't recommend it for learning because the dialog is too fast, and the last time I checked it didn't have any subtitles.

What are your favorite German shows? Also, if you have used any non-german shows with translations to learn, I am interested in hearing your experiences with them. I remember learning the word "verrückt" from the dubbing of Bojack Horseman.  

Hi! I am curious about how much time do you think it takes (or has taken you) to be where you are today. 

Of course, the process is very messy. We may study every day for a year, or 3 hours on weekends, or every now and then, or maybe even stop for months. Some may study very hard in their home country, while others may experience full immersion in a foreign land. There's a whole variety of ways people manage their time with language learning, and that results in varied experiences with the process. 

I am interested in hearing your experiences --how long has it taken you to be where you are? Do you think that one can accurately estimate how much time does it take to be fluent (C1 for example), or do you think it just fluctuates way too much?

As for me, I have been exposed to English my whole life, and it was fairly easy to learn because it is everywhere, so I wouldn't be able to put a number of hours on how much time it took me. 

As for my German, I studied 1 hour a day, 5 days a week, during 5 semesters in high school. Then I left it for a couple of years and took it up again one year ago. I would say that getting me to B2 took me about 3.5 years of fairly constant effort.

How about you? :)

Hello! 

I was just wondering if people here happen to read books (like novels) to learn a foreign language. I used to read a short series of german stories that were A2 and helped me to get back on track after not practicing the language for a couple of years. These were intended for learners --I find it hard to find actual novels that are convenient for someone who is not yet fluent. My best bet so far are children's books, so I am probably going to try Harry Potter.

Do you have any stories that got you learning while having fun? Were they intended for learners, or for the general public?

Hey! This is the second part of a previous post. Now you can vote on what method do you think is the most effective to learn new words. Feel free to comment on your answer, I am interested!

Hey! This is a two posts series. In this one, you can vote for which method/methods you use for learning new words. The next one is going to be about effectiveness (more on that later). 

My favorite language learning site/community just launched a podcast, and I am hooked!

I always like to talk about positives when I am excited about stuff. The cool thing about listening to a podcast dedicated to language learning is that I get to learn a lot about the country and culture. For example, this week they talked about how Berlin's bicycle-dedicated infrastructure should be renewed. They even talked about how people die in bicycle accidents. As someone that lives in a very chaotic city (Mexico City), the fact that people die in Berlin product of bicycle accidents sounds like a really, really weird statement (and also as something that should be resolved of course).

Back to the podcast discussion: I also wonder about many possible difficulties for people trying to learn from them. The most obvious is that it can be hard to understand what is going on at all if you don't have enough knowledge of the language.

Does anyone here have experience in learning with podcasts? How is it turning out for you? Do you find it more rewarding as a beginner, intermediate, or advanced learner?

Have you learned interesting stuff as well as me? 

Or maybe you don't listen to podcasts at all and prefer other media?

Grüsse!

Hi everyone. I am looking for German grammar book recommendations. Mainly, material that can give me the following:

• Structure.
• Detailed feedback.
• Units on topics (if possible).

I have been a self-thought German learner for a while now. Even tho I love it (because, well, it's free and I get to have fun while studying things I like) spending a lot of time searching for useful and focused exercises is quite tiring, and I still lack the structure and the feedback.

Recently I accidentally stumbled across this one on the web, that deals with German cases. It may solve some issues, but I am sure there are better options out there. If someone knows about good (downloadable) books, please let me know!

In case it helps someone, this is the shop where I found the book and has many other options. I haven't bought anything, so be careful and make sure it is legit in case you are going to buy something. If I do purchase anything, I'll update this post saying it's safe.

Thanks to anyone interested!

Hello! I find germans have quite interesting and funny metaphorical phrases, and I wanted to share a log on that. Right now I only have a couple, but I will be expanding.

"Ich bin blau." "Du bist blau."

Literally: "I am blue." "You are blue"

Meaning: "I am drunk." "You are drunk"

(I just find really funny that a color is related to that kind of situation).

"Ich glaub ich spinne."

Literally: "I think I spider."

Meaning: "I think I am going crazy."

(Imagine calling yourself a spider when you are stressed out).

Hello! I don't know if this has been posted yet, but I wanted to share a group of channels that I consider great for language learners.

This is "Easy German". I got across it some months ago, and It has been great at giving me input. I trace its succes from the fact that they use subtitles in both the target language and English, so you can always be aware of what's happening without having to fight with translations yourself (if you speak English of course).

I also love that you can become really aware of the language's culture because their videos are filmed on the street with the locals, and on many topics. They also have grammar, vocabulary and tips videos, and a Patreon in which they offer a LOT of exercises on many topics. I have been loving it so far as an intermediate level learner, but it may also be worth it for beginners to try it and see how it goes. 

Finally, Easy Languages are channels that teach about many different languages! It' was amazing to find out that the Spanish channel films where I live. I definitively advise to check them out.

Have a lovely evening everyone.

Hello! Aside from learning my usual German vocabulary, I have also started to review rare English words --the kind of words that native speakers can be aware of, but are tricky to bilinguals. And I came along a problem: I do not have the resources for contextual input.

What are effective ways to learn vocabulary? Can someone advise a website that does the job like Quizlet?

I usually use Quizlet.com for my German vocabulary and is good enough. It emphasizes words that I have trouble with (which is important to me), asks me to type, along with other functions. 

First, what I call contextual input is, for example, a unit in a book, a video, or a text that goes through a topic, in which words are repeated because of a specific context. I have a book with a unit on "inmigration" in German, for example, that helps me learn related vocabulary by using it frequently during the unit: in passages, grammar exercises, and others. I also use flashcards to aid me in the process.

But I learn English in a more passive manner. I lack the resources for advanced English vocabulary (like book units for example). Jamming words into my head using only Quizlet.com is not an option for rare words. I turned to this other website called Vocabulary.com, that has an array of flashcard sets ready for the go, and somewhat also provides context, which is cool. However, is not enough for me to have "some context", and I would like to have more contextual input without much hassle.

So I was wondering if anyone had a good experience with advanced English that would like to give me some advice on how to learn, or any tips. Or maybe I am being too demanding on my language learning experience and should do more research? Who knows.

Also, how do you guys learn vocabulary? Does your process look similar to mine? 

What do you think about this concept of contextual input? I took it from a Youtube video and applied it to vocabulary.  

 I do advise taking a look at the websites I mentioned because they are actually pretty neat. 

Greetings!

Initial clarification: I am talking about a very informal teaching style. Teaching in a formal environment without qualification would be irresponsible.

A bit of context. I offered free German lessons to two close friends of mine because of two reasons: to practice my teaching skills and to deepen my knowledge of the language. It is said, that when you can teach a subject, you have to previously understand it well enough. And when that is not completely the case, teaching is very helpful in solidifying knowledge. As an intermediate German learner, I find experimenting with this idea quite attractive. 

I just wanted to know your opinions. Will teaching with my current knowledge be effective? How much does one need to know about something to start teaching it at the basic level? I have this theory, that for example, to teach how to add, you don't need to know calculus: you just need to know how to add.

Let me know how you think it will turn out!

 Hi! My name is Zaira. I am a language enthusiast interested in the language-learning process, primarily concerning my German studies. I want to study Physics in Germany but refuse to pay German lessons here in Mexico because I like going at my own peace without spending much money. And also because it is quite interesting to come with methods yourself.

I think languages come in a more diverse way than we think and are also important structures concerning expression and meaning. I am a musician and fond of maths, whose symbols and interpretations can be further discussed a lot too.

Anyway, I am happy to be here in the forums, it is an ideal place for me to discuss language-learning in general even if I am not taking lessons or teaching. I can learn a lot from people and will be glad to meet anyone who wants the same.

Viel spass!