So, this post will be the opposite of my last post. This is all about stuff that did NOT work for me (at least not as well as I had hoped).
1. Word of the day emails. I signed up for a "word of the day" email service and thought it would really help. Unfortunately, it did not. Maybe it just never came at the right time, but I have a backlog of 20+ emails and will probably never even look at them.
2. Word lists. I thought that if I could put together 5-10 words in a list type format, that I could learn a list every day. Not so much. Even when I was able to memorize the wordlist, I would find that I would often memorize the order of the words as much as the meaning of the words. I guess my mind does not memorize those kinds of things very well. Flashcards are the answer here.
3. Vocabulary at the expense of grammar. Let me explain. I started by learning copious amounts of vocabulary with almost no effective grammar constructions at all. Come to find out, all this did was cause me to speak in English with German words. By this I mean that my sentences were coming out using English grammar and word order. The nonsense I was spouting would never be mistaken for German by a real German speaker so it was effectively useless. Once I started studying more stock phrases and substituting my vocabulary words in and out to make new phrases (while keeping structure in place)I found I was making more sense and feeling better about my speaking. I still believe that vocab is more important than grammar in the early stages, but I now think that at least some basic grammar and phrase study should be incorporated early on.
4. Learning vocab words that I would never use. I started out with a combo of basic Kindergarten-type words and "frequency lists" of vocab to study. I found many of these words to be so useless to me in everyday conversation that I really was wasting my time learning them. Things like: The names of the Animals, shapes, colors, types of food, clothing, etc... Now I know many of you are saying "Hey, those are the basics! You have to learn those things first." Do I? I looked back on my recent conversations with friends and was amazed at how rarely I talked to people about Tigers, sweaters, potatoes, teal, squares, etc... I understand that eventually I will want to learn these things, but if I'm trying to work up to conversational fluency, I need to work on conversation. I need to know how to talk about the things I talk about in real life. I need to know how to say "Hangover" (Der Kater), "Chess" (Das Schach), awesome (prima, toll, super), etc... Learn what you want to talk about. It will be easier to remember things that you will use consistently. There will be plenty of time to learn how to say "The Giraffe and the tomato are wearing pink sweaters" ("Die Giraffe und die Tomate tragen rosa Pullover." for those keeping score at home).
5. Learning verbs from their infinitive only. I have re-evaluated the way I go about learning verbs. Knowing the infinitives only has proven to be very limiting. There are a few things that should be learned for each verb besides the infinitive. When I put together flashcards, I include the following information: regular or irregular, past participle and if it uses haben or sein), whether it is a reflexive verb, whether it is has prefix (separable or non). If it is irregular, I list the irregular forms as well. This is a lot of information but it is all very necessary I have found. Not learning the past participle was the biggest mistake.
6. Reading more about language learning than actually learning German. This may seem weird, but if you have ever delved into the mysterious underground of language learning enthusiasts (which is unbelievably fascinating to me personally), then you know what I am talking about. Forums, articles, blogs, youtube videos, etc... All dedicated to talking about how to best learn a foreign language. Maybe its our innate need to know how other people are so successful at something that we are struggling with? Maybe someone out there has a pain-free, easy, quick method that will save us time, money and frustration? Whatever it is is very time consuming. There are no shortcuts. Honestly, I am still doing this one and probably will continue to be involved in the language learning community, but it IS a time leech.
OK. There you go. My list of lessons learned. I am hoping to post my ultimate resource list soon as I've found many websites and books that I think were extremely helpful and I would love to share with you.
What mistakes have you made in the language journey? Let me know in the comments below.
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