So, come on over and check out the all-new:
Sunday, December 15, 2013
Blog Has Moved! Come Join Me at www.HowToLanguages.com
Hello. I know it's been awhile and as I've continued to maintain and advance my conversational German, I've also added a few other languages to my learning agenda (Spanish, Mandarin, some Cantonese and a little bit of Indonesian), so it felt like a good time to move to a more general purpose language learning blog where I could continue to talk about language learning in general rather than only German.
So, come on over and check out the all-new:
So, come on over and check out the all-new:
Tuesday, February 5, 2013
The Test - My First German Language Meetup Group
Well, last night was the German Language Meetup Group. I went with my friend, coworker and German speaker Gerald. I was nervous beyond belief and it took me almost a full pint of beer tp stop shaking. So how did the big test go? Read on...
So, my first real interaction (outside of Gerald) was with a nurse who used to work in Switzerland many years ago. She had only recently re-engaged in the language and was reasonably fluent in her speech and although she had some holes in her vocabulary, she could easily talk around her shortcomings. Surprisingly, my speech was what I found to be slightly lagging behind my comprehension which is opposite of what I was expecting. I found myself easily understanding everything she was saying and I did reasonably well in speaking back to her. All in all we had an excellent conversation.
From there I hopped groups a couple times and found a fantastic group of younger (maybe 22-26 y/o) German speakers that I really clicked with. I was able to understand everything they were talking about and I was even able to engage the group several times (once with my only German joke) with no issues. Afterwards, everyone congratulated me and told me that they were very impressed with my German after only one year and that my vocabulary was "amazing".
I plan on making this group a permanent part of my Monthly schedule and am really looking forward to attending another group on the 19th of this Month.
I'd say if this were pass/fail, I'd pass. On a letter grade, I earned a solid C+/B-. My comprehension is so much better than I thought it would be but my speech (mostly due to nerves) was a little slower than I'd like.
I appreciate everyone who has been following me through this journey and I intend on continuing to post but I imagine it will be less frequent moving forward.
Tschüss!
So, my first real interaction (outside of Gerald) was with a nurse who used to work in Switzerland many years ago. She had only recently re-engaged in the language and was reasonably fluent in her speech and although she had some holes in her vocabulary, she could easily talk around her shortcomings. Surprisingly, my speech was what I found to be slightly lagging behind my comprehension which is opposite of what I was expecting. I found myself easily understanding everything she was saying and I did reasonably well in speaking back to her. All in all we had an excellent conversation.
From there I hopped groups a couple times and found a fantastic group of younger (maybe 22-26 y/o) German speakers that I really clicked with. I was able to understand everything they were talking about and I was even able to engage the group several times (once with my only German joke) with no issues. Afterwards, everyone congratulated me and told me that they were very impressed with my German after only one year and that my vocabulary was "amazing".
I plan on making this group a permanent part of my Monthly schedule and am really looking forward to attending another group on the 19th of this Month.
I'd say if this were pass/fail, I'd pass. On a letter grade, I earned a solid C+/B-. My comprehension is so much better than I thought it would be but my speech (mostly due to nerves) was a little slower than I'd like.
I appreciate everyone who has been following me through this journey and I intend on continuing to post but I imagine it will be less frequent moving forward.
Tschüss!
Thursday, January 24, 2013
One Year Has Come and Gone - How is my German?
Hallo Freunden!
Also, ein Jahr ist vergangen. Habe ich es tun? Bin ich fließend Deutsch? That's a good question. And I will try to answer it. But first, I want to re-iterate my original goal which was "conversational fluency". Typically this is considered to be a high B1 to a B2. During this wide, fuzzily defined phase of learning, conversational fluency starts to take shape. I am going to lay out a few of my personal requirements and see how I did:
1. I wanted to be able to express myself in the spoken language with another speaker of German. By express myself, I mean be ale to discuss my hobbies, my life, my family, current events, and anything else that I would normally talk to people (friends or strangers) about on a daily basis.
2. I wanted my spoken interaction to be relatively in line with a fluent speaker's pace, prosody, and accent.
3. I wanted to be able to understand spoken German at a normal speed by a fluent speaker about the same types of things that I listed in #1 above.
4. I wanted to be able to read and write to a certain degree, but my primary focus was on speaking.
How did I do?
1. Nailed it (mostly). I can pretty much discuss anything outside of specialized fields (eg: science, gardening, politics, etc). Fortunately, I don't talk about any of those specialized things much in English, so I'm fine not being able to discuss them in German. Vocabulary is not really an issue here. I still make some grammatical errors, but I am getting better everyday and will continue to with practice.
2. Kind of. My pace is a little slow when talking but it is improving. My prosody is pretty noticeably non-native level but it doesn't seem to interfere with my being understood. My accent is decent but not great. I've actually been told that I have kind of a French accent when speaking German which I guess is better than an American accent.
3. This is one of my weaker spots. I struggle to keep up with a lengthy dialog from a fluent speaker. Shorter sentences or a slower pace help me a lot but I have a tendency to get lost ("Wie, bitte?") in some full speed interactions. This will come with practice.
4. Nailed it. I am a decent reader and writer in German and have no complaints about my abilities in either.
My big test.
My big test is going to come in 2 weeks when I go to a German speaking Meetup group. I've been putting this off for Months and the time has come to finally sink or swim. I will post my findings after that as well as (hopefully) my one year video.
Tschüss!
Also, ein Jahr ist vergangen. Habe ich es tun? Bin ich fließend Deutsch? That's a good question. And I will try to answer it. But first, I want to re-iterate my original goal which was "conversational fluency". Typically this is considered to be a high B1 to a B2. During this wide, fuzzily defined phase of learning, conversational fluency starts to take shape. I am going to lay out a few of my personal requirements and see how I did:
1. I wanted to be able to express myself in the spoken language with another speaker of German. By express myself, I mean be ale to discuss my hobbies, my life, my family, current events, and anything else that I would normally talk to people (friends or strangers) about on a daily basis.
2. I wanted my spoken interaction to be relatively in line with a fluent speaker's pace, prosody, and accent.
3. I wanted to be able to understand spoken German at a normal speed by a fluent speaker about the same types of things that I listed in #1 above.
4. I wanted to be able to read and write to a certain degree, but my primary focus was on speaking.
How did I do?
1. Nailed it (mostly). I can pretty much discuss anything outside of specialized fields (eg: science, gardening, politics, etc). Fortunately, I don't talk about any of those specialized things much in English, so I'm fine not being able to discuss them in German. Vocabulary is not really an issue here. I still make some grammatical errors, but I am getting better everyday and will continue to with practice.
2. Kind of. My pace is a little slow when talking but it is improving. My prosody is pretty noticeably non-native level but it doesn't seem to interfere with my being understood. My accent is decent but not great. I've actually been told that I have kind of a French accent when speaking German which I guess is better than an American accent.
3. This is one of my weaker spots. I struggle to keep up with a lengthy dialog from a fluent speaker. Shorter sentences or a slower pace help me a lot but I have a tendency to get lost ("Wie, bitte?") in some full speed interactions. This will come with practice.
4. Nailed it. I am a decent reader and writer in German and have no complaints about my abilities in either.
My big test.
My big test is going to come in 2 weeks when I go to a German speaking Meetup group. I've been putting this off for Months and the time has come to finally sink or swim. I will post my findings after that as well as (hopefully) my one year video.
Tschüss!
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