Four weeks down and almost a month in...

Guten Tag! It has now been 4 weeks and 2/23/12 will mark one month of studying German. Wow! Where does the time go?

Progress time. How much have I learned and how do I quantify my progress? Well, for starters, I have found a few websites that offer German skills testing and will group you into a category based on your proficiency. I think I will test myself at the end of every month and see if I can chart my progress. Hopefully this will give me some insight as to what is working and what is not.

How do I THINK I have done? Well, I have assembled about 220 flash cards containing various nouns, verbs, adverbs, adjectives and basic phrases. I would say I am comfortable with about 85-90% of them which gives me a basic vocabulary of about 200 words. Verbs and grammar are probably my weaknesses at the moment and a big part f why I don't feel very comfortable speaking at this point. I have maintained (and continue to do so) that vocabulary is more important than grammar at this stage of the game. Grammar can be tweaked but there is no substitute for being able to pick out the correct word that you are looking for. Language is about communication first and foremost. If you have the right vocabulary, you can get your point across, even if you happen to position the words incorrectly or use the wrong conjugation. Grammar is about putting words together, but you must HAVE words to begin with, right? Sorry for the tangent but I really believe in these methods.

Now, back to my progress. With a solid 200 words vocabulary which includes the top 100 spoken words, the top 25 adverbs, nouns and conjunctions, the top 10 verbs and a smattering of about 50 or so common nouns, I believe that I can "communicate" a fairly large array of things and I am proud of that.

Where am I going? Well, I think the next month should be focused on 3 things (in this order):
1. More vocab
2. Verbs
3. Delving into some of the more important grammar rules, particularly word order.

I would love to find a native (or at least fluent) German speaker that I could take out to lunch once or twice a month and converse with. We joined a Denver-based German Language Meetup group and we will be attending their next event on March 5th. Hopefully it will be helpful.

Bis balt!