German German- Post your questions here

[Chameleon]

I really want to learn German, is there any need for me to try something like Rosetta Stone, or is that a waste of money?

[SunLight]

I really want to learn German, is there any need for me to try something like Rosetta Stone, or is that a waste of money?

I would prefer Assimil courses over Rosetta Stone, or anyway something with a similar (i.e. Assimil) format (side by side text, with notes). I never tried Rosetta Stone, but I heard many people in language learning forums don't have a really good opinion about it. Of course it might work for some, but most say it's overpriced and the method itself is not really good.

 

In the end, the sooner you move to 'real' material the better, because no course usually gets you past beginner level. (And real material is also less boring )

 

When it comes to vocabulary and memorization, you can't beat srs software like Anki (and it's freeware, plus there are many shared decks online)

And yet, I learned all the German words I know by exposure alone, no vocabulary lists, etc. same with English. But Vocab lists or SRS (spaced repetition software like Anki) are useful if you want to learn quickly.

 

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I would go for Assimil German with Ease, or something similar (no, I'm not advertising, actually Assimil has its faults - I talk about the Japanese one, never tried the German one) to get a basic idea about the language, add all the words (or better, sentences) you want to memorize into an Anki deck. And after that move to easy parallel texts, you can pick an easy novel you like and read the German version side by side with English.

 

If you can get enough exposure by reading a lot, you could even skip all these paid courses and go for a German grammar book + reading simple parallel texts right from the start.

 

This free software:

 

 

 

 

 

is (in a way) similar to the one I use for Japanese. Not really user-friendly, but the concept is reading, reading, reading, and reviewing the words you find there. And reading again ^^ it's all about the amount of input you get in the end.

 

I never used it, but it looks interesting.

 

And of course you will have only a passive understanding first. I understand German a bit but I can't speak it at all.

 

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this guy has a lot of really interesting videos about languages, here's his opinion about Rosetta Stone:

 

 

 

 

 

of course he runs the Lingq website so you could say he speaks well only about his own thing, but these videos make sense

[Syroox]

I would prefer Assimil courses over Rosetta Stone, or anyway something with a similar (i.e. Assimil) format (side by side text, with notes). I never tried Rosetta Stone, but I heard many people in language learning forums don't have a really good opinion about it. Of course it might work for some, but most say it's overpriced and the method itself is not really good.

 

In the end, the sooner you move to 'real' material the better, because no course usually gets you past beginner level. (And real material is also less boring )

 

When it comes to vocabulary and memorization, you can't beat srs software like Anki (and it's freeware, plus there are many shared decks online)

And yet, I learned all the German words I know by exposure alone, no vocabulary lists, etc. same with English. But Vocab lists or SRS (spaced repetition software like Anki) are useful if you want to learn quickly.

 

---

 

I would go for Assimil German with Ease, or something similar (no, I'm not advertising, actually Assimil has its faults - I talk about the Japanese one, never tried the German one) to get a basic idea about the language, add all the words (or better, sentences) you want to memorize into an Anki deck. And after that move to easy parallel texts, you can pick an easy novel you like and read the German version side by side with English.

 

If you can get enough exposure by reading a lot, you could even skip all these paid courses and go for a German grammar book + reading simple parallel texts right from the start.

 

This free software:

 

 

 

 

 

is (in a way) similar to the one I use for Japanese. Not really user-friendly, but the concept is reading, reading, reading, and reviewing the words you find there. And reading again ^^ it's all about the amount of input you get in the end.

 

I never used it, but it looks interesting.

 

And of course you will have only a passive understanding first. I understand German a bit but I can't speak it at all.

 

---

this guy has a lot of really interesting videos about languages, here's his opinion about Rosetta Stone:

 

 

 

 

 

of course he runs the Lingq website so you could say he speaks well only about his own thing, but these videos make sense

Are you german?  

[SunLight]

Are you german?

obviously not... why?

 

If someone asks me what's the best way to learn Elvish, should I be an Elf in order to answer?

[Syroox]

I only thought because you know much about german

[Dovaah]

If someone asks me what's the best way to learn Elvish, should I be an Elf in order to answer?

Haha , you made my day :')

[Kowalski]

I think we really should make a topic about Elvish, such a beautiful language ...

 

But seriously:

 

I really want to learn German

 

Of course, I've learned English in school for years now and I had vocabulary lists and class tests and so on ...

But the most about speaking in a "good" way (neither too formal nor too informal) I learned through english movies with subtitles, reading english books, translating the lyrics of my favorite songs and chatting in online games/ forums etc. with native speakers.

This could be said about all languages I think, so before you start learning vocabulary in a traditional, boring way maybe you should just watch the german versions of your favourite movies with english subtitles. Books with vocabulary help at the bottom of the page are a great addition. Translating lyrics is fantastic. And really the best thing is chatting with native speakers, because you additionaly learn typical phrases and constructions too. I am sure there are nice germans on your main servers. PM them ... but in german!

 

Rosetta Stone: I never tried that out and because of the critism I read I will never do, but as I said, I am clueless in that case.

 

Well, of course SunLight is right:

 

But Vocab lists or SRS (spaced repetition software like Anki) are useful if you want to learn quickly.

 

So, my way of learning languages is slowlier and lazy, I admit. You don't learn speaking perfect and you don't learn fast, BUT it is relaxed and learning is connected with having fun. And in what kind of school lessons you learned more? In the normal, dry ones or in the ones with the funny and cool teacher who made even the most boring topic interesting?

 

In the end you have to decide wether you are more the relaxed or more the disciplined type

 

P.S.: Sorry if I made any grammar and/ or vocabulary mistakes, link me to the english learning topic ... (maybe this isn't a good advertisement on what I recommended to you a few lines higher.)

[SunLight]

I think the real challenge is getting enough exposure to less common words and grammar patterns, and that's where software like SRS comes into play, because you can review with small enough intervals things you normally meet after much longer intervals (long enough to forget them).

But I've always found those reviews extra-boring, and too much of a mechanical kind of learning

 

Another big challenge is going from passive understanding to active usage

[Chameleon]

obviously not... why?

 

If someone asks me what's the best way to learn Elvish, should I be an Elf in order to answer?

lol I really cracked up when I read that haha

[Chameleon]

I took two years of german in high school, but that was, well like 25 years ago or something lol

 

And I can speak it slightly lol, but I want to be fluent, as much as I can be anyway

[Rasom i do Kinza]

Wenn du einige Fragen hast, kannst du mir sie gerne stellen.

Translation: If you have some questions you can ask me

[Heretic121]

Wenn du einige Fragen hast, kannst du mir sie gerne stellen.

Translation: If you have some questions you can ask me

 

Thank you for including a translation Greatly appreciated.

[Kowalski]

Wenn du einige Fragen hast, kannst du mir sie gerne stellen.

Translation: If you have some questions you can ask me

 

Alright, let me freak around a bit here.

No grammar, vocabulary or spelling mistakes, it's just about the way it sounds.

 

So the sentence is not linguistically incorrect, but it sounds better like this:

"Wenn du () Fragen hast, kannst du sie mir gerne stellen." (cross out the "einige" and change the word order in the second part.)

 

You can also change the "einige" into "ein paar" (= a few). I wouldn't do that, but it is ok too:

"Wenn du ein paar Fragen hast, ..."

 

And another version (I like this one):

"Wenn du irgendwelche Fragen hast, ..." (irgendwelche = any)

 

But, as I said, it wasn't wrong, so all good

[Smultronstallet]

Wie kann ich Ihnen denn helfen   I watch Unsere Mütter, Unsere Väter mit deutsch untertil. Really great experience to learn more german vocabulary.

[Stuart Broad]

unsere mütter, unsere väter ist unglaublich !!!!