
What we’re about
This group is for people who are studying the German language and want to try speaking. Please note: I am not a native speaker! But we have native speakers in the group. There will be someone at each meeting who speaks at least intermediate or above or I will not schedule a meeting! Thank you!
If you are a beginner:
Pimsleur Language Courses. The best way to start is with Pimsleur language courses. These are the best at teaching you grammar by sound, the way children learn it. For German there are 5 levels available. The subscriptions are not very expensive, but if you don't have the money for a subscription, you can find it at the library.
You will want to do ONE lesson per day - they are only about 30 minutes long. Don't try to do too much or you will actually impede your progress. Don't worry if you don't get everything right - don't repeat the same lesson endlessly! The lessons are such that whatever you miss will be repeated for you. Do all 5 levels, then go back and do levels 3-5 again. This time you can continue with the lesson until you feel tired. You can continue doing these 3 levels as long as you like.
When you're ready to move on, Duolingo is very good for picking up more vocabulary. There is a lot of spaced repetition just as there is in Pimsleur, but this is definitely better after you've mastered the grammar with Pimsleur. Word of advice, don't get so wrapped up in the gaming! Do the lessons every day for about 15 minutes or so, but forget the points or you may impede your learning progress.
Any level:
If you're ready to watch television there are a number of ways to do this. Yabla is a good site for watching because it includes verbatim subtitles as well a quick dictionary as well as some lessons. It's not expensive.
You can also find viele German movies and TV on Netflix or on MHZ network (available on Amazon). Netflix is a bit better because you can change the subtitles from English to German when you're ready. The subtitles are not verbatim, but are pretty good. When using a chrome based browser you can also install the Reverso Context plugin that allows you to hover over the subtitles to stop the video and look up word meanings. Roll out and video starts again!
And on Netflix, when you've seen Dark, können wir reden!
For reference and study:
- Reverso context: This is an essential app. You can find whatever word or phrase you like in context here. Learn the whole phrase because very rarely are things translated word for word!
- WordReference: Also essential. Basic dictionary.
- Good Translate: This is surprisingly good in German, but always check it with Reverso if you think it doesn't sound right.
- Forvo: Pronunciation only, but sometimes you might not trust the computer pronunciation - Here you can get a native to say the word for you. This is very good for proper names of people and places.
- YouTube: Just to name a couple of channels that are particularly useful because they do not speak English, Easy German, and (my new favorite) Deutsch Verstehen - a kind of less vulgar SouthPark in German with nice big speech bubbles and subtitles in English if you want them.
- Ebooks: An excellent series for beginner (and intermediate) levels are the easy readers by André Klein.
I'm really just scratching the surface here. If you have other tools that you find particularly useful, be sure to let me know! :-)
Tschüss!