Monday 17 May 2021

Mind your language

 With recent events, some discouraging news and a general malaise  in the Duchy my mojo has gone awol. I am trying to get it back but finding all is a tad overwhelming. A little light painting has stalled and gardening has been a pleasant distraction. I am feeling the draw of my ancestral heimat. One thing I have been considering is to try and learn German, particularly to read it. I have zero aptitude for languages. Any suggestions how to proceed? 

20 comments:

  1. I had a bit of fun with the Duolingo app, and my brother has utilized babble. If one has the self-discipline, they can be pretty useful!

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    1. Signed up for Duolingo as a first step yesterday...

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  2. I found German to be fairly easy to learn, when I was in High School. I shudder to try to apply myself to languages now. I understand Babbel is a good way to learn to speak, but I do not know about how to read.

    Perhaps there should be a "Martin Terroni" version so we could understand "Scots From A New Scheme Dweller"...:-)

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    1. Perhaps in all your current leisure time you could produce a phrase book or write a painting guide for Napoleonics :)

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  3. I had to learn German for work (no longer needed) and I didn't learn it at school. I did night school using BBC resources. This was 20 years ago and I also used Michel Thomas language CDs which seemed very structured, paced and sensible. Interesting man with a French resistance / WW2 escape background.
    I have used Babbel, tried duo lingo and other colleagues have used Memorize. They all depend on sticking at it. Often you can try early sessions free to check the style and the last three have gamification built in.

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    1. Started the Duolingo and I will note these for future reference.

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  4. I have considered learning a language but have always been put off by the dissonance between my wanting to read and most of the teaching available being about how to speak the language. I must have uniform books in more than half a dozen languages but just get the main drift from online translators.
    Stephen

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    1. Sadly no hobby content in it so far :(
      I know exactly what you mean regarding reading.

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  5. I’ve been using the Duolingo app for a couple of months now. There are some annoying features (like the graphics, though that is a matter of taste I guess) but overall I find it useful.

    I use it to refresh and improve my frankly poor Finnish and I started learning Swedish which, so far, seems intuitive for us Anglophones. I have a friend who uses Duolingo to learn Norwegian (his dad was Norsk but my friend never learned as a child).

    The great thing is you can pick it up and put it down when you have time. The downside is you don’t have the social interaction of a class. I think the learning method is a plus though as you don’t get the boring grammar. It seems to be loosely based on how you learn to speak your mother tongue.

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    1. The pick it up and down works well for me currently and is a gentle way for language phobics like me.

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  6. Did French and German at school, useless at both! Picked up a bit of French afterwards and at one time could read technical German to a certain extent - German certainly easier than French.
    Story about my French O Level (dismal fail): French oral meant to be in French, asked by teacher what I had eaten for lunch. Answered something like 'duz erf'. She kept asking, finally in English...I said '2 eggs - duz erf' - which is a rough phonetic rendering of deux oeuf...

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  7. See if and what sort of adult continuing education courses the local university might offer. There is lots of fairly easy starter material on Youtube as well. The main thing is to dive right in and keep at it with languages (speaking, reading, listening, and writing).

    Viel gluck (good luck),

    Stokes

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  8. When easy travel is once again a possibility, look into some German language immersion programs that combine travel and cultural experiences with classroom learning. Have a look at these:

    https://www.fluentu.com/blog/german/german-language-immersion/

    https://www.fluentu.com/blog/german/intensive-german-course/

    https://www.goethe.de/ins/de/en/kur.html


    There is a lot out there and many possibilities for some very interesting language learning experiences.

    At some point, tackling the grammar will become necessary though in order to read/say/write things besides carefully memorized phrases. I made the same mistake years ago in trying to avoid the grammar, but have learned quite a bit in listening to my wife and son speak. Immersion (even for 10-14 days) and a willingness to make mistakes and laugh it off are key components to language learning, but the enjoyable experiences that come through all of that are well worth it. I hope this might get you started.

    Best Regards,

    Stokes

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    1. I had a wee look at your links , most interesting. I will take it easy and pop a toe in the water, perhaps diving in with a splash later...

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  9. I find the program Rosetta Stone quite useful to learn languages. It's similar to Babbel.

    A teacher would be great, of course.

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  10. I really like the Slow News website when I need to jump start my French. Daily news read very slowly and since you probably know the news already it's a great way to start getting your ear used to the sounds of the language. https://www.newsinslowgerman.com/

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  11. There is Radio Deutsche Welle, which offers the opportunity to learn german for free:
    https://learngerman.dw.com/de/overview

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