Sabotai Learns German

[sabotai]

For awhile now, I have been learning German. It's been an on again, off again 'hobby' for awhile now. I would say I have learned a lot of German since I started, however since I've started and stopped with several different programs, systems, etc., my knowledge of the language is pretty much "all over the place". I can carry a simple conversation, but I still can't read a paragraph from a book or newspaper without finding words I don't know, but I see plenty that I do.

I'm starting this as an online journal of my learning (and the hope that other people who are learning a language will get something out of it, plus get any feedback from those who have already learned second languages). I have two big problems with this. 1) I sometimes forget my place. I've occasionally listened to the same audio lessons because 2) I sometimes let time get away from me. If I go 1 day without doing something, it sometimes turns into 1 week. And sometimes that 1 week turns into 1 month.

I know if I ever want to really know the language (and learn other languages), I need to spend a meaningful amount of time every day studying, and eventually using, German. But for right now, I just want to make sure that I do something every day, even if it's just highlighting a few words I don't know in the next paragraph of a story in one of my dual-language books.

I'll start off by going over some of the things I have already done.

German Grammar Books

Hammer's German Grammar and Usage: A very thorough, but very dry, book. It reads very much like a textbook. I tried reading this, but it is very hard to get through.

1001 Pitfalls in German - Despite its title, the book isn't just about the common mistakes people make when learning German. It's a pretty good grammar book that will specifically point out the "pitfalls in German", but it is in no way limited to them. It's much lighter than Hammer's. Far easier to read, but I'm also guessing that it's not as thorough as Hammer's.

I'm currently reading through 1001 Pitfalls. When I'm done with that, I'll go back to Hammer's.

Software / Audio

Rosetta Stone (Version 2) - Rosetta Stone (RS) was the first thing I started using to learn German. At first, it was pretty cool, but the lessons get boring pretty quickly. A lot of the words I learned through it have stayed with me, so I guess it works. However, I started laboring through the lessons around Unit 4 of Level 1. Right now, I am in the middle of Unit 7 of Level 1, nearly done with Level 1 (8 Units).

Native speakers reading the lines is a huge plus. German words matched with pictures means you have to think and workout on your own what the words mean, which will help the word and its meaning stick in you mind. Each lesson is focused on a subject. For instance, one lesson will teach the words for basic shapes, a lesson may focus on colors, on telling time, on types of buildings, etc.

However (and this goes for Version 2), it is too easy to "cheat". For instance, I can match a line that started with "Beides" to a picture without needing to know what the rest of the words in the line simply by knowing that the other 3 lines don't start with the word "Beides" (That means "Both" for those wondering). You may say "you're only cheating yourself!" and I am. But when I'm bored with the lesson and the program, I can't help it. ;) So yes, while some words will stick with you when you work through them, I have no doubt that a lot of words have not stuck with me because it's too easy to match the first word or two of a line to a picture.

Also, if your goal is to learn enough of the language to get by if you plan to travel, forget it. The program does not teach that way. After several dozen lessons, you still will not be able to carry a basic conversation. This software is aimed at those looking to learn the entire language, not just enough of the language to get by on vacation. I personally don't have a problem with that, since I am aiming to learn the language, but if you want to learn conversion stuff at first, this is not for you.

In the end, I think RS is good for testing your knowledge of a language, but I can't say it's great at teaching it. There are a lot of other criticisms on the software that you can find by researching public opinion on it.

I have heard good things about Version 3, though. That may be worth looking into. As for Version 2, I'm pretty much done with it. I'll load it up every once in awhile and do several tests to move forward in the lessons (I'm hoping that it might actually get better in Level 2). But it's out of my regular routine.

The good news is if you are a library goer, there's a chance that if the library you go to has a computer lab, they might have it on their computers. I have heard several people say they have used the software, for free, at their library. So you may be able to use it for free, and if you like it and it works for you, all the better.

Pimsleur (Audio lessons) - I was able to borrow these from a friend of mine. All 3 levels but the readings part of it is missing Not sure if these have a "version", if they changed at all or much from the original recordings, so I can't comment on that.

Most people seem to say that these are the best tapes for learning a language. Lesson 1 starts off with you hearing a simple conversation. Over the next half hour, the lesson breaks it down by telling you what the words mean, and having you repeat the words (and sometimes just a part of the word) over and over again as you try to match the pronunciation. The following lessons will continue to add on and change the conversation at the start of the lesson as it introduces new words. After several lessons, you'll begin having a few "mock conversations" near the end of each lesson.

Each lesson is 30 minutes long and there are 30 lessons per level (3 levels - 45 hours total). It gives time for you to repeat in the recording, so these are perfect for listening to in the car since you don't need to constantly pause the recording. These are the tapes you want if you want to learn a language for the purpose of traveling. These start with a very simple conversation ("Excuse me, do you understand English." "No, I do not understand English." "I understand a bit of German", etc.) and then continue on with standard conversational phrases. Good day, goodbye, Where is the museum, it's on Maple Street, etc.

I am currently on lesson 15 of Level 1. These tapes are absolutely great, and if you can get a hold of them, wonderful. And just like with RS, I have heard people say that they have been able to check the Pimsleur tapes out of their library, so if you are a library goer, check to see if your library has these.

Michel Thomas (Audio lessons) - There's two reason why I stopped with Pimsleur after lesson 14. One, my iPod earbud thingies crapped out and I had to wait for new ones (no CD player in my car). Two, I discovered the Michel Thomas tapes.

Michel Thomas uses a "building block" method to teaching a language. He starts off with simple words and phrases, and then put them together. You can read about the method on other sites as I'm sure I will not do it any justice, but I feel like I am learning much faster with Michel Thomas' method than I did with either RS or Pimsleur, and I am retaining not all, but the vast majority of what I've learned (It doesn't hurt that by the time I got to these, I already knew some of the words he introduces in the first couple of lessons).

The one downside is that unlike the other two, Thomas does not use native speakers. Some people have expressed concern about this since they worry about pronunciation. The audio is of Michel Thomas with two students who do not know the language. You become the 3rd student and learn with them. Not only do you learn through your own mistakes, but through the mistakes of the other two students as well. He will also explain the grammar, something RS and Pimsleur does not do.

Because this system requires you to constantly press the pause button to work through what Thomas has just asked you to say, I don't think this would work well for those looking for something to listen to as they drive, even though I have heard people say they do listen in the car to them. I honestly don't know how they do it. I'm pausing it constantly, and sitting on my bed trying to work through what he asked me to say. I can't imagine trying to do that while driving, so I wouldn't recommend these tapes/CDs for that.

But the system is very good, and I'm having....I don't want to say "fun", but it's certainly not boring. I have just finished CD 6 (of 8) of the Beginner course, and feel like I have learned quite a bit.

[sabotai]

So what am I doing now to learn Geramn? What's my regular routine?

1) Currently, I am listening to Michel Thomas beginner's course. I just finished the 6th CD (out of 8 - if you look on Amazon and other places, it says 10 CDs, but the last 2 CDs go over what was learned in the first 8).

2) Reading 1001 Pitfalls in German (German Grammar Book)

3) I have several Dual-Language books in German (on one side, English on the other). I try to read through a paragraph of a story on the German side and highlight the words I do not understand. For now, I'm just focusing on big words. Nouns, verbs, some adjectives and adverbs. The smaller words I'm just leaving alone for now.

If you read my FTB answers, you may remember me saying that I was working on a program of my own for German vocabulary. Well, I stopped doing that when I found a program called Stackz! It's mainly for learning Japanese, so a lot of the features in it are mainly for Kana and Kanji learning, but it can easily be used for any other language. It's a pretty good flashcard program. Better than using real flashcards, IMO.

What I do is create a simple spreadsheet of the words I highlight and their meanings. I use the English side of the books to get a better understanding of how the word is used, idiomatic uses for words, etc. I then import the spreadsheet into Stackz! and then use the program the same way you would use flashcards. The program keeps track of who well you know the words.

And the short story I am currently working through is "Das Erdbeben in Chili" by Heinrich Von Kleist ("The Earthquake in Chili"). out of this book: http://www.amazon.com/Five-Great-German-Short-Stories/dp/0486276198/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1225262141&sr=1-1

The five stories in it are the one above, "Der Sandmann" by E.T.A. Hoffman, "Leutnant Gustl" by Arthur Schnitzler ("Lieutenant Gustl"), "Tristan" by Thomas Mann and "Das Urtail" by Franz Kafka ("The Judgement").



My goal is to try and do each of the above everyday. Listen to some of a CD, read some of the grammar book and do a paragraph or two from the dual-language book, add the unknown words into Stackz! and spend sometime going over all of the words (the newly added ones plus all of the ones I still don't know).

I think spending a half hour on each thing is realistic for most nights, but I know some days I'm going to not be able to put an hour and a half towards it. So my goal is to do all 3 of the above, but the minimum would be to do at least 1 of the above every day.

[fantastic flying froggies]

Schoen guten Tag!

Ich hoffe dass, du Viel Spass in Deutsch lernen hast.

[sabotai]

Oct 29, 2008

Michel Thomas

Listened to the first half of CD 7. One of the things he does is explain the differences between English and German word usage and grammar. On this CD, he explains how in English, "could" can mean two different things. "was/were able to" ("I couldn't do it yesterday") and "would be able to" ("I could do it tomorrow."). In German, there are two different words. "was/were able" would be "konnten", and "would be able" is "könnten". The umlaut changes the meaning and the pronunciation.

Das Erdbeben in Chili wordlist

I already have 74 words on my list from just the first page (plus 1 paragraph) of the story. The next paragraph had 18 more words I did not know, making it a total of 92 words.

32 words are Known, 47 are Unknown and 13 are Neutral

1001 Pitfalls In German

Began Chapter 6: Pronouns. The first 5 chapters covered (1) Adjectives and Adverbs, (2) Cases, Articles, Der- and Ein- words, (3) Conjuctions, (4) Nouns, (5) Prepositions.

Read through the fist several pages. Topics were the different forms of "you", pronoun agreement (plus a few other uses of "es" and "man" - "it" and "one" as in "one should", "one must" - not used very often in English anymore) and reflexive pronouns (the use of the reflexive is far more frequent in German than in English. It can not be omitted).

[sabotai]

Schoen guten Tag!

Ich hoffe dass, du Viel Spass in Deutsch lernen hast.

Danke froggy. Wie lange hast du Deutsch gewußt? (I hope I said that right. :) )

I read that in France, it's not common to learn second languages. That it's like here in the US where most people don't feel the need to learn anything other than their native language. Is that true? Or do most French people learn other European languages?

[fantastic flying froggies]

Actually, most Frenchmen do learn a second language at school (usually Spanish, at least in the South where I live). It's just that we're usually not very good at them...

As far as me learning German, I took 5 years in school but was never any good at it. I simply wasn't interested. I was already fluent in English and thought 'bah, who needs German when you already speak French and English?'

And then, much later, I went to work in Germany. The former East Germany, to be exact and I very soon realized that my French + English combo wouldn't work too well there. Now, if I'd known Russian, it would have been different :).

Anyhow, stayed close to 2 years there so I picked up a lot of the language, even though I've sadly forgotten a lot by now.

(and yes, I think you said that right... ;))

[sabotai]

I took 4 years of German in school as well. I coasted it through it with Ds (barely passing) every year.

Yesterday, I took a 4 hour long "nap" after work and then got right to killing stuff in Fallout 3, so I didn't do much.

Oct 30, 2008

Before falling asleep, I picked up my grammar book and read about Relative Pronouns.

Important points:

1) German uses a relative pronoun in constructions where English places a present particle after a noun. Example being "the people dancing" in German "die Leute, die tanzen" (word-for-word translation "The people that dance"). "the lady singing" is "die Frau, die singt" ("the lady that sings").

2) English frequently omits the relative pronoun which is never done in German. "That's the girl (that) I saw there" -> "Das ist das Mädchen, das ich dort gesehen habe"

Oct 31, 2008

Today, I decided to get my German work done before I loaded up Fallout 3. :)

Michel Thomas: Listened to the second half of CD 7.

1001 Pitfalls in German:

Read about Interrogative Pronouns and Adjectives.

German makes a distinction between relative and interrogative uses of "who/whose/whom". The interrogative pronoun "who" is "wer". The relative would depend on case and gender of the noun, but is a "der" word.

No distinction is made in gender or number with interrogative pronouns (relative pronouns do)

The "hook", or gimmick, of the book is that while going over the grammar rules, it throws our exceptions, rare usages, or things that often cause confusion to those learning German. An example of this is that despite the first I rule I stated, "wer" ("who"), IS occasionally used as a relative pronoun. It's only used when refering to somebody indefinite. In this case, it would be translated as "whoever", "who", "he who", etc. "Whoever is not for me is against me." "Wer nicht für mich ist, ist gegen mich."

Also read about Prepositional Compounds Used Pronominally

Words like wherein, whereupon, thereby. Words that you only really see in legal literature are common in German. "What should I do with it?" -> "Was soll ich damit machen?" (Literally translates to "What should I do therewith?"). "Wo" is "where" and "da" is there. They are used with inanimate objects, not people.

Das Erdbeben in Chili wordlist: 23 words added to my wordlist from the next paragraph in the story.

[Nugget699]

Learning a new language is one of the hardest things to do imo. I'm in my second year of learning Swedish, which is almost identical to English in many ways yet it is still quite hard. Of course, the only thing worse is acutally trying to speak to natives in their native tongue!

Good luck with it all though, it's very rewarding when you can speak another language and I encourage everyone to give it a try.

[sabotai]

Nov 1, 2008

Michel Thomas - Listened to the first half of CD 8. He mostly talked about verb prefixes.

1001 Pitfall in German: Started Chapter 8: Verbs. Most of what I read was stuff I already knew, but it's a pretty long chapter. The first part just goes over the basics. Weak vs. strong verbs, how the verbs change in different tenses, etc.

Das Erdbeben in Chili wordlist - Short paragraph today. Only 9 words added.

[sabotai]

Nov 2, 2008

Michel Thomas - Finished CD 8. I am done with the first set of Thomas CDs, although there are two review CDs. What I think I'm going to do is go back to Pimsleur and finish the first set of lessons. After that, I'll listen to the two review CDs and get started on the 2nd set of Thomas CDs. I'll keep going back and forth with them until I'm done.

1001 Pitfalls in German - I continued to read about verbs. I read about the Imperative Mode. Since there are three ways to say "you", there are three ways of giving commands, the familiar single, familiar plural and the formal (the same for both single and plural). I also read about verb prefixes.

Das Erdbeben in Chili wordlist - 12 more words added to the list. That brings the total to 129 words.

[sabotai]

Nov 3, 2008

Pimsleur - Listened to Unit 15 of the German I (~25 minutes long).

1001 Pitfalls in German - Read about the Subjunctive and Modal Auxiliaries.

Das Erdbeben in Chili wordlist - Didn't add anymore words. I have 129 and I'm still having trouble with a lot of them so I'm going to stop adding words for a few days and spend my time studying the ones I already have. I have 29 of those 129 words listed in "Level 1" and 48 in "Level 2" (Out of 5). When I I get 0 in Level 1 and say around 25 in Level 2, I'll begin adding words again.

[sabotai]

Skipped the 4th. Was paying too much attention to the election.

Nov 5, 2008

Pimsleur - Listened to Unit 16.

1001 Pitfalls in German - Read about Idiomatic Uses of Modals. Modals can be used by themselves when "gehen" (to go (on foot)), "fahren" (to go (to travel, to ride a bike, to drive a car, etc.)), or "tun" (to do) are implied. "Wollen" (to want) can be used to mean "to claim to". "Können" (to be able to) is used to mean "to know" when dealing with languages.

Also read about Passive Voice and Impersonal Verbs, which are used in German more than English.

Das Erdbeben in Chili wordlist - Spent more time reviewing a lot of the words I am having trouble with.

[Barkeep49]

Do you find learning another language makes your use of English better? I hear this sometimes and am wondering if it's true for you.

[Buccaneer]

The best English class I ever took was High School Spanish.

[sabotai]

I'd say my use of English has gotten better. One example is that I used to use "good" as an adverb and not care about it. In studying another language, you can't help but to pay attention to proper word usage (when I know the proper word usage, of course :) ). So I do catch myself and say or write "well" now. The main reason being is that I learned in German, they use "good" ("gut") as an adjective and adverb, and that "well" is used to describe how someone feels. So now I try to use the proper words mainly because it's becoming a habit.

My pronunciation is getting "better" too. I'm losing some of my South Jersey/Philly accent. I say "lot" now, instead of "laH" because you have to pronounce that "t" at the end of German words, and so that carries over to me now pronouncing my "t"s at the end of English words, which i didn't do before.

[sabotai]

Got sucked into Fallout 3 again, but got a bit done each night.

Nov 6, 2008

1001 Pitfalls - Finished the chapter on Verbs. The last few sections were about Verbs with a Dative Object, Verbs with a Genitive Object (which is increasingly considered old-fashioned).

Nov 7, 2008

Pimsleur - Listened to Unit 17.

[sabotai]

Nov 8, 2008

Pimsleur - Listened to Unit 18.

1001 Pitfalls - Began Chapter 8: Sentence Structure. German has three types of word order: Normal (Subject-Verb), Inverted (Verb-Subject) and Transposed (Verb comes last). Normal is used when the subject begins the sentence and after the coordinating conjunctions und (and), aber (but), sondern (but), oder (or), denn (if, because). Inverted is used for direct questions and when the sentence does not begin with the subject. Transposed is used in subordinate clauses.

I also read about Direct and Indirect Questions. For direct questions, the verb comes second, after the question word. "Wo ist der Mann?" -> "Where is the man?". "Wer hat meine Uhr gestohlen?" -> "Who stole my watch?". For indirect questions, the verb goes at the end. "Marlene Dietrich wollte wissen, wo der Mann ist." -> "Marlene Dietrich wanted to know where the man is.". "Ich möchte feststellen, wer meine Uhr gestohlen hat." -> "I'd like to ascertain who stole my watch."

Das Erdbeben in Chili wordlist - I am still working on the 129 words. I have about half of them down, but after going a few days without looking at them, some of them I forgot. I'm about to take 25 out of the list, though, since I get them immediately, regardless of how long I've gone without looking at them. Tomorrow I'll take a closer look and start eliminating some words.

[sabotai]

Nov 9, 2008

1001 Pitfalls - Read about Extended Adjective Construction to finish the chapter on sentence construction. It's not used oftan in spoken German, but can be found in formal writing. A good example is provided by Mark Twain in his essay "The Awful German Language"

"Wenn er aber auf der Strasse der in Sammt und Seide gehüllten jetzt sehr ungenirt nach der neusten Mode gekleideten Regierungsräthin begegnet..."

Translation: "But when he, upon the street, the (in-satin-and-silk-covered-now-very-unconstrained-after-the-newest-fashioned-dressed) government counselor's wife met..."

[sabotai]

Nov 10, 2008

Pimsleur - Listened to Unit 19.

1001 Pitfalls - Began chapter 9: Punctuation. A few simple rules. Instead of a period in numbers, German uses a comma (3.14 -> 3,14). And for thousands, millions, etc., the numbers are separated with a space instead of a comma (1,452,190 -> 1 452 190).

Also went over a few rules for comma usage. For instance, all subordinate clauses are set off by a comma. In a list of items, a comma is not used before "und" (and). When dealing with dialogue, a colon is used prior to the quotation marks.

German is well known for its very large nouns. A help with this, German uses hyphens when dealing with words that have the same root. For example, "Das hat Vorteilr und Nachteile." becomes "Das hat Vor- und Nachteile." (That has advantages and disadvantages.)

Capitalization: All nouns (when used as nouns) are capitalized. Also, adjectives derived from the names of towns and cities are capitalized, however adjectives derived from the name of countries are not.

Das Erdbeben in Chili worldlist - Moved 25 words from the list. I had gone 8-0 in getting them right, so time to move them off the stack. It's safe to say I know them. The last two times were separated by a week, so they stuck with me. I'll still go back to them every few weeks to make sure they stick.

That leaves 104 words left. 13 are on the top level (level 5). 13 on the one below that. 28 are in level 3. Most of them are words I keep getting and then forgetting, but some are ones I got wrong many times before they finally started to stay with me. Level 2 has 19 and Level 1, the bottom level, has 32.

I'm going to spend some more time later tonight on those bottom 32.

[sabotai]

Nov 11, 2008

Pimsleur - Listened to Unit 20.

Nov 12, 2008

1001 Pitfalls - Finished Chapter 9. Read about how to recognize, form and pronounce compound words, as well as how to write letters (all forms of "you" are capitalized in a letter, proper ways to start and end letters, how to write addresses)

[sabotai]

Nov 13, 2008

Pimsleur - Listened to Unit 21

1001 Pitfalls - Read chapter 10: Numbers, Measurement and Time Expressions. zwo (two) is sometimes used instead of zwei (two - the more common word) to avoid confusion with drei (three) on telephones and in official language. Double-digit numbers are written with the singles place number first, and then the tens place. Example: 83 is dreiundachtzig (3 and 80). With hundreds, they say the hundreds place first. The only digits inverted for numbers in written form are the singles and tens place. And numbers are always written as one word, so large numbers are usually written numerically.

Measurements do not use the plural when preceded by a number. They also do not use "of" with measurements or quantities. dreizig Mark (30 Marks). drei Pfound Bananen (3 pounds (of) bananas). zwanzig Paar Shuhe (20 pairs (of) shoes).

Multiplication is usually indicated by a dot (3 · 3 = 9). Division is indicated by a colon (10 : 2 = 5).

Zeit is the German noun for "time", but the word Mal is used for multiplication and expressions. 3 · 3 = 9 would be "drei mal drei ist neun". "zum ersten Mal" = for the first time. "einmal" = "once" or "one time". "zum letzten Mal" = for the last time.

For years, "in" is only used when using the word "Jahre". "im Jahre 1914" = in the year 1914. Otherwise, you just use the year. "Der Krieg ist im Jahre 1914 ausgebrochen" = The war broke out in the year 1914. "Der Krieg ist 1914 ausgebrochen" = Word-for-word: The war is 1914 broke out. - English: The war broke out in 1914.

Das Erdbeben in Chili wordlist - Spent more time going over the words in the lower few levels. Tomorrow, I'll test myself on the words in the upper levels to see if any more can be taken out.

[sabotai]

Nov 14, 2008

1001 Pitfalls - Began chapter 11: Pronunciation. I have a pretty good grasp of the pronunciation rules. For the most part, German is pronounced the same as it is written. No silent letters or anything like that. Only in words that are foreign in origin, like French words. Germans pronounce borrowed words the same way as the language they are borrowing them from. An example would be "restaurant", that is pronounced as it is in French.


Nove 15, 2008

Pimsleur - Listened to Unit 22. They are starting to use more German when telling you want to do.

1001 Pitfalls - Finished the chapter on pronunciation. Went over stress, which is imilar to English. Most words are stressed on the first syllable, but like with pronunciation, words that have their origin in Latin or French will retain the stress as well.

Das Erdbeben in Chili wordlist - Still working on the 104 words that are left. Moved 11 more words to the Known wordlist so that leaves 93 words.

[sabotai]

Didn't do anything on the 16th

Nov 17, 2008

Pimsleur - Listened to Unit 23. 7 more to go.

1001 Pitfalls - Read chapter 12: Vocabulary Building, Confusions, Regional Variations.

The first part of the chapter gave tips and help for building your vocabulary. The first was that in German, they combine common words to form other ideas. For scientific or medical terms, they will combine simple terms. It amkes it very easy to recognize what a term means, unlike in English, which will normally use a Latin or Greek word. So if you build up a nice vocabulary of German, it's very easy to pick up the meaning of a word you don't know simply by breaking it down into its parts (and using context).

In English, we'll use a German words for basic verbs, but for compound words, we'll use the Latin. For example, the verb to hold (in German, "halten") and the verb to retain (in German, "behalten"). "brechen" is to break and "unterbrechen" is to interrupt. We take from German for one meaning, and then from Latin for another.

The second part in helping to build vocabulary talks about the most obvious, that a lot of English words come from German. Specifically, Saxon, which is an older form of German. Around 700 AD, there was a sound shift in the language in the German regions. Still, if you didn't know a word of German, you'd probably be able to figure out what "Das Wetter is kalt." means.

With the sound shift, some letters change in the words. If you revert them back, you can easily figure out what the English word is. For example, b is sometimes used in German where in English it's an f or a v. "Abend" -> "Avend" -> "Evening". "geben" -> "geven" -> "to give". "halb" -> "half". "sieben" -> "sieven" -> "seven".

ch is often gh or k. "Tochter" -> "Toghter" -> "Daughter". "Macht" -> "Maght" -> "Might". "weich" -> "weik" -> "weak".

d is often th. "Ding" -> "Thing". "Leder" -> "Lether" -> "Leather"

ff, pf and f are often p. "Affe" -> "Ape". "offen" -> "open". "Pfennig" -> "Pennig" -> "Penny"

g is often y or i. "Tag" -> "Tay" -> "Day". "Nagel" -> "Naiel" -> "Nail"

the suffix -ig usually changes to -y. "rosig" -> "rosy". "lausig" -> "lousy". "windig" -> "windy"

k can be ch or c. "Katze" -> "Catze" -> "Cat". "Kalk" -> "Chalk".

s, ss or (t)z can be a t. "Fuß" -> "Fut" -> "Foot". "essen" -> "eten" -> "to eat". "zehn" -> "tehn" -> "ten". "besser" -> "better".

sch is often s. "schwimmen" -> "swimmen" -> "to swim".

t is often d. (See eample "Tag" above). "Traum" -> "Draum" -> "Dream". "hart" -> "hard". "Gott" -> "God". "gut" -> "gud" -> "good".


Another tidbit the book stated was "Use a new word twice and it's yours" (which is a phrase I've heard before). For the words I am having trouble with in the wordlist, I'm going to start doing this. I'll write out some sentences with them and see if that helps make them stick.

The book also gave a large list (about 25 pages) of words that are often confused. I didn't read through them all, but I may add them to my Stackz list at some point soon.

The chapter (and the book) ended by going over the various different regional dialects while constantly reminding the reader to stick with learning standard German.

So I finished 1001 Pitfalls In German. I'll take tomorrow off with regards to reading as I work on my wordlist more, and then I'll start reading Hammer's book.

Das Erdbeben in Chili wordlist - Briefly looked over the words tonight. Tomorrow, I'm going to write out a bunch of (simple) sentences to see if that helps.

[sabotai]

Didn't do anything on the 18th.

Nov 19, 2008

Das Erdbeben in Chili wordlist - Well, I tried to write out some sentences with the words I'm having trouble with. They were terrible (and short) sentences. Another thing I tried to do was the write the word out and it's meaning several times. Back in college, this was something I did when studying for tests that were mostly just memorizing facts.

I also went back and reread the first two pages of the story several times. I'd say I have about half of the words I highlighted completely memorized with most of the other half taking me a second or two them figure it out.

I think my big mistake was going forward and adding words to a growing list of vocabulary words. It's probably better to stick with trying to learn and memorize a dozen or so words at a time and then moving on rather than letting the list get up to over 100 words. I feel like I may have overloaded my brain with words. I have 18 words in the last level, and I spent about 30 minutes going over their meanings, writing them and their meanings and trying to use them in sentences and I feel like I have most of them now. Of course, I'll find out if that's true in the next few days.

So I'll wait until I have all of the words in my current list memorized before going forward in the story at all. When I have all of the words down, I'll get my 10 or so words from the next paragraph and stop and wait until I have them all before going forward again.

[sabotai]

Nov 20, 2008

Pimsleu - Listened to Unit 24.

Das Erdbeben in Chili wordlist - 12 more words moved to the Known list. Down to 83.

[sabotai]

Skipped the 21st.

Nov 22, 2008

Pimsleur - Listened to Unit 25.

Hammer's German Grammar and Usage - Started reading this. The first chapter is on nouns. The first section dealt with how to identify the gender of a noun. You can tell the gender a lot of the time based on the ending of the noun, but there are a ton of exceptions and it is generally best to learn the gender of the noun when learning the noun. When I have nouns in my word lists and flash cards, I usually will add the gender to it. (example: the noun for animosity is "die Erbitterung(en)". I learn the gender and plural form when I learn the noun).

Nov 23, 2008

Pimsleur - Listened to Unit 26.

Hammer's - The next section dealt with plurals. Again, most nouns follow certain rules for forming the plural, but just like with gender, there are a lot of exceptions and it's a good idea to learn the plural form of the noun with the noun. Most nouns form a plural by adding -e, -en, -er or one of them with an umlaut (masculine and neuter mostly use -e or -e with an umlaut. Feminine mostly use -en or -n, but again, lots of exceptions). -s is used for loan-words from English or French, abbreviations and a few German words.

Das Erdbeben in Chili wordlist - Went through the list again. A lot of words I spent a lot of time covering a few days ago stayed with me, a few did not. I plan to do the same for the bottom 15 or so words tomorrow (most of which are not the ones I covered a few days ago).

[Buccaneer]

-s is used for loan-words from English or French

Like what?

[Barkeep49]

As a follow up to Buc, is it easy to know words that are loaned from another language? Seems like that is the main variance for a lot of grammar.

[sabotai]

Like what?

Some examples in the book are Park, Chef, Hotel, Labor, Team, Waggon, Tunnel, Baby, Party.

Also, they don't change a y to ie when adding the s. So in German, the plural is Babys, not Babies. Also, if the loan-word ends in -er, they don't add the -s in the plural, like with Computer, and treat them like regular German nouns.

As a follow up to Buc, is it easy to know words that are loaned from another language?

Sometimes. Loan words are usually spelled the way they are in the language they are taken from, so sometimes it's easy to spot a loan word since it'll be spelled in a "non-German" way. From the above, "labor" just doesn't look German. I don't think native German words use the -or ending for an -er sound like in English. Also, "team". My vocab is still pretty limited, but I don't recall seeing the vowel combination "ea" in any words. If it were spelled in a German way, it would probably be "teem".

[Buccaneer]

I'll ask a follow up as well. Why would the German language use those loan words? Looking up Baby, it appears it is a Middle English word originating from 1350-1400. I can understand adopting that word since then but what about before? What did they call a Baby? So I guess my general question is why did they adopt those words into their language?

[sabotai]

The German word for baby is Kleinkind, which literally translates to "small kid". I would imagine Middle English had a similar generic term for babies until creating a specific word for it. As for why German took "baby" instead of making their own unique word or continuing to use Kleinkind, I don't know. And I don't know why they take other words.

We took some of their words as well. Angst, kindergarden, poltergeist, blitz, rucksack, doppleganger are all German words that we use quite a lot. Not sure how they ended up in common usage in our language (well, a reason for "blitz" comes to mind), but I'm sure it's for similar reasons as for why our words end up in other languages.

[sabotai]

Nov 24, 2008

Pimsleur - Listened to Unit 26.

Hammer's - The last section on German nouns dealt with declension. Masculine and neuter nouns add -s or -es in the genitive singular. -n is added in the dative plural if possible. A small group of "weak" masculine nouns, usually when refering to people or animals, use an -en ending for all cases except for the nominative singular.

Das Erdbeben in Chili wordlist - Spent a good half hour going over the 21 words in the bottom level. Some are ones I already gave time to, others found their way down.

[Buccaneer]

sab, I understand. The question then is what word do Germans use in everyday conversations: kleinkind or baby?

[sabotai]

sab, I understand. The question then is what word do Germans use in everyday conversations: kleinkind or baby?

Kleinkind can also mean toddler or infant. German also has the words Säugling and Kindlein that mean "baby" as well. For everyday use, I don't know. They many use them all interchangeably the same way we use infant, toddler or baby.

I get results after doing a search on amazon.de for each of the four words (Baby, Kleinkind, Kindlein, Säugling). Searching spiegel.de and bild.de (news websites) for each word also gives results. So I'm guessing they use them all.

[sabotai]

Nov 25, 2008

Hammer's - Began Chapter 2: Case. I read about the nominative, accusative, genitive and the dative. Nominative is the default case, it mainly marks the subject of the finite verb. It's also use for the predicate compliment of copula verbs. The accusative is mainly use for the direct object of a transitive verb, but it has a lot of other uses that are explained fully in other sections of the book (in fact, this whole chapter seems to be filled with "see section X.X.X for full details"). The genitive case is mainly used to link nouns and noun phrases, but it is rarely used now. In colloquial speech, it's hardly, if ever, used. Using "von" (of) is prefered. There are a lot of cases where the genitive isn't possible even in writing. The dative is used for the indirect object of a transitive verb, among other situations. Again, most of the details are given in other sections of the book.

Das Erdbeben in Chili wordlist - Briefly went over the wordlist again.

[sabotai]

Been a few days since I updated. Here's a quick rundown of what I've done, plus i am changing up how I do wordlists (the trial-and-error for me continues)

Hammer's - Finished Cahpter 2 and read through Chapter 3: Personal Pronouns.

Pimsleur - Listened to Units 27 and 28.


Wordlists
I am scratching the old system and starting over with vocabulary wordlists.

I have several sources for vocabulary words. Some books (Mastering German Vocabulary: A Thematic Approach, Berlitz German Vocabulary Handbook, Berlitz German Verb Handbook, Barron's 501 German Verbs), the dual-language books which will be put aside for now, and the German news websites (spiegel.de, bild.de, etc.).

For now on, I am going to create a list of 35 words each week. That's about 5 words a day to learn, which is not many. I'm going to take them from all of the above sources. At the end of the week, I'll runthrough all 35 words several times in the Stackz program, then I'll put those 35 words aside, regardless of how many I learned or have not learned, and create a new list of 35 words. Sorta like in high school. Every week, we'd get a list of vocab words in English class, take a quiz at the end of the week and then get more words. If you got the words wrong on the quiz, they didn't carry over to the next week, you just moved on.

If I get stuck on words, I'll put them aside and move on. The idea for this is to build up vocabulary as quickly as possible. I'm putting the short stories aside for now because they are all old, some of the words my be outdated, some of the grammar may be archaic, and I think sticking with more modern sources for vocab and reading would be better. I don't want to pick up bad habits because I learned from outdated or archaic material. So I'll hold off on those short stories for awhile.

For the words I put aside, after awhile, I'll start randomly putting them into the new wordlists. Only a few at a time so I don't hamper my progress.

To start off, I plan to take 10 words from each Vocabulary books, 5 verbs from the 501 German Verbs book, and 10 words from articles on German websites (I'll mainly stick to Spiegel Online). The Berlitz Verb hanbook has a ton of verbs, but most of them are prefix verbs. The 501 German Verbs book has mostly verbs without prefixes, so I'll start with them.

[sabotai]

The 35 Words for this week

Mastering German Vocabulary (from chapter Personal Information)
ledig - single, unmarried
alleinstehend - single
verheiratet - married
getrennt - separated
gescheiden - divorced
verwitwet - widowed
der Witwer, Witre - widower, widow
das Geschlecht - sex, gender
der Ehemann - husband
die Ehefrau - wife

Berlitz German Vocabulary Handbook (Functional Words - Indefinite Pronouns)
irgendeiner - anybody
so einer - one like that
niemand - no one
kein einziger - not a single one
manches - quite a lot
weniges - not much
jemand - someone
jeder/e/es - everyone, each one - (jeder, jedere, jederes depending on gender)
etwas anderes - something else
einieges - some things

501 German Verbs (randomly picked)
legen - to lay, put, place, deposit
berichten - to report
trüben - to darken, to sadden, to make muddy
schaden - to damage, hurt
merken - to notice, to note, to perceive

I have a couple of Der Spiegel magazines from earlier in the year. I'll start with articles from them.

Der Spiegel - March 31st, 2008 issue ("Gewalt ohne Folgen")
die Gewalt - power, force, violence
folgen - to follow
die Folge - sequel, sequence, effect, sequitur
Gewalttäter - Google translates to "Perpetrators of violence", so I guess this is a word for "gangs" since that's what it seems this short article is about considering there is a picture of 3 teenagers with weapons and their faces covered.
davon - therefrom, thereof
straffrei - exempt from punishment, unpunished.
vertraulich - confidential
der Bericht - report, account
bundesweit - nationwide, national
die Sicherheit - safety, security, immunity

[Buccaneer]

Weinie. Be different and learn High German. :)

[sabotai]

(insert random "Buc is old" joke, including a mention of High German, here.)

Dec 1, 2008

Pimsleur - Listened to Unit 29.

Hammer's - Started Chapter 4: Articles. In spoken German, the definite and indefinite articles are unstressed and usually shortened. For instance, only pronouncing the 's' when saying "das". This is never used in writing except to demonstrate spoken German or for dialogue or poetry. Articles are often contracted with prepositions. "von" + "dem" = "vom". "zu" + "der" = "zur". Some are used in both spoken and written German (the two examples I gave are used in both). Some are used in spoken German and but only in certain situations in written German. And then there are some that are only used in Spoken German but never written German except in set phrases.

Vocabulary Wordlist: The five words I studied today were: folgen, niemand, weniges, schaden and die Gewalt.

[sabotai]

NHL 09 + Second Season = not doing anything for a few days. I also bought four German movies that I plan to watch soon (and then watch - or listen to as I am on my computer - over and over again so that I am constantly being exposed to the German language, both when I am studying and as background noise). The four moves are Das Boot (the director's cut, over 200 minutes long), Run Lola Run, The Lives of Others, and Downfall, which many have seen at least one scene from (it's about the last days of Hitler. The scene with him freaking out has been used to make funny videos many times). I have not seen any of these, so I may post about them in the "Last Movie" thread when I do watch them.

Dec 4, 2008

Pimsleur - Finished Unit 30, and am now finished with Part 1 (of 3) of Pimsleur's course. Overall,m pretty good, especially when it comes to pronunciation. I still feel like I learn more about the language with Michel Thomas' course in less time, but all of these audio courses have their pros and cons, and nothing really matches Pimsleur when it comes to pronunciation and listening to native speakers have short, natural speed conversations (actually, the conversations are a bit on the rapid side, which is good I guess since if you learn from listening to fast talkers, it'll make it all the easier when listening to slower paced talkers).

Hammer's - Finished Chapter 4.

Vocabulary Wordlist - Since I missed a few days, I spent time going over the 10 words from Mastering German Vocabulary. Tomorrow I'll go over the ten from Berlitz, and Sat. will be from the Spiegel article. Sunday I'll go over the verbs early in the day, and then that night test myself on all of the words and create a new wordlist.

[sabotai]

Dec 5-7, 2008

Michel Thomas Advanced - Listened to most of the first part (of 4 - 5th CD is a review CD). A lot of it was spent, aside from the usual introduction of new words, on forming the past tense. In most verbs, you add a "ge" to the beginning of the verb. However, verbs like reparieren and organizaieren, whihc are borrowed from other languages, do not. Also, verbs with inseparable prefixes also do not get the "ge" added. For verbs with separable prefixes, the "ge" goes between the prefix and the verb.

Hammer's - Started Chapter 5: Other Determiners and Pronouns. Read about demonstratives, how they are declined and used.

Vocabulary Wordlist - Got all of the words correct despite dropping the ball on studying them. Most of them were pretty easy to learn and figure out, though

Here is this week's list of words

Mastering German Vocabulary (from chapter Personal Information)
die Geburtstag - birthday
geboren - born (adj)
wohnen - to live, to reside, to dwell
leben - to live, to be alive
die Haimat - home country
fremd - strange, foreign
der Beruf - profession
minderjährig - minor, underage
volljährig - of age
der Geburtsort - place of birth

Berlitz German Vocabulary Handbook (Functional Words - Logical Relations)
sowie - as well as
both...and - sowohl...als/wie
either...or - entweder...oder
neither...nor - weder...noch
not only...but also - nicht (nur)...sondern (auch)
obgleich - although
nachdem - after
bevor - before
zumal - especially as
trotzdem - even though

501 German Verbs (randomly picked)
füllen - to fill
weisen - to point out, to show
rücken - to move, to bring nearer
meiden - to avoid, to schun
besitzen - to possess, to own

Der Spiegel - March 31st, 2008 issue ("Gewalt ohne Folgen")
hervorgehen - to emerge, to arise
schwinden - to fade, to dwindle
gering - little, small, low
der Anteil - share, stake, quota, allotment
der Schläger - slugger, scrapper, tennis racket
der Räuber - robber, predator, bandit
die Haft - arrest, detainment
die Strafe - punishment, penalty
die Bewährung - probation
verurteilen - to condemn, to convict, to sentence

[sabotai]

Dec 8-11, 2008

Michel Thomas - Finished Part 1 of Advanced German with Michel Thomas and am half-way through Part 2 (or 4).

Hammer's - Finished chapter 5. It covered possessives, Interrogatives, relative pronouns and a large section on indefinites, quantifiers and other determiners and pronouns.

Vocab list - Studied the 501 Verbs and Berlitz words.

[sabotai]

Dec 12, 2008

Hammer's - Skimmed through several chapters on adjectives, adverbs and numbers. I feel that I have a pretty good handle on these so I just gave them a quick read through.

Dec 13, 2008

Hammer's - Began Chapter 10: Modal Particles. In this chapter, it goes through 36 words that are used as either modal or focus particles, and explains their use.

For example: aber - used in statements to express surprise. Der Film war aber gut! - The movie was good! It can also be used in a clause to express a contradiction. sie muss uns aber gesehen haben - "but she must have seen us". When used with oder ("or"), it translates to "on the other hand". Used in an exclamation, it emphasizes the tone of the speaker. Hast du was dagegen? - Aber nein!. "Have you any objections?" "Of course not!". Aber, aber! Was soll diese Aufregung? "Oh now! What's all this excitement about?"

Wordlist - Studied the wordlist from the article in Der Spiegel.

And I plan on listening to more of Michel Thomas' lessons later tonight.

[MIJB#19]

Until about 15 minutes ago I never noticed this thread, nevertheless, good luck at that, Sab. As close as German is to Dutch, I never liked or were really good at learning German. Especially the whole die/das/der stuff threw me off. I got lucky and was allowed to drop German classes at the end of high school, there was no way I was going to pass that exam. So for you, going from English and just "the" to German and it's different articles (actually, I had to look that word up in the dictionary), ignoring the more complicated part when der/dem/den join the club), I wonder how hard it is to learn to use those?

[sabotai]

Thanks MILB

It's not really all that difficult to learn the der/die/das for nouns since most of the nouns, when I learn them, I learn them with the article. For the majority of nouns, it's easy to know which article to use based on what it means and/or how it's spelled. For example, any word that ends in -chen is neuter, so it uses das. A noun ending it -a or -ung is feminie, a noun ending in -ig or -ling is masculine (and there's a lot of different endings that give you the gender of the noun). It takes time and practice, but after awhile you start to pick up on all of the tells that let you know what the gender of the noun is.

Recognizing the other cases and remember which to use (dem, des, den, etc) takes a much longer time.

But when I took German in high school, remembering the articles was very difficult. Maybe I'm just better at recognizing patterns in my older age. When I took German in high school, I barely passed. I was also a terrible student and a huge slacker, so that might have been part of it. :)

[sabotai]

Dec 13-14, 2008

Hammer's - Spent more time reading about Modal Particles. Most of the words have several uses, like in the previous example, so I'm reading through it slowly, and I'll probably read it a few times, to make sure I have it down.

Michel Thomas German Advanced - Listened to more of Part 2. Almost finished with it.

Vocab List - Got all but 3 of them. The three I missed were "die Haimat" (home country), "der Beruf" (profession), and "der Anteil" (share, stake, quota, allotment). Since there's only 3 of them, I'll just include them in this week's list.

Movies - I watched Lola Rennt (Run, Lola, Run). It was a really good movie and I'd recommend it to anyone. A really cool look at cause and effect. There are already several write ups for in the Last Movie Watched thread, so I won't write about it there, mainly because I was so focused on listening to the dialogue and trying to recognize words while reading the subtitles that I sorta "missed" the movie, if you get what I mean. It's a fast paced movie, so there was a lot of yelling and talking fast, so there were parts that just went way too fast for me to recognize any words. There were also a few scenes with whispering. However, when the people were talking at a more normal pace and a regular speaking volume, I did catch a lot of what they said. I'll watch the movie a few more times with the subtitles, and then switch to watching it without the subtitles to see how well I follow it.

And here is this week's vocab list

Mastering German Vocabulary (from chapter Personal Information)
die Haimat - home country
der Beruf - profession
der Ausweis - ID card
der Reisepaß - passport
gültig - valid
die Unterschrift - signature
unterschreiben - to sign
das Visum - visa
der Führerschein - driver's license
angeben - to state (to say)

Berlitz German Vocabulary Handbook (Position and Movement)
ungefähr - about, approximately, roughly
irgendwo - anywhere, somewhere (nirgendwo - nowhere)
jenseits - beyond, across
die Richtung - direction, trend, line
die Entfernung - distance
fern - distant, far
der Rand - edge, margin, border
die Bewegung - movement
die Nachbarschaft - neighborhood
die Spitze - top

501 German Verbs (randomly picked)
frieren - to freeze, to feel cold
stellen - to put, to place
schauen - to look, to see, to gaze
lohnen - to reward, to recompense
fluchen - to curse, to swear

Der Spiegel - March 31st, 2008 issue ("Gewalt ohne Folgen")
der Anteil - share, stake, quota, allotment
gelten - to be valid (gelten als - to pass for, the rate as)
das Delikte - offense
die Körperverletzung - physical injury
der Totschlag - homicide, manslaughter
der Laut - sound
vorstellen - to conceive, to suggest (sich vorstellen - to imagine, to visualize)
das Verfahren - procedure, method, proceedings (law)
gegen - against
einstellen - to adjust, to cease, to discontinue

[sabotai]

Dec. 15-19, 2008

Slacked off a lot. For the last few days, I've spent just about all of my free time reading (The Count of Monte Cristo, I read the last 500 pages (of about 1250) over the last few days). That is one long fucking book, not only in the number of pages, but the Penguin Classics version I have really packs the words in on each page.

So I haven't spent much time on this.

Michel Thomas Advanced German - I finished Part 2. So far, both parts have focused primarily on verb conjugation, which is one of the harder things to learn about German.

Hammer's - Still taking my time going through the modal particles.

Vocab List - I barely spent any time on this. I might have to give myself a break and push the vocab list to next week. I'll try to get in a lot of study time on them tomorrow.

[sabotai]

Dec 20-22, 2008

Hammer's - Still slowly working my way through the modal particles.

Michel Thomas - Listened to most of part 3 (of 4). He's introducing a lot of new verbs now.

Vocab - Missed 6 out of 38 (the 35 plus the 3 extra - nirgendwo, gelten als and sich vorstellen). I did bad this week, mainly because, as I said before, I spent most of the week reading Count of Monte Cristo. Oh well, time to press forward.

New Vocab List

Mastering German Vocabulary (from chapter Personal Information)
der Antrag - application
die Geburtsurkunde - birth certificate
ausstellen - to issue
ablaufen - to expire
verlängern - to renew
der Bescheid - notification
die Arbeitserlaubnis - work permit
beantragen - to apply for
benötigen - to require
die Aufenthaltserlaubnis - residence permit

Berlitz German Vocabulary Handbook (Directions)
der Ostern - east
an der Ecke - on the corner
die Etage - floor
die Breite - latitude
die Länge - longitude
die Karte - map
der Norden - north
der Süden - south
der Westen - west
an der Krauzung - at the junction

501 German Verbs (randomly picked)
haschen - to snatch, to seize
kriechen - to creep, to crawl
retten - to save, to rescue
schmollen - to sulk, to pout
üben - to practice, to exercise

Der Spiegel - March 31st, 2008 issue ("Gewalt ohne Folgen")
verdächtigen - to suspect
erfahren - to adept, to find out, (adj) seasoned
überhaupt - (adv) generally, at all, anyway
erfolgen - to take place, to happen
aussetzen - to abandon, to suspend
verbüßen - to serve a sentence
die Freiheitsstrafe - terms of imprisonment
insbesondere - in particular
das Opfer - victim
empfinden - to sense, to experience

I'm almost done with the article. Probably will be done with it after next week.

[sabotai]

Update

Time to get back to updating this daily.

Here is where I am at

Hammer's - Finished the chapter on Modal Particles. I am about to read through it again.

Michel Thomas - Finished listening to part 3 of 4.

Vocab - Did pretty good with the vocab again. I'm am going to change up how I do this again. How it played out is that I would skip going over the vocab for the first couple of days and then study 10 of the words a day. So, since I apparently am fine with doing 10 words a day, that's what I'm going to do. Everyday, I'm going to make a new list of 10 words to study.

12/30/08 Vocab
From Mastering German Vocabulary (Chapter 2: The Human Body - Parts of the Body and Organs)
der Körper - body
die Haut - skin
der Knochen - bone
das Gesicht - face
das Ohr - ear
die Nase - nose
der Mund - mouth
der Zahn - tooth
der Hals - throat
der Rücken - back

[sabotai]

Coming out of my Mount and Blade obsession to update this for today. 2 days straight of nothing but playing that game...

1/1/2009 Vocab
From Mastering German Vocabulary (Chapter 2: The Human Body - Parts of the Body and Organs)
das Herz - heart
der Kreislauf - circulation
der Bauch - stomach
das Bein - leg
die Zehe - toe
das Gehirn - brain
die Stirn - forehead
die Wange - cheek
die Zunge - tongue
die Verdauung - digestion

[sabotai]

1/2/2009 Wordlist
Berlitz German Vocabulary Handbook (Length and Shape)
der Winkel - angle
der Fläche - area
gebogen - curved
die Tiefe - depth
schraäg - diagonal
eng - narrow
breit - large, wide
das Lineal - ruler
niedrig - low
waagerecht - horizontal

[sabotai]

Been splitting my time between Mount and Blade and real life stuff. Still plugging away with the vocab, but no time for the audio lessons or reading the grammar book.

1/3/2009 Vocab
Der Spiegel - March 31st, 2008 issue ("Gewalt ohne Folgen")
der Schlag - swipe, blow, bash
zumen - besides, furthermore
der Täter - perpetrator, offender
die Tat - deed, action, feats
die Verschärfung - aggravation, intensification
vielmehr - rather, in reality, on the contrary
vorhanden - present, available
ausschöpfen - to bail out

Only 8 words today. The article is finished. Tomorrow, I'll post the article and try to translate it.

[sabotai]

Update

I started to translate the article, but there's still a lot of word usage that I don't quite get so I stopped after a few sentences. I'm still making daily vocab lists. I started writing them on flashcards and taking them to work to look at during my downtime and it's helped. Over the last few weeks, my daily routine has completely changed and I'm still trying to find the time to read and listen to the audio lessons.

[sabotai]

1/12/2009

Hammer's - I've reread the chapter on modal particles. I also took notes while I read, so I have a sheet filled with all of the important points so that I can look it over every day until I have them all down.

Tomorrow's Vocab List
From Mastering German Vocabulary (Chapter 2: The Human Body - Posture and Movements of the Body)
anlehnen - to lean
ausrutzschen - to slip and fall
treten - to step, to kick
betreten - to enter
stoßen - to push, to bang
die Bewegung - movement, exercise
bewegen - to move
drehen - to turn
umdrehen - to turn around
der Schritt - step, stride

[sabotai]

Time for an update

Hammer's - There were several chapters on verbs that I mostly skimmed through. I also mostly skimmed through the rest of the book. The topics were prepositions, word order and word formation. I'll probably reread the chapters on prepositions and word formation. Word order is one of the topics that Michel Thomas goes over in his audio series and I feel I have that down pretty good (as well as most of the verb topics, another thing Thomas goes over pretty well).

Michel Thomas - Finally got back to listening to this. I amd about 1/3rd of the way through section 4 (of 4) for the Adcance course.

Vocab - This is going well. I have been taking the words from the Mastering German Vocabulary book (since that's the one sitting next to my bed and I don't feel like chaning things up yet). The topics have been Daily Activities (waking up, going to sleep, etc.), Object-Related Activities (taking, placing, giving, losing, finding, etc.), Appearance (tall, short, pretty, ugly, fat, thin, etc.). The topic I just finished Cosmetics and Grooming (soap, showering, brushing teeth, makeup, etc.).

[sabotai]

Du Hast - Rammstein

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Lyrics

[x4]
Du
Du hast
Du hast mich
Du hast mich

[x2]
Du hast mich Gefragt

Du hast mich gefragt und ich hab nichts gesagt

[x2]
Willst du bis der Tod euch scheide
Treu ihr sein fur alle Tage
Ah-h-h-h
Nein
Ah-h-h-h
Nein

[x3]
Du
Du hast
Du hast mich
Du hast mich

[x2]
Du hast mich gefragt

Du hast mich gefragt und ich hab nichts gesagt

Willst Du bis der Tod euch scheide
Treu ihr sein fur alle Tage
Ah-h-h-h
Nein
Ah-h-h-h
Nein

willst Du bis zum Tod der Scheide
Sie lieben auch in schlechten Tagen
Ah-h-h-h
Nein
Ah-h-h-h
Nein

willst Du bis der Tod euch scheide
Treu ihr sein
Ah-h-h-h
Nein
Ah-h-h-h
Nein

(Taken from: DU HAST Lyrics - RAMMSTEIN (http://www.elyrics.net/read/r/rammstein-lyrics/du-hast-lyrics.html))

Translation (My attempt to translate anyway):

"Du hast mich gefragt und ich hab nichts gesagt"

Which means: You have asked me and I said nothing.

Du hast mich gefragt = "You have asked me", or simply "You asked me".
...ich hab nichts gesagt = "I have said nothing." or "I said nothing". "hab" is the same as "habe". Strictly, it should be "Ich habe nichts gesagt", but in certain regions of Germany, it is very common to drop the -e at the end of verbs when speaking (but this is never done in writing, except, of course, with writing dialogue, etc.).

Willst du bis der Tod euch scheide
Which means: "Do you want until death separates you"

Willst du = Do you want (The verb here is "wollen", which means "to want". In German, to ask a question, you frequently invert the verb and subject. "Du willst" = "You want" - "Willst du" = "Do you want?")
bis der Tod = until death
euch = you
scheide = separate

Treu ihr sein fur alle Tage
Which means: "Be loyal to her for all days"

Treu ihr sein = Be loyal to her
fur alle Tage = for all days

Together, the two lines form the question: "Will you, until death do you part, be loyal to her for all days?"

Nein!
No!

Simple answer.

willst Du bis zum Tod der Scheide

I had to look this up. I found this: http://www.6lyrics.com/music/rammstein/lyrics/du_hast_english_translation.aspx
On that page, it explains that this line could be a double meaning. "Tod, der scheide" would translate to "death, which separates". But written as it is in the lyrics, "Tod der Scheide" it would mean "death of the vagina." Since we english speakers like our "tee-hee" double entrendres to be implied rather than explicit, I'll go with the former translation. :D

- Do you want until death, which separates

Sie lieben auch in schlechten Tagen
Which means: Her also love in bad days

(The site I just linked to says "to love her, even in bad days")

Like with English, grammar rules kinda get thrown out when it comes to song lyrics. That last line trips me up a bit.

Anyway, there's the song translated. Hopefully I'll do better with the next one.

[sabotai]

Ich Will - Rammstein

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Lyrics

Ich will

Ich will dass ihr mir vertraut
Ich will dass ihr mir glaubt
Ich will eure Blicke spüren
Ich will jeden Herzschlag kontrollieren

Ich will eure Stimmen hören
Ich will die Ruhe stören
Ich will dass ihr mich gut seht
Ich will dass ihr mich versteht

Ich will eure Phantasie
Ich will eure Energie
Ich will eure Hande sehen
Ich will in Beifall untergehen

Seht ihr mich?
Versteht ihr mich?
Fühlt ihr mich?
Hört ihr mich?
Könnt ihr mich hören?
Wir hören dich
Könnt ihr mich sehen?
Wir sehen dich
Könnt ihr mich fühlen?
Wir fühlen dich
Ich versteh euch nicht

Ich will

Wir wollen dass ihr uns vertraut
Wir wollen dass ihr uns alles glaubt
Wir wollen eure Hande sehen
Wir wollen in Beifall untergehen - ja

Könnt ihr mich hören?
Wir hören dich
Könnt ihr mich sehen?
Wir sehen dich
Könnt ihr mich fühlen?
Wir fühlen dich
Ich versteh euch nicht

Könnt ihr uns hören?
Wir hören euch
Könnt ihr uns sehen?
Wir sehen euch
Könnt ihr uns fühlen?
Wir fühlen euch
Wir verstehen euch nicht

Ich will


This one is pretty easy to translate. All lines are simple sentences and I already know most of the words.

Ich will = I want

Ich will dass ihr mir vertraut
- I want you to trust me ("dass" = "that", so a more literal - less English sounding - translation would be "I want that you trust me" . vertrauen is the verb "to trust")

Ich will dass ihr mir glaubt
- I want you to believe me

Ich will eure Blicke spüren
- I want to sense your sight (I found one translation that said "I want to feel your eyes". Well, not only does that not make sense, unless this is an idiomatic phrase, I did some searching and can't find "Blicke" to mean "eyes" anywhere. It's used in some compound words. "Scharfblicke" = "sharp eyes", for example, but never by itself to mean "eyes". So unless someone who knows German can clue me into some word usage that I'm missing, I think "sense your sight" is more inline with what the line means than "feel your eyes". spüren is the verb for "to sense, to experience, to feel")

Ich will jeden Herzschlag kontrollieren
- I want to control every heartbeat

Ich will eure Stimmen hören
- I want to hear your voices

Ich will die Ruhe stören
- I want to disturb the peace

Ich will dass ihr mich gut seht
- I want you to see me well (in German, "gut" = "good", but unlike in English, they use the word good as both an adjective and an adverb)

Ich will dass ihr mich versteht
- I want you to understand me

Ich will eure Phantasie
- I want your fantasy

Ich will eure Energie
- I want your energy

Ich will eure Hande sehen
- I want to see your hands

Ich will in Beifall untergehen
- I want to go down in applause (One translation I found used this as the line. Another meaning for "untergehen" is "to perish, to be destroyed". Given the substance of the video, "go down" as in "perish" is probably a more accurate meaning)

Seht ihr mich?
-Do you see me?

Versteht ihr mich?
-Do you understand me?

Fühlt ihr mich?
- Do you feel me?

Hört ihr mich?
- Do you hear me?

Könnt ihr mich hören?
- Can you hear me?

Wir hören dich
- We hear you! (This is what the crowd yells)

Könnt ihr mich sehen?
- Can you see me?

Wir sehen dich
- We see you!

Könnt ihr mich fühlen?
- Can you feel me?

Wir fühlen dich
- We feel you!

Ich versteh euch nicht
- I don't understand you (Literally: I understand you not. This is another example of the -e being left off a verb. Written, it would be "Ich verstehe")

Wir wollen dass ihr uns vertraut
- We want you to trust us

Wir wollen dass ihr uns alles glaubt
- We want you to believe us

Wir wollen eure Hande sehen
We want to see your hands

Wir wollen in Beifall untergehen - ja
- Want want to go down in applause - yeah


A pretty easy song to translate. I only had to look up a few words (Beifall, vertrauen, Blicke, spüren, Herzschlag, and stören). In the last verse, where "mich" is repleaced with "uns", the questions simply change to "Can you see us?", "Can you hear us?", etc.

[sabotai]

1/25/09

Michel Thomas - Finished listening to the Advanced course and will be moving onto the "Language Builder" course. It's only 2 hours total. This course seems to teach words and phrases that are common in everyday speech. After this comes the Vocabulary Course, a 5 CD course.

At the end of the Advanced course, Thomas suggested reading interviews from newspapers and magazines and trying not to look up any words. Instead, if you see a word once, skip it. If you see a word several times, you will know that it's a common word but that you should also be able to pick up its meaning based on context.

[sabotai]

January 27th

Michel Thomas - Spent about 40 minutes listening the the Language Builder course. Because of the constant pausing, I got through about 25 minutes of the recording. Since it's only 2 hours long, I should be done with it by the end of the week.

Vocab - I have been taking my vocab words from Mastering German Vocabulary: A Thematic Approach. I skip any word that looks similar to its English counterpart (or, of course, I already know from other sources). I finished up chapter 3, which is about medicine and health. Chapter 4 in on Eating.


Recently, I got my hands on a 1970s version of Linguaphone Deutsch. Professor Arguelles, a language professor who has a youtube channel, really likes Linguaphone. He has a bunch of videos on language learning stuff (YouTube - Broadcast Yourself (http://www.youtube.com/user/ProfASAr)). I'm hesitant to start fresh with a new system, but I figured if a professor who has tried just about everything rates this so highly, I'd be a fool not to give it a try. When I am done with the Michel Thomas Language Builder, I will start using this.

[sabotai]

January 28th

Michel Thomas - The weather was really crappy today, so my boss left work early, which means I got to leave work early. :) The extra time allowed me to listen through the rest of the Language Builder course from Michel Thomas. I didn't like this nearly as much as the Beginner and Advanced courses. One of the reasons I liked the first two was because of the two students with him. Not only do I get to work through what he teaches by pausing the recording, I get to learn from their mistakes as well. In the Language Builder course, it's just Michel Thomas. It allows him to put much more content in the recording per hour, but it loses a bit of the hook. It was pretty boring.

Tomorrow I begin Linguaphone Deutsch.

Vocab - The short workday did interrupt my flashcard routine. I didn't feel like I got enough time with my vocab today so I'll carry today's words to tomorrow.

[sabotai]

January 29th

Linguaphone - Worked through the first section. Didn't take long since I knew most of it already. I like how it has the 3 different phases (Listening & Understanding, Speaking and Writing). One problem I have with a lot of other systems, including the ones I like, Michel Thomas for example, is that they do get boring since it's just the same thing over and over again. The 3 different phases will be good at breaking the lesson up and keeping it from getting stale.

I did all three phases today. I think once I start getting into areas that I am far less familiar with, it may get to where I am doing just 1 or 2 of the 3 phases a day, even to where I am repeating sections to make sure I understand everything.

Also, I am going to add new words and phrases that I find in the Linguaphone lessons to my daily vocab list.

Vocab - New list for tomorrow:

Linguaphone
der Beamte - officer, government employee
verzollen - to declare
in Ordnung - in order, all right, ok

Mastering German Vocabulary (Eating)
der Blumenkohl - cauliflower
die Bohne - bean
die Erbse - pea
die Kartoffel - potato
die Zweibel - onion
die Johannisbeere - black current, red current
die Brombeere - blackberry
die Heidelbeere - blueberry
die Stachelbeere - gooseberry
die Zwetschge - plum
der Kohl - cabbage
der Pilz - mushroom
der Schnittlauch - chives
Prost! - Cheers!
Zum Wohl! - Cheers!
der Sekt - sparkling wine, champagne
der Sprudel - soft drink, mineral water

[sabotai]

January 30th

Linguaphone Deutsch - Only had time tonight to do phase 1 (Listening and Understanding) of Section 2. Section 1 started off with a family arriving at the airport. Section 2 has them checking into the hotel plus ordering drinks in the restaurant. Tomorrow I'll do phases 2 and 3 and also try to do all of Section 3.

Vocab - Vocab words for tomorrow

Linguaphone
die Empfangshef - reception clerk
mieten - to hire
erwarten - to expect
der Meldezettel - registration form
leider - unfortunately
lieber - rather, preferably

Mastering German Vocabulary (Eating)
der Most - cider, natural fruit juice
lieblich - sweet (for wine)
der Schwips - tipsy, slight drunkenness
süchtig - addicted
das Rauschgift - illegal drug
abhängig - dependent, addicted
der Metzger[-in] - butcher
der Sonderangebot - sale, special offer
die Dose - can
das Pfend - deposit
aufhaben - to be open
zuhaben - to be closed
die Konditorei - bakery, pastry shop
die Büsche - can

[Karlifornia]

I always wondered what the lyrics to "Du Hast" meant. Thanks!

[Nugget699]

Have you found any glaring errors with Rosetta Stone at all? I have heard many people complain of grammatical errors, but had never noticed it with my Swedish version until this morning. The word Skriva (write) is spelt Skriver on RS which is incorrect.

[sabotai]

Have you found any glaring errors with Rosetta Stone at all? I have heard many people complain of grammatical errors, but had never noticed it with my Swedish version until this morning. The word Skriva (write) is spelt Skriver on RS which is incorrect.

No, but it's been awhile since I used RS. This is one reason to try to use more than one source for learning a language. You never know if something is a misspelling, a grammatical error, an outdated word or phrase, a colloquialism, etc.

[sabotai]

January 31st

Linguaphone Deutsch - Finished up Section 2 in the afternoon and did all of Section 3 in the evening. With the Super Bowl tomorrow, I doubt I'll have time to work on this so I wanted to spend a lot of time on it today.

Vocab - No new words from Linguaphone. These are all from the vocab book

tiefgekühlt - frozen
der Kassenzettel - receipt
satt - full
ernähren - to live on, to eat
decken - to cover, to set (the table)
das Messer - knife
der Gabel - fork
der Löffel - spoon
die Tasse - cup
die Mahlzeit - meal
der Imbiß - snack
das Besteck - cutlery
das Geschirr - dishes, china
die Kanne - pot
die Schale - bowl
die Schüssel - bowl (bigger than Schale)
die Kerze - candle
die Zutat - ingredient
das Gewürz - seasoning, herbs and spices
vorbereiten - to prepare

[sabotai]

February 2nd

Linguaphone - Did Phase 1 of Section 4 tonight. Wanted to do the other two phases, but had some things I needed to do.

Vocab - I forgot to write down my words on to flashcard for work today, so the words above will be my words for tomorrow plus the five I took from Linguaphone today.

höflich - politely, courteously
ziemlich - rather, fairly, quite
einsteigen - to board (a vehicle)
wechseln - change (money)
dauern - to take, to last

[sabotai]

February 3rd

Linguaphone Deutsch - Finished up Section 4.

Vocab - Switching things up, I took 20 random words from the back of one of my Dual-Language books. (First German Reader)

adlig - aristocratic
arglos - innocent
behend - swift
boshaft - malicious
die Einladung - invitation
der Erwerb - acquisition
die Gasse - lane, alley
der Gram - sorrow
keck - bold
knurren - to growl
munter - cheerful
die Qual - torment
sachlich - factual
der Schutz - protection
tragbar - tolerable
unfruchtbar - sterile
der Verrat - treason
wahrhaftig - truthful
winzig - tiny
der Zorn - anger

[sabotai]

February 4th

Linguaphone Deutsch - Did Section 5 today. So far, what I like most about Linguaphone is the listening part. My listening comprehension is still pretty bad, but I feel like this is really helping. I'm going to get through the whole program, but this will definitely be my last "commercial system". I tried out a lot of systems to see what works for me and what I like, and I've found my answers. Michel Thomas and Linguahone are the two I'll look into for when I learn other languages.

Vocab

Linguaphone
schiken - to send
der Schalter - counter. switch, ticket window
erklären - to explain
das Vergnügen - delight, pleasure

First German Reader
ausbreiten - to spread out
bedenklich - dubious
die Demut - humility
emsig - eager, zealous
erregen - excite, agitate
frech - insolent
getrost - confidently
die Hinsicht - respect
die Krawatte - necktie, cravat
merklich - audible, noticable
die Pracht - splendor
schleppen - to drag
seicht - shallow
streben - to strive
ungeduldig - impatient
verbreitet - widespread

[sabotai]

February 5th

Linguaphone Duetsch - Did section 6 today.

Vocab - back to the vocab book

Linguaphone
die Wohnung - flat, apartment
möbliert - furnished
schlimm - bad

Mastering German Vocabulary
der Topf - pot, saucepan
rühren - to stir
braten - to fry
die Pfanne - frying pan
gar - done
schlälen - to peel
ausdrücken - to squeeze the juice out of
würzen - to season
anbrennen - to burn
das Hähnchen - chicken
der Knödel - dumpling
die Pommes frites - french fries
die Soße - sauce, gravy
das Spiegelei - fried egg
der Eintopf - stew
zart - tender
zäh - tough

[sabotai]

Didn't do anything except sleep on Friday night (the 6th).

February 7th and 8th

Linguaphone - Completed Section 7 and Section 8.

Vocab

Linguaphone
die Verlobung - engagement
das Tuch - scarf
seiden - silk
sich entschließen - to make up one's mind
die Kollegmappe - briefcase

Mastering German Vocabulary
das Matjesfilet - young herring
die Forelle - trout
der Pfannkuchen - pancake
der Kellner - waitor
bedienen - to serve
bestellen - to order
aussuchen - to choose
das Gericht - dish
die Vorspeise - appetizer
empfehlen - recommend
lecker - tasty
probieren - try, have a taste
die Kneipe - bar
die Beilage - side dish
der Gasthof - inn

[sabotai]

Didn't feel well for most of the week, and on top of that, it's been a bad week at work so I didn't do much. Finally got back to it tonight.

February 12

Linguaphone - Did Section 9 tonight. I'm starting to see a lot of words I do not recognize.

Vocab - Here's tomorrow's list. Have 12 from Linguaphone, and finished it out with 8 from Mastering German Vocab. These 8 finish out Chapter 4: Eating. Chapter 5 is next, and it's on Clothing.

Linguaphone
begrußen - to welcome, to greet
während - during
Schwenswürdigkeit - sight (tourism)
berühmt - well-known, famous
überhaupt nicht - not at all
noch lange nicht - far from, not by a long shot
schwierig - difficult
die Geduld - patience
einladen - to invite
anderhalb - one and a half (used with time)
wählen - to dial (telephone)
Das heißt - that is, that means

Mastering German Vocabulary
reichlich - ample
die Bedienung - service, waitor or waitress
der Nachtisch - dessert
die Scheibe - slice
der Wirt[-in] - innkeeper, rest. manager
das Kännchen - pot
die Theke - bar
vorbestellen - order in advance

[sabotai]

Update (Feb 13th-20th)

I didn't do a good job at keeping up with this during the week. I completed Sections 10, 11 and 12 of Linguaphone, but I dropped the ball on the vocab. I'm going to get this back on track over the weekend. I think I need to find one or two other things to do to keep me focused and motivated. Doing the same thing every day wears me down a bit and can get boring. Each Section of Linguaphone has 3 phases, and I can do 1 or two phases one a day, and the remainder the next, but it's still not enough. I need to throw something else into the mix to keep things interesting and fun for me.

[samifan24]

Very cool dynasty thread. I took German for a year in college but don't remember much, mostly because the professor spent most of his time ranting about the US. Still it is an interesting language and I've thought about trying to pick it up (or any second language) again. I was interested to read your thoughts on the easiest way to start a new language with audio CDs or software. Good luck!

[sabotai]

February 21st and 22nd

Compeleted Section 13 of Linguaphone Deutsch.. Did phase 1 on Saturday and phases 2 and 3 on Sunday. I also sat down with one of my Dual-Language books (First German Reader). I didn't worry about taking down vocab or anything, I simply read the German side, and then the English side 2 or 3 times. To start off, there's some poems and some paragraph or 2 long short stories.

Tomorrow's Vocab, taken from the last several Linguaphone lessons
tätig sein - to work
versorgen - to provide
sich gedulden - to wait patiently
sich lohnen - to be worth it
die Überraschung - surprise
sich verarbschieden - to say good-bye, to take one's leave
drankommen - to have one's turn
gespannt sein - to wonder, be anxious to know
sich zanken - to quarrel
sich versöhnen - to patch up a quarrel
sich ärgern - to be annoyed, angry
zukünftig - future
sich erinnen - to remember
drehen - to curl
reinigen - to clean
anschließend - afterwards
wahrscheinlich - probably
beschäftigen - to occupy
eifersüchtig - jealous
entgegennehmen - to take an order

[sabotai]

Very cool dynasty thread. I took German for a year in college but don't remember much, mostly because the professor spent most of his time ranting about the US. Still it is an interesting language and I've thought about trying to pick it up (or any second language) again. I was interested to read your thoughts on the easiest way to start a new language with audio CDs or software. Good luck!

I have not used it yet, but I've seen an Assimil lesson (specifically, I've seen the Spanish version). I would give the German one a try, but I'm done with "starting over" with new systems. I'm not sure I'd get much out of it now. At some point, I plan to learn Spanish, and I'm going to start that off with using Assimil's "Spanish With Ease".

The best part is they are cheap. Very cheap, in fact, when you compare them to something like Rosetta Stone or Pimsluer.

This is the German one: Amazon.com: German with Ease (Assimil Language Learning Programs, English Base): Hilde Schneider: Books (http://www.amazon.com/Assimil-Language-Learning-Programs-English/dp/270051050X/ref=sr_11_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1235353905&sr=11-1)

You just have to be careful with Amazon when ordering Assimil products. They have several versions of each product with wildly different prices (which is why I linked to the specific one you'd want - If you spend more than $40 on a "With Ease" Assimil product off of Amazon, you're looking at the wrong product). The price may make it seem like a cheap product that you'll be done with in a week or two, but it isn't. It's 109 lessons, 480 page book and 4 CDs with audio for the lessons. I wish I had known about this when I started German.

So anyway, if you are going to start learning a new language, I'd start with an Assimil "With Ease" product.

[sabotai]

February 23rd - 28th

I completed a few more Linguaphone lessons. I am now half done with it, but I have been slowly transitioning away from it and more to spending time with a dual-language book, so I'm not sure I will actually finish it completely. Still helpful with working on my listening ability, but I feel I get a bit more out of dual-language books, as well as other methods, now. Linguaphone being the 4th or 5th system I have worked through by now, I think doing things that are more active help me out more.

The problem I have now with doing a system is that I know some, or in most cases most, of what is intended to be taught by the lesson. So it makes me lazy. I quickly go through the stuff I know and my thinking and work-ethic are just not fully committed.

So, I have spent more time with books and I also listen to the videos on spiegel.de (even though I still don't understand much of it).

Another thing I have started to try to do is to take movie scripts and translate them into German. I wanted to start with something simple, something aimed at kids as well, so I picked The Incredibles. Still working on the first scene now. It's pretty slow going since I have to look things up (sometimes because I don't know something, sometimes to reassure my pessimistic mind). It's helped me practice sentence structure, but sometimes the characters talk in sentence fragments and trip me up a bit. <!-- Message body ''"" -->

[sabotai]

March 1st - March 8th

Not much to report here. I've spent about 30-60 minutes each night with a dual-language book. I am putting First German Reader to the side for now, though. It's supposed to be a "beginner's" book, but it's far from. The entries are all short, but still have a lot of vocab that a beginner wouldn't know and the writing is pretty complex. I think they call it "beginner" just because of the short entries (1-2 paragraph long stories at first).

I moved on to Parallel Text: German Short Stories 1. It's no more "beginner" than the previous book, but the stories are longer (typical short story length), and will keep my attention and interest far better than what was in First German Reader. Right now I am reading "Die Blasse Anna" by Heinrich Böll.

For this week's vocab, I am going to take words from 501 German Verbs.

[sabotai]

March 9th - March 18th

Been awhile since an update, and I've changed how I am studying (again). After a week or two of solely using a dual-language book, I've learned I don't do well without a game plan. I think I did fine and learned/reinforced from the dual-language book, but I only spent maybe half of the days actually putting a lot of effort into it. I got lazy. Again.

I'm aiming to spend 2 hours a day on it now, and I am going to use a few different things each day.

For one, I still have Pimsleur German II and III. I'll listen to a lesson each day (~30 minutes). It's 60 lessons, so it should take 2 months to get through them.

I really coasted through Michel Thomas Advanced German. I rarely used the pause button and was just trying to get through it quickly. So I am going to redo Advanced German with Michel Thomas, and spend ~30 minutes on it a day. It should take maybe 2 weeks to really work my way through them. It's only 4 CDs (not counting the review), so take about 1 hour each CD, but add an hour or two for total time I have it paused.

I also bought a few Grammar workbooks. German Grammar Drills, Practice Makes Perfect Vocabulary and Practive Makes Perfect Pronouns and Prepositions. I'm starting with German Grammar Drills. Each day, I will do the exercises for 1 chapter, and look forward to the next chapter. I'll spend time reading up (1001 Pitfalls of German and Hammer's Grammar and Usage) about the topic. Also, if I do poorly on the drills, I will make sure to review what I got wrong. I've also stopped using flash cards each day for vocabulary and will use them, for now, on grammar rules or notes.

So the plan is
1) 1 Pimsleur Lesson (~30 minutes)
2) Michel Thomas Advanced German (~30 minutes)
3) Grammar Drills and Reading (30-60 minutes)
4) If time left over, dual-language book.

When I am done with the Michel Thomas Advanced German, I will either go back to Linguaphone and restart that (probably at a much earlier point from where I left off) or move on to his Vocabulary CDs.

I am going to try to update this daily again, even if it's just a line or two of what I did.

March 18th
1) Pimsleur German II - Lesson 1 (30 minutes)
2) Michel Thomas Advanced German Disc 1 (30 minuites)
3) German Grammar Drills Chapter 1: Determining Gender.
- Tomorrow's Topic: Plurals. Spent about 10 minutes on the drills, and about 30 minutes reading about plurals, writing up a few flash cards for work tomorrow.
4) Read 2 pages of the short story "Story In Reverse" by Ilse Aichinger (dual-language book) (~20 minutes). With dual-language books, I like to read aloud, and usually read each line twice as I first try to determine what it means on my own, and then the second time, I compare it to the English side.

Total Time: 2 hours

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March 19th

1) Pimsleur German II - Unit 2 (30 Minutes)
2) Michel Thomas Advanced German - Lessons 6-11 (30 minutes)
3) German Grammar Drills Chapter 2: Plurals. Did pretty well on these drills. The few I got wrong were words I was unfamiliar with. I also read about Pronouns, which will be tomorrow's drills (20 minutes)
4) Read 1 1/2 pages of "Story In Reverse". I read "Pale Anna" last week and found it to be a pretty easy read. "Story In Reverse" is a more difficult read for me and it's taking longer to work through (~20 minutes)

Total Time: 1 hour, 40 minutes

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March 20th

1) Pimsleur German II - Unit 3 (30 minutes)
2) Michel Thomas Advanced German - Lessons 12-16 (30 minutes)

Total Time: 1 hour

March 21st

1) German Grammar Drills: Pronouns. Read about Nominative Case (20 minutes)
2) Pimsleur German II - Unit 4 (30 minutes)
3) Michel Thomas Advanced German - Lessons 17-23 (30 minutes)
4) German Grammar Drills: Nominative Case Drills, Read about Accusative Case (40 minutes)

Did #1 early in the day and #4 late.

Total Time: 2 hours

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2-3 days a month, I have to get up extra early for work. Unfortunately this month, it's 4 days and all 4 are this week. Mon-Wed and tomorrow, Friday, were/will be very long days for me so it didn't leave much time for anything. Managed to get some work in tonight. Good news is I have a few days off next week, so I'll spend a lot of time catching up.

March 26th
1) Pimsleur German II - Unit 5 (30 minutes)
2) Michel Thomas Advanced German - Disc 2, Lessons 1-7 (25 minutes)
3) German Grammar Drills: Accusative Case (20 minutes)

Total Time: 1 hour, 15 minutes

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March 27th
1) Pimsleur German II - Unit 6 (30 minutes)
2) Michel Thomas Advanced German - Disc 2, Lessons 8-13 (30 minutes)

Total Time: 1 hour

March 28th
1) Spent a long time reading about the accusative and dative cases in Hammer's. Also did some exercises from German Grammar Drills on the dative case (60 minutes)
2) Pimsleur German II - Unit 7 (30 minutes)
3) Read a few more pages of "Story in Reverse" (30 minutes)

Total Time: 2 hours <!-- Message body ''"" -->

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March 29th
1) Pimsleur German II - Unit 8 (30 minutes)
2) Michel Thomas Advanced German - Disc 2 Lessons 14-18 (30 minutes)
3) Read up on the gentative case and did some drills (30 minutes)

Total Time: 1 hour, 30 minutes

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Got caught up in other things the last few days. I did occasionally pick up a grammar book but didn't really get much time in.

I also got a few more things tot help with my German. I bought Der Kleine Prinz (and the English version "The Little Prince"). It's a book meant for 4-8 year olds so I think it'll be a good book to use a dual-language "book". I also bought Harry Potter und der Stein der Weisen, but not the English version. After I'm done with all the "systems" that I'm using, I'll use this as my first real test. Just the book and possibly an online dictionary that's German (IOW, try to read through it without any help in English).

April 3rd
1) Pimsluer German II - Unit 10 (30 minutes)
2) Read about prepositions in the accusative and dative in Hammer's (45 minutes)

Total Time: 1 hour 15 minutes

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April 4th
1) Pimsleur German II - Unit 11 (30 minutes)
2) Michel Thomas Advanced German - Disc 3 Lessons 1-7 (30 minutes)
3) Did some drills on accusative-dative prepositions and read about Der- and Ein- words (20 minutes)

Total Time: 1 hour, 20 minutes


April 5th
1) Pimsleur German II - Unit 12 (30 minutes)
2) Michel Thomas Advanced German - Disc 3 Lessons 8-12 (30 minutes)
3) Read about adjectives in 1001 Pitfalls and Hammer's (30 minutes)

Total Time: 1 hour, 30 minutes <!-- Message body ''"" -->

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Not much done the last few days. I research my family tree semi-often and found a really good lead that led to some good info. Sometimes with I get into my genealogist mode, it's almost like an obsession and I lose hours upon hours digging into everything I can find.

April 6th
1) Pimsleur German II - Unit 13 (30 minutes)
2) Practice Makes Perfect: Vocabulary (40 minutes)

April 8th
1) Pimsleur German II - Unit 14 (30 minutes)
2) Practice Makes perfect: Vocabulary (20 minutes)

Total Time: 2 hours (over the last 3 days)

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April 9th - April 12th
Pimsleur German II Units 15 and 16. (Total 60 minutes)
Michel Thomas Advanced German Disc 3 Lessons 16-18 and Disc 4 Lessons 1-5 (Total 60 minutes)
Reviewed Adjectives and did some drills (30 minutes)

Total Time: 2 hours, 30 minutes

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April 13th
1) Pimsleur German II Unit 17 (30 minutes)
2) Michel Thomas Disc 4 Lessons 6-9 (30 minutes)
Total Time: 1 hour

April 14th
1) Pimsleur German II Unit 18 (30 minutes)
2) Michel Thomas Disc 4 Lessons 10-18 (30 minutes)
The last several lessons of Michel Thomas were only a few minutes each. I'm done with Michel Thomas Advanced German (again). I think i got more out of it this time around.
Total Time: 1 hour

April 15th
1) Pimsleur German II Unit 19 (30 minutes)
2) Read (Hammer's) about verb tenses (30 minutes)
Total Time: 1 hour

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Just a quick update. All I have done the last week have been Pimsleur units.

April 16th - April 23rd

Pimsluer German II Units 20-26 (30 minutes per = 3.5 hours total)

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April 24th - April 26th

Pimsluer German II Units 27 and 28 (60 minutes total)

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April 27th
Pimsleur German II Units 29 and 30 (60 minutes)

Apirl 28th
Pimsleur German III - Unit 1 (30 minutes)
Michel Thomas Vocabulary Builder - Disc 1 Tracks 1-3 (20 minutes)
Total Time: 50 minutes

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Update

Have slacked off a bit, but still making sure to try to get at least a Pimsleur lesson in. I am up to Unit 7 of Pimsluer (so I've listened to 5 Units since the last update). I have not moved on with Michel Thomas. I have to make sure to get back to that.

I've also started reading Der Kleine Prinz (The Little Prince). I also have the English version so I use it like a dual-language book. I compare the grammar of the sentences, word usage, etc. What I do is read the same several pages over and over again. That way not only do I see words used in context, I also get the repetition. So far I've done this twice with the first 8 pages. I'll do it 2 or 3 more times, and then any words I am still having trouble with, I'll start using a vocab program to drill them.

It takes about an hour to get through those 8 pages since I am reading it out loud, but also I am studying and repeating the sentences. I usually read each sentence at least twice, and work out what it means in English. Unless I just instantly understand the sentence and move on, which happened a bit more often the second time I read it.

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May 10, 2009
1) Pimsleur German III - Unit 7 (30 minutes)
2) Michel Thomas Vocab Builder - Disc I - Tracks 4-6 (30 minutes)
Total Time: 1 hour

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May 11, 2009
1) Pimsleur German III - Unit 8 (30 minutes)
2) Michel Thomas Vocab Builder - Disc 1 - Tracks 7-11 (30 Minutes)
Total Time: 1 hour

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May 12, 2009
1) Read pages 1-8 of Der Kleine Prinz for the third time. Tomorrow, I will read them one last time and make a list of words I'm still having problems with. So far, it's only about 4-5 words that I'm still not quite clear on, mainly since they only appear once. I did take far less time to read the pages this time. Some of it may be that I'm learning the words, some is probably that I am just memorizing the meaning of the sentence. Time will tell how much is the former and how much is the latter. (30 minutes)
2) Pimsleur German III -Unit 9 (30 minutes)
Total Time: 1 hour

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Update

The reason I stopped updating the thread was because I stopped doing the commercial systems, plus it served its purpose in helping me to focus. Studying German has become a standard part of my day now, like eating or sleeping. I moved onto my own ways of maintaining what I have learned and learning what I need to know. (AKA - the intermediate stage)

Here are some of the things I do.

1) Sentence Method - Simply, this is using partial or full sentences instead of just single words. I have been using a program called Anki. it's an SRS (Spaced Repetition System) flash card program. You grade yourself on how you do, and the better you do on a card, the more time it'll take for you to see it again. Grade your answer poorly, and you'll see it again shortly. There are several other SRS programs out there, both freeware and commercial, but I like Anki (freeware) the best.

The idea behind the "Sentence Method" is to input good sentences that are grammatically correct (obviously). This way you learn both grammar and vocab at the same time. Not only that, but you'll see how to properly use the words. A very simple example of this would be: "A construction place" and "A construction site"...one sounds wrong and one sounds right, but they would both look right if all you did was study vocab words because place and site both mean the same thing, but they're used differently. You don't get that subtely when you just study vocab lists.

I inputed the vast majority (~95%) of the sentences from 1001 Pitfalls In German into Anki. A few others from some other books gives me 935 sentences total in Anki right now (in the end, I'd like to get in to the 5 figures, 10,000+ sentences). I started off with the grammar book so that I would populate Anki with examples of just about every important grammar rule.

I do this at least twice a day. In the afternoon, I'm usually doing 50+ sentences that are up for reviews. Around 11pm I'll do more, and I take however many are up for review and minus that from 50 to get how many new sentences to do. So if 21 more are up fro review at 11pm, I'll do 29 new ones. According to Anki, I averaged 117 cards a day last week, and I spend anywhere from 20 minutes to 35 minutes a day doing this.

Next, I'll probably start going through my vocab books and googling/searching texts for sentences to use. I think my weakest point right now is verbs. Whenever I start to read a news article or a story, it's usually the verb that trips me up. So I want to get a ton of sentences in there to learn a lot of verbs. Also, a bit of wisdom I've read more than once is "Learn a noun with the verb(s) that act(s) on it." So if I learn a bunch of verbs, it should make learning the nouns a bit easier.

ok, enough about the damn Sentence Method....You can read more about it at these websites
Antimoon.com: How to learn English effectively (http://www.antimoon.com/)
All Japanese All The Time Dot Com: How to learn Japanese. On your own, having fun and to fluency. (http://www.alljapaneseallthetime.com/blog/)

2) Background Noise - I will usually have Downfall, The Lives of Others or Run Lola Run playing in the background every night. What I really need, though, is a region free DVD player so that I can order DVDs, especially TV shows, from Germany. The US market for German DVDs is just not there. A few movies, no TV shows...and what few DVDs we do have, they don't have German subtitles, and on some you can't turn off the English subtitles.

3) German TV - Speaking German TV, several German TV station do have video online much like American TV stations do. ARD.de - Homepage (http://www.ard.de/) , and ZDF.de - Startseite (http://www.zdf.de/) are the two sites I go to. The problem is I don't know which shows are good, and when I do watch, I still have a hard time understanding them. My vocab is still limited, and I have not spent nearly enough time listening to German. I will usually watch 30 minutes a night, but neither site really has that much available to watch. (I wonder if there is a German Hulu......)

4) Books / Audiobooks - I'm still reading, slowly, through Der Kleine Prinz. One of these nights, I'm going to input the sentences from Der Kleine Prinz that have words in them that I'm still having trouble remembering. My reading is slowly getting better, though.

I have a few of Franz Kafka's books/short stories in audiobook form, and what I'd like to do is to read through them while listening to the audio. This probably won't happen for a bit, though. Kafka is a little advanced, I would imagine, for me right now.

There are audiobooks of Grimm's Fariy Tales in German on Project Gutenburg, but not the text. I know I can get the text, but the websites where I've seen it, I would have to copy and paste each individual story....I think someone on the MobileRead forum is working on converting the text into the Sony format, so I'm waiting for that. Or one day I'll just say "fuck it" and go copy and paste all of the stories into one large text file and put it on my Sony Reader.



Other Languages

I have started learning Spanish and Japanese, and there are more languages I would like to learn as well. In reading what linguists and poliglots have to say, learning more than one language at a time is not only more common than you'd think, but for someone wanting to learn multiple languages (like me), studying and learning more than one at a time is pretty much a necessity. Especially someone like me who is starting something like this in his 30s.

So, now that my German learning is mostly just me taking in as much input as possible and doing German sentence flash cards, I thought now would be a good time to start a few more.

With Spanish, I am using a product called Assimil (which I mentioned earlier). It is a bit outdated (for instance, they use "telefonear" as the verb to call someone, which would be like me saying "I telephoned him." No one says that anymore, in the US or in Spain (from what I've read)). However, just about every commercial product out there has parts of it that are outdated. It's almost unavoidable. The point of these lessons (despite some claims of fluency) is to get a good foundation for the grammar, sentence construction, vocab, etc. Short of going to the country and living there, every system is going to give you some outdated terms.

Today, I did lesson 12. I really like Assimil. You get a dual-language book that has over 100 lessons in it. Each lesson has about a dozen or so sentences, and it'll point out any major grammar notes. Plus, every 7th lesson is a grammar review. You also get audio CDs that have speakers saying all of the target language text. Assimil is less a "system" and more a collection of raw material.

For a full review of Assimil, watch Professor Arguelles' youtube review: YouTube - Assimil: Foreign Language Learning Series Reviews (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XLvTEqXqlsI)
He also reviews a lot of other products, and has a lot of videos about other languages on youtube.

After I do a lesson, I input all of the sentances that appear into Anki. There's the 12 or so sentences that make up the main lesson, another 8-9 in exercises and several more in fill in the blank exercises. I usally get 20-30 sentences per lesson. So my Spanish "class" for the day is: 1) Assimil Lesson. 2) Do sentences in Anki from previous lessons. 3) Input sentences from today's lesson into Anki.

As for Japanese, I have not really started learning it yet. What I am doing right now is going through Heisig's Remembering the Kanji (vol 1). He assigns each Kanji a "keyword" (which is its basic meaning, or one of them) and creates a story for it to help you remember it. When a knaji (or a primitive) shows up in another kanji, he incorperates the keyword into the story for the new kanji. My pace right now is doing a lesson every other day while reviewing previous lessons in Anki every day.

- Both Spanish and Japanese get their share of "background noise" as well. A lot of DVDs have Spanish dubs, I have several Spanish movies, and I have a ton of Japanese stuff to play (Anime series and several movies).


So that's where I am, and this post is much longer than I intended. I'll probably update more from time to time.