be fluent in german

I’m able to have decent conversations and my Skype partners say I’m getting better. It’s still amazingly hard to read the language if I try to read a normal book. The news still consists of so many words I don’t recognize. But as long as I do some reading and listening every day, I do notice that I understand more. I suspect there is some change in my routine that would help a great deal – perhaps the best thing would be a visit to Germany which I am hoping to do in 2010. Another option might be a formal class with tests.

My company was aquired by a well known huge German company, so I have colleagues now that are native German speakers. I’ve got three Skype partners now to practice the language with, a tutor, and lot of podcasts – but I still don’t feel fluent. So speaking it with colleagues has seemed very intimidating. But I just wrote a colleague in German, and he was very receptive and said I could practice with him “jeder Zeit”, any time. So the language is also starting to help me do my job – excellent!

Very cool, I found another partner to actually practice speaking the language through MyLanguageExchange.com. I was afraid it might take some time because it took me months to find my first two partners, and then after a couple months I lost one of them. But MyLanguageExchange has search criteria that screens out only people who are interested in voice chat, and then I asked quickly whether they wanted to try that. And it only took a few days to find someone, and I only contacted about 4 people there. Thank you MyLanguageExchange, and thanks also to Skype to enable free hi quality voice chat.

I’ve missed a number of “classes”, but last night for the first time this scholastic year I made it to the German Club at the University. I’m not a student, but the professor who leads the club had said I could attend and let me know the new time and location this year. It was rewarding to notice that I was much better at conversing. I learned some new words and also somethings about the German culture. The biggest lesson was recognizing that focusing on how I can contribute rather than worrying about being accepted. It encouraged me to ask questions to learn things that I knew was also benefiting others at the table and to stir up conversation topics that lead to laughter and fun.

I’m reading First German Reader. It’s a great way to practice. Michel Thomas, the legendary language teacher, recommends reading a little bit each day, even if you’re tired. Adding one page of reading to my daily routine from this book has been very helpful – even though I’d rather listen to podcasts. Doing some reading definitely helps build the vocabulary.

This book has also been helpful in understanding German culture better. The essay on German philosophers was a bit dense, but very helpful. I think it helped me understand Einstein’s perspective a little better. In some ways, his thought experiments, as opposed to the English literal empiricism that usually dominates current scientific thought which is more about observation – fits well with the “Idealism” trend in German thought. I look forward to more explorations here in the future!

A big breakthrough, one of my penpals through MyLanguageExchange.com suggested that we help each other practice with a native speaker of the languages we are learning. I got to practice listening to and speaking German. She got to listen to and practice speaking English. It was fantastic. The connection was better than over the telephone.

I’d highly recommend to folks who are trying to learn a language, go through the effort of finding email exchange partners in the language of your choice and get on Skype or some other internet telephone system because your language skills will improve immensely and you’ll also learn a lot more about your target culture by getting to experience someone who live and breathes it.

The University’s still unofficial German club meets every week at the cafe in this picture. It has been very helpful in my making progress in getting fluent. I highly highly recommend anyone that is serious about getting fluent, find a language club. It’s cheap, it’s fun, and you’re helping others become fluent as well as likely finding a chance to meet folks from your target language countries. I’ve met great folks from Austria and Germany in the club, as well as Americans who have traveled there.

This isn’t much at all to do with learning German, bt it’s so amazing I have to pass it on. The guy doing amazing things with his hammers is speaking in German, as is the camera man. But you don’t have to understand German to enjoy it. Check it out!

Awesome Skills With a Hammer.

Believe it or not, my Paris based company that acquired my original Sunnyvale, CA based company was just for 6.7 Billion Euros by a Frankfurt based company. SAP. So there’s even more motivation for knowing German.

A few weeks ago I emailed a professor at the University of Montana. He told me about a tutor, and I worked with her just yesterday for the first time. And tonight I visited the German club’s tuesday discussion group at a cafe’. I got to speak with that same professor quite a bit, it was like a free tutoring session.

There’s been quite a bit of movement and motivation. Inxight, my company for 10 years, was purchased by Business Objects. Our small American company had a few offices in Europe, but Business Objects was founded in Paris and encourages people to work outside their native country to help them create a transnational company. So I’ve really boosted my efforts towards fluency.

Also, during our trip overseas, we were at two German language speaking airports in Zürich and Vienna (Wien). The legs of our flights over the Atlantic were in German language speaking airplanes, so I listened and watched a large number of films in German (some were American films dubbed in German). It was great! Also, in Istanbul, the hotel carried a Swiss German language station, RTL, which I watched when I could.

Also, I’m almost through Rosetta Stone’s German 2 course. It’s a great tool. I’ve already mentioned the 501 verbs, I’ve nearly got all those memorized after just a few days.