be fluent in german

I started taking German in 10th grade. Two years in high school, plus a month in Germany got me pretty far with the language. Now I have taken it 3 out of my 4 semesters in college, with another class on the way this fall. I felt like I was getting good in the first two semesters, but now I am losing it! I don’t know. Maybe the classes are getting harder faster than I can grasp it. I have had the same teacher the whole time in college and he is great. One of the very best teachers I have had in all of my schooling. But, I don’t know. It is just progressing quickly! I need to study over the summer. I have a book and some CDs from a learning program. I need to utilize these so I don’t fall behind next year! German is my minor in college, I really want to be able to use it.

It’s not as pretty as French, or as easy as Spanish or Italian, but I just inexplicably love German so much. It must be my years of declension-obsession while studying Latin. I spent 3 wonderful months in Berlin ‘learning German’ in 2006, and want to become fluent. I’m using the Barron’s Mastering German course (an updated version of the freely available FSI German course), which is incredibly tedious, but also incredibly effective.

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!

Although it’s only my first year of German, I’m super hyped up about it! I love the way that it sounds and it’s such a cool language!

I want to learn to speak Gearman since at least four years ago. I wanted to move to Germany, but finally I moved to Dublin, and I started now my PhD in Madrid, so my goal about moving to Berlin will have to wait.

For the moment, I think is a good idea to motivate myself to learn German using it as a tool to do something else. I have seen that my friend David is playing Travian, and I would like to play it as well, but I know myself, and I could waste a lot of time. So I will play in German. This way I will kill two birds with one stone

• I will not waste too much time, because I will not feel too comfortable
• I will learn some German

After all, Travian is originally a German game, so this is linguistically fair!

Will it work? I will tell you here ;)

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.

German is one of the best things that’s ever happened to me. (I lived in Austria for several years.) Learning to think in another language does good things for the brain! I was so excited when I first started dreaming in German! :)

i have now read through the first two chapters again. i have a week before the germans come back. i hope to get through chapter 8, and maybe glance through some things i have not learned yet. give myself a jump start before the new semester starts.

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!