B1 book has absolutely a ton of vocabulary. I’m only 4 exercises in but over 150 new Anki cards (over 75 new words).

I’m estimating about 1950 new vocab words for this textbook. I’ll only be able to do this if vocabulary gets easier than it has been… But I think that is going on.

A substantial number of words are compound words or otherwise related to words I already know.

Clearly I need to accelerate my words per day by significant levels. I’ll trust in the process and the book but it’s scary.

I’ll also need to spend less time per card. The cards are somewhat less important than the reading, listening and writing exercises after all. So my Anki cards are dropping their already relatively spartan style to even more basic.

IE: do more vocabulary but maybe less effort put in. Cover more words but less deeply, and hope it works out?

Language club and Community college class continue to be helpful at speaking practice. This really is my weakest skill so anything I do helps.

I’m stronger than basically everyone in the community college class. But I’m the weakest one at the language club table. Certainly a weird feeling to go back and forth between them…

My current plan is to focus mostly on getting ahead in my vocabulary. Get all these words into Anki, start drilling them so I’m familiar with the words before doing exercises. Then I do the exercises.

If I’m always studying words from ‘future’ sections (a few pages ahead of where I am in the textbook), then that gives me time to Anki drill as a startup.

Then I do the Kursbuch exercises a few days later. (Lecture problems / exercises)

Then I do the Ubungsbuch exercises about a week after that. (Practice problems).

That gets me multiple times of review and practice for every word and concept. I’ll be aiming at 6 months to clear this book… though frankly I’m already behind schedule.

They say that B2 is roughly Youth Literature level, in that you should be reasonably comfortable with reading Momo or “Die Unendliche Geschichte”.

Also the books are apparently approachable even at A2 but you know, a lot more lookups needed. B1 is a weird slog for sure.

I got stuck in Grammatik aktiv A1-B1. I reached the B1 levels and it’s not really explaining these concepts well

Soooooooo… I’ve decided now is the time to pull out my B1 Kursbuch and actually begin working through B1. It’s much harder level of listening and I’m very slow with these exercises. I’m hoping that my brain gets used to this increased difficulty and that I’ll progress to a faster pace.

But day 1 is ROUGH. It’s like I’m rather stupid again and need to look up a ton of words all the time to make any progress

I did look at Pokemon Weiße Edition again and my brain is much much better today. I’m able to read, albeit with a TON of lookups. But I can actually make a lot of the way through without lookups and guessing the meaning of the words. (Am I correct? Probably not. But it’s kinda fun going through this with kinda crappy understanding lol). Maybe that will be a fun little reward when things get tough at this level.

I’m not a Japanese learner. But I’m aware of this.

For everyone who is unaware: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2eVhwP2G6OU . If you listen carefully, the numbers all have a different word depending on the situation. To help teach this concept, the Japanese have nursery rhymes.

English does have specific words to describe other things. Ex: Reams of paper. Sheets of paper. But its not a full counting-system like in Japanese. A bakers dozen (13 donuts, rarely used for things outside of cooking/baking). A gross (144 items). Dozen (12, very common). So I’d say English has specific words that are “alternative names” for numbers, but its not really the same at all.

You’d never say “Bakers Dozen” outside of bread, donuts or cupcakes. This “special number” only applies to baked goods.

I’ve only ever heard of a “Ream” used for counting sheets of paper (500 sheets).

A “Spool” of chips is 3000 chips for computer manufacturing.

These words get increasingly technical. Only computer engineers / electrical engineers would ever ask for a spool == 3000 chips. Bakers dozen is itself a rare word (13), rare enough that some English Natives don’t realize it means 13 !!

German discussion class at community college was weird. It was maybe the first time I’ve met students who are “weaker” than me, or even anywhere near my level.

Despite spending 9 months so far learning German, my journey has been through self study, a German tutor, live practice in Berlin and finally a free club. At every situation, the other German speakers were far better than me in German across all skill levels.

But now that I’ve signed up for an at level class, I’m finding other students who (like me) struggle with prepositions, die/der/das, Nebensatz and so forth. It’s somewhat eye opening to see the struggles of fellow students.

German Discussion class starts Tuesday.

I’ve bought a few more German songs (mostly covers to anime songs I’ve appreciated over the years). I probably should start looking for traditional / mainstream German pop / rock bands however, to get more “normal” music that typical Germans listen to.

Signed up for German at my local community college. It’s a non-credit German Discussion course. I’m hoping this will help solidify my skills to something that can be lined up to an actual German class level.

It really seems like Community College is one of the best opportunities for learning language. Check your local community college for summer semester (or fall semester if you wanna plan ahead a bit).

Actual self study has very much slowed down. It’s harder to be motivated now that I have no trips planned. I joke with my friends that I need to spend money on a German vacation to motivate myself again lol.

I still do Anki each day but my Grammatik aktiv work has slowed considerably.

I will say that I’ve upgraded my level of effort on Anki cards. I now consider myself at the level where all verbs must be checked with infinitive, 3rd person present, 3rd person past, and 3rd person past perfect (lassen, lässt, ließ, hat gelassen). That has increased my error rate dramatically and wore me out a bit. But I don’t think that I’ve worked as hard as before yet, even if I’m still studying each day.

My overall focus is to get my speaking up even if I’m going to be stuck at A2 a while longer. I know my speaking is lagging behind and I’m willing to put effort and focus on this problem rather than continuing to my B1 stuff.

I do have enough understanding that I’m beginning to enjoy German VTubers. But it’s not a complete understanding of what they say yet… More like I get the overall gist and only with ample hints (exaggerated cartoon faces, meme images and other such context clues). I’m unable to just understand the native level German on its own / isolated.

I feel like you’re approaching this incorrectly. Do you have graded readers?

An A2 graded reader would assume you knew all A2 level words and have definitions for the B1+ / B2 (or beyond) words in the text.

So instead of making software that does the work of making a graded reader, it is probably better to just start by using graded readers (where all this work has already been done).

Took a week off language studies after the trip… because the trip really wore me out. You know, actual training for my job is like, hard and brain-power sucking. Then coming back from a trip is still all this laundry, chores, catchup at work, etc. etc.

Okay, so my week in Berlin, what did I learn?

• The tourist areas are full of tourists. I walked up to many people to ask something (ex: can I cross the street here?) only for the response to be “I only speak English”, be it an American, a Dutch/Netherlands couple, or Italian.

• City centers, subways are filled with German speakers who will respond with German. They’re busy and often don’t want a conversation, but they can answer one or two quick questions. Due to their impatience, they’ll take one question in German and immediately switch to English (something in my accent must have reliably told them I’m American/English speaker).

• There were still situations where I was forced to use 100% German and I think it improved my language skills. Immigrant communities, such as the Turks who make all the Döhner Kabobs, they speak Turkish first, German 2nd, and don’t really have the room for English. Same thing with the massage I got: Thailand immigrant, who also speaks German, but very broken English. There’s also a substantial number of “older folks” who speak German only (but usually have a spouse who speaks English, or a younger person nearby, like an employee, who they’ll redirect you for English).

• The actual computer training was all in English. I accidentally started to one of the staff in charge of the Hotel as I was looking for anyone who spoke German (she was sitting in the dining area, so I assumed she was part of the training at first, but she was actually in charge of organizing / watching over the conference as Hotel Staff). My German isn’t at the conversational level yet though so we mostly talked in English after trying a few lines in German.

I did pickup a B1 textbook in German

So solid progress, but now I need to think about my push to B1. I’d like to finish Grammatik aktiv to get me a grammatical basis (mostly because I’m already half-way through Grammatik aktiv, but also because grammar is a good foundation for new stuff). That would leave mostly the vocabulary / practice when I get to the coursebook.

I’ll probably start reading more for variety as well. I’ll need to fill up my vocabulary banks / Anki again.

You don’t have to go very far in German before you find words that simply don’t exist in English.

ausgeshildert – to have been marked well with signposts.

Ex in English: Don’t worry about the guests getting lost. The subway to here is ausgeshildert.

And now … the riskiest thing I’ve done.

I’m going to stop studying for a week. Because I’m going to be in Germany.

I’ve given this some though: there is no amount of studying I can do that compares to just the natural immersion of being in Germany. No amount of Anki cards or grammar exercises will be as good, or important, as another 10 minutes going to a store, bar, restaurant or other activity and just trying to soak in all the natural German I can.

So that’s a rule I’m making for myself. No more studying until I get back from the trip. Catching up to a weeks worth of Anki backlog probably will suck though lol.

Grammatik aktiv 40+. I’m halfway done my current textbook.

Not much to say. I’m beginning to learn vocab from some exercises now, but I’m still worried that my overall vocabulary is lagging behind.

I’ve been listening to “Du bist schön” for months. I finally decided to “study” it today so that I can understand it. (IE: Google translate, Wiktionary, etc. etc.)

…

Holy shit. I knew the words for mirror, beautiful, as well as Alligatoah makes it clear that this guy was talking to himself in the song. But the full understanding was lost until I studied now.

That’s a lot of self deprecating humor all at once. With a huge amount of social commentary.

I can highly recommend as a German language exercise, though maybe it’s a bit of a downer overall.

https://youtu.be/dlvStoOyEzE

I knew this was a sarcastic and “biting” song even without study. But wow.

Du bist schön, aber dafür kannst du nichts

Weder lesen, noch schreiben, noch was anderes

Du bist schön, aber dafür kannst du nichts

Du kannst nicht mal was dafür, dafür kannst du nichts

May is pretty soon. Are you going to try and attend the trade show this year? Curious if that was/is your goal.

Yeah. The goal was always to reach A2+ before May (meaning I had 6ish months staring in November when I decided to be really serious about my studying).

It’s an trade conference in English. But in Germany. So now I have some “fire” and a practical exercise. I basically want to be able to take the train, listen to airport announcements and overall enjoy Germany without pulling out Google Translate all the time.

I think I’m like A2- though, slightly behind schedule. I’m not convinced that I can pass an A2 exam right now. But I know all the theory of A2 subjects (weil vs dann and sentence structure, comparatives, subordinate clauses, perfekt vs präterium) and have substantial numbers of hours in grammar practice.

Just not quite enough practice yet to pass a certification exam.

Thanks. The card I had, as well as Wiktionary, are both missing the context for zureden.

DWDS has the contexts and examples, but I’m not strong enough in German yet to consistently read DWDS yet. https://www.dwds.de/wb/zureden

I’m getting there however. I can understand the gist but not the nuance of DWDS.

Thanks!

Ich bin seit zwei Monaten “Zwei Welten” gehört! “The Wise Guys” singen klar und deutlich. Ich empfehle auch!

The Wise Guys sing clearly and precisely. I do recommend them. I have been listening to their album “Zwei Welten” since ~2 months ago.

Maybe I need to make a new topic for my music / listening list?

English translation:

Sweet, I mostly got it! Without any help from Google Translate or Deepl (just Wiktionary for the two words I didn’t know).

Hmm. zureden is supposed to mean “to encourage”, according to some cards I bought. It seems like I messed something up with that.

“deine Worte machen mir Mut.”

Definitely seems like it works. Thanks!

I guess I’m now curious how to use zureden. Maybe “Du hast mir zugeredet.” ?? I see now that it’s a Dativ verb, so I messed that up earlier…

Ich verstehe… veilleicht? Deine Wörter sind fast alle in meinem Wortschatz. Ich muss nur “Anerkennung” und “durchgebiasen” in a dictionary lookup. (Aufsehen? I need more vocab…)

EDIT: im Wörterbuch aufsehen. (???) ins?? Hmmmmm

Es ist schwer, das “bin, lernen und zu müssen” wurden in nur ein Satz benutzt. Sondern ich verstehe veilleicht. Ich muss mehr Grammatik üben.

Danke! Deine Worte redet mich zu.

I tried the audio .mp3 files from my “Grammatik aktiv” book. And… I’m really not good at this. More weaknesses identified, more drilling needed. Etc. etc. Its seemingly the eternal struggle of language, practice something. Try something new, realize I’m bad at this new thing, practice some more.

Doing Grammatik aktiv once-per-day seems like a slog as it is, realizing that I’ve missed out on all the audio practice though… I’ve got 27 chapters here of audio I need to catch up on and actually do. Uggghhhh. Maybe I’ll do 1 Grammatik aktiv per day still, but try to catch up with 2+ sections worth of audio (or more?) per day until I’m sync’d up.

Anki cards still tough as ever, despite being at only 80% FSRS retention and 10 cards/day (+5 words/day). In practice, I know I’m learning more words/day due to all my grammar practice + other sources of review. (Music song study, reading, etc. etc.). I’m back up to 10-seconds/card, which seems to be my natural / long-term pace at Anki. At least for “random-ish” words coming out of the 4000-word frequency list that my main Anki deck is part of.

All in all: I still know what I’m bad at, what I need to practice, and how to improve.

I am thinking of maybe writing up a “6 month review” of my language learning experience. I’ve attempted to write something for the last 3 weeks actually, but I’ve deleted my writing each time due to writers block. I’m not quite sure how to describe the whole experience or what perspective I should write about. I’m still a relative beginner in the great scheme of language, but that makes my experience valuable to other beginners who are feeling the slog for the first time.

The Grammatik aktiv practice (one or two per day) has proven to me the importance of grammar drills. By reviewing A1 level grammar, I’m now a bit faster at ein/eine/einen/einem, kein/keine/keinen/keinem, dieser/dieses/diesen/diesem, mein/meine/meinen/meinem, wer/wen/wem, welcher/welches/welchen…

It feels like I’m not progressing in some respects because of so much review. I already knew all this stuff… But knowledge isn’t enough! I never built up the speed or confidence, the “skill” of using these little grammar things.

I’m beginning to enter the A2 level drills. I’ve also flipped to the end to look at the B1 drills, all look quite doable because I kinda know all the theory.

But when I’m trying to read or listen to my daily German material (Kurz und Leicht, or various podcasts…) It’s clear that my biggest weakness remains vocabulary. 5 words/day on Anki has always been on the lighter end of German review. I might have to “crunch” vocabulary practice somehow.

Sigh: it’s like every skill I have is so inadequate. Progress in one skill (grammar) reminds me of the weaknesses in other skills (vocabulary).

All in all: yes. Grammar is important, even if it’s boring. These were the things I made lots of mistakes with when I was trying to talk or write in German. So hopefully my output (speaking/writing) has improved.