schmoo Newbie United States Joined 3353 days ago 13 posts - 14 votes Speaks: English*
| Message 1 of 4 09 March 2015 at 2:53am | IP Logged |
I understand that learning a second language can sometime be scrupulous. It’s even
difficult when your dyslexic. I’m learning to speak and read the German language. I
can read and speak the colors, numbers, and other nouns and verbs. Still I struggle
with learning the language, especially the sounds of words. I continually practice
saying the words. I don’t write them down on paper, but I’m wondering if that will
make a difference. What methods/techniques might I be able to use to improve my
ability to say and write the words fluently?
Edited by schmoo on 09 March 2015 at 2:55am
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Nieng Zhonghan Bilingual Tetraglot Senior Member Antarctica Joined 3473 days ago 108 posts - 315 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, Japanese*, Spanish, Galician Studies: Finnish, Icelandic, Armenian, Mongolian Studies: Old English, Russian, English, German, Korean, Mandarin
| Message 2 of 4 09 March 2015 at 4:01pm | IP Logged |
schmoo,
The question to your answer is “it depends”.
How much time do you have to dedicate (almost?) every day?
What are the techniques and methods you are using? What is your attitude to grammar?
How are you learning German?
Have you learned any other language before? How does your memory work better with
languages?
If you don't know whether writing down in a paper will help you or not, how will we
know?
You can work with different techniques (read carefully the links below) and try
yourself the SRS, shadowing, wordlists, L-R and other techniques. Try one or two of
them for a while and see whether you can stick with the vocabulary at mid-term.
In meanwhile I would suggest you to take a look at Assimil with Ease. I am not saying
that you should use it, but there is an English version
of the book which I am using at the moment and it is one of the best resources I have
seen so far for beginners. I think you can use it as one of your
resources, though you can choose anything you want.
You can also try courses provided by Deutsche Welle for free:
http://www.dw.de/deutsch-lernen/s-2055
Pick up the level that suits you at most (A1, A2, B1 etc)
If you take a look on this forum, you will see language learner's who don't care much
about not speaking (or not being able to speak) during their early stage. Some prefer
to wait for a while, instead. So, it mostly depends on your short, mid and long term
goals.
The links below might answer some of your questions:
http://learnanylanguage.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Techniques
http://learnanylanguage.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Courses
http://learnanylanguage.wikia.com/wiki/Category:How_to_pract
ice_and_improve_your_langu
age
http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?T ID=40126&PN=1
Developing Better Active Skills
http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?T ID=40051&PN=1
Improving writing
http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?T ID=40119&PN=1
Edited by Nieng Zhonghan on 10 March 2015 at 12:48pm
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Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6399 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish
| Message 3 of 4 09 March 2015 at 5:07pm | IP Logged |
Great response! It covers pretty much everything that matters, and some more :)
One specific question - have you learned the rules of German pronunciation/spelling? They're obviously different from English, but much more logical.
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schmoo Newbie United States Joined 3353 days ago 13 posts - 14 votes Speaks: English*
| Message 4 of 4 17 March 2015 at 1:48am | IP Logged |
Nieng Zhonghan & Serpent,
Thank you for everything. I appreciated this. Sorry for not responding sooner. I will look at all the resources and work on these techniques to see what suits me better. When studying the language I never really thought about developing goals. I purchased a nice book online for five dollars. It has the grammar in the beginning section and the word lists in the other sections. I wanted to study the word list and then move onto grammar. What would be a better approach?
I began learning a little Duetsch when I was fourteen, and then I stopped, but I soon started last year. Also I took a semester in Spanish and French, but that was a long time ago. I understand numbers, colors, food, animals, weather, people, greetings, other words and sentences. I believe I’m a little ways beyond the basics.
Right known I’m studying word lists from my book. Usually I will rehearse the list at least three to five times before moving on. I briefly studied the grammar section. Although I didn’t studies the structure of a sentence yet. For me to understand and memorize words I need to practice and practice more. It will take some time to learn. That the downside when living with dyslexia and learning a second language. Then I’m writing down the words in a notebook. I will write the words down until my hand cramps. Other times I will play online games during my free times.
I’m learning by watching online YouTube videos. I recommend watching Deutsch fur Euch. I like it because Katia is funny and cute. I post a link to her video below. It would be nice if I was exposed to the language, but no one I know speaks it, except for my professor.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCsYMk_FCTGBxmwKFiCynFwg
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