How I’m Learning German
Even though I’m just a complete beginner in German and far from fluent, I’m frequently asked how to study it because I’ve been able to learn Japanese so fast. Since I’ve only been studying German for a few weeks, I’m yet to see how effective my strategies will be in practice over the long run. That said, it’s based on the approach and principles I used for learning Japanese.
Grammar
The Approach
While German grammar is said to be vast and complicated, I restricted myself to learning the bare minimum foundational grammatical concepts such as tense, noun genders and cases, etc. My aim was to develop a basic knowledge of grammar which would be enough to read simple sentences and enable me to start learning German through reading and listening as soon as possible. I’m aiming to learn the rest of the grammar naturally through immersion.
The Textbook I Used
I found the book Learn to Speak German in 90 Days to be ideal for my approach. It explains grammar points simply and succinctly and doesn’t have any dull and exhausting grammar exercises. On the other hand, it is full of example sentences that demonstrate grammar constructs in use. As the name implies, the book is quite short and you can work through multiple chapters a day. It sticks to explaining basic grammatical ideas that you’re bound to come across sooner or later while ignoring advanced topics.
Vocabulary
The Importance of Images
As I’ve previously mentioned even for Japanese, adding pictures to vocabulary flashcards is the easiest way to make them faster to memorize. Pictures are much more clear and unambiguous in memory than vague definitions written in text. Revising with pictures creates visual anchor points in memory to which it becomes easy to attach words.
Benefits of Audio
A mistake I used to make earlier was not including audio pronunciation clips for the vocabulary I was learning. I didn’t think I’d needed it since German pronunciation closely matches the written form of its words. More important than that was that I discovered having an audio play with the word makes the experience of learning through flashcards feel less boring and monotonous. Perhaps it’s because, in a weird way, it adds a human touch to the experience.
Another advantage is that it lets you utilize another one of your senses while learning, namely listening. It adds an extra dimension of information that increases how much knowledge you’re absorbing in the same time frame without any extra effort.
Vocabulary Learning Apps Compared
While popular apps like Duolingo and Memrise already have decks of German words prepared, they lack the all-important accompanying pictures that aid in memory retention. As such, I needed to take matters into my own hands and used Anki. I started by downloading this deck of 4000 German words sorted by frequency and proceeded to add images to it. Once I’ve added images to all the cards I’ll upload it and link it here.
Though the app Fluency Forever (Android | Apple) has been designed with the importance of images in mind, in practice it’s severely limiting. You’re unable to skip through basic lessons that you may already be knowing and you can’t adjust the pace of learning to your liking as you can in Anki. Add to that the fact that it requires a paid subscription to use beyond its 2-week free trial period.
To Recall or Not to Recall
Since I’m in no hurry to speak German, I don’t train myself to memorize words to become able to speak them. Instead, I only practice recognition, i.e. the ability to understand a word when reading or hearing it. My reasoning for choosing this approach is that I want to become able to immerse myself in German as soon as possible. For my goals, the extra effort needed to practice recall is better spent in learning to recognize more words. The ability to recall words will come naturally from reading and hearing the same things over and over.
Gender
One of the first things that any German learner will discover is that nouns can be one of three genders: masculine, feminine, or neuter. (At which point they realize the extent of the task they’ve undertaken).
Mnemonic for Learning Noun Gender
An effective mnemonic strategy I’ve picked up from the book Fluent Forever is to associate a color and a characteristic with each gender. For example, with masculine nouns, I use red 🔴 and fire 🔥. I incorporate this when I look for pictures of a word to add to its flashcard in Anki. With a masculine noun like der Mantel (coat), I could use an image of a red coat or a coat on fire. Similarly, I use blue 🔵 and water 💦 for feminine nouns and green 🟢 and plants 🌱 for neuter.
Exceptions
Occasionally, you may come across nouns that break this scheme, such as das Wasser (water) or das Feuer (fire). In such cases, I use color alone. In this case, green water and green fire.
Abstract Nouns
The above strategy is pretty effective for nouns representing concrete objects like cat, dog, car, etc. On the other hand, it’s harder to apply it with abstract nouns like safety or decision. While you can still find images that suit the gender’s color or characteristic, it requires a bit more thought and effort.
With abstract nouns, you should learn to take advantage of word endings to remember its gender. For example, words that end in -heit like Sicherheit and -ung like Beschreibung are always feminine. This happens with object nouns too like how Mädchen is neuter because it ends with -chen.
So, do you need to sit down with a list of these endings and memorize their genders? You could if you wanted to, but I simply relied on noticing patterns over time naturally while learning words.
How to Practice German by Reading
Though Japanese is much harder to read, or perhaps because of it, there are many apps and browser extensions like pop-up dictionaries to help you with reading it. Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to find extensions as robust for reading German.
Readlang Extension
I use the Readlang extension for reading German. It uses Google Translate to translate any word that you click. You can use it to rapidly check and learn words. The best part is that unlike other apps like Linq, it’s completely free to use. The premium version which costs $5 per month lets you lookup phrases that are multiple words long. Though the idea is simple, it’s very efficient and effective in practice.
Since it uses Google Translate, it may not always show accurate translations for individual words, especially the German verbs that are split over a sentence when they’re used. However, it also means that the extension can be used with any language. Words and phrases you lookup are saved and can be revised on the site as flashcards or exported in .csv format. Readlang also lets you import books into the site itself for reading.
One thing that could improve it would be by having an actual app. Currently, you have to create a special bookmark that you need to click on to activate the extension in a webpage on mobile. It’s simple enough but it’s a bit inconvenient.
What to Read
I don’t like reading materials designed for learners because they feel trite and irrelevant. Instead, I like reading a language being used for actual communication, even if it’s in the form of news or stories meant for only children.
Easy News
To start with, I used nachrichtenleicht.de for reading news. The name means “news light.” It’s written in short sentences and simple grammar. Infamously long German compound nouns are broken up using hyphens between constituent nouns. Each article is also read out in an accompanying slow and easy to listen to audio track. The site is primary aimed at mentally handicapped people which is why it may feature some unnatural phrases. It’s updated with new articles every Friday.
NDR and WDR also publish news in “Leichte Sprache” (easy language) but I haven’t used them myself.
Slow German Podcast
This podcast is meant for German language learners but it covers a wide array of interesting and relevant topics in history, culture, economy, etc. In other words, you don’t feel like the topics are being limited to accommodate learners’ inferior language skills. Each post has a slow and clear audio track as well as a written transcript. I read a post once and then read it again with the audio.
Conclusion
My method of learning German is highly focused on training to become able to read. My belief is that once reading skills are developed to a high level, it becomes easy to use it to develop listening and speaking skills as well. This may not suit everyone’s tastes or learning priorities so I encourage you to think about why you want to learn German and how you want to use it. Then, create a strategy as per your priorities accordingly.
