How to learn German as a beginner

Hello my friend: 

It’s great if you like to learn German, This article will explain how to set the right mindset to make study speedup, and materials I found useful.
Language is a cool things to know the culture, and having more language is like expanding the view of people’s life.
So, how to prepare to pass a test will also mention here.

It is easy

I know many people say it is hard, but think it hard doesn’t gonna change the fact that I need to learn it. First thing is to think “it is ok, it’s just a different language”.

Try to understand “have to”.

Usually when we think about something we “have to do it” it often makes us feel a bit harder to be activated. Think a bit more on WHY you “have to” do it?

• It is for the best of myself, it is not benefit for others, its for me.
• I will see a whole new world.
• I can communicate with more people, having more friend.
• I can travel to my dream destination .
• Life is always seeking growing and expanding
• Have this can bring my life more joy.
• This is what I want.

They are some examples, think about this is what you want, not what you “have to”.
Live the best of your life. and trust yourself that you have the full ability to having it. At the very end I realized this it the key point to me: to believe.

German is just a different language.

So many videos about how to learn any language in 3 month, (I didn’t watch them, guess it was on TED)
It is just different. method is different, cultural is different. Every country having its own history own cultural, ppl express feelings in different ways, communicate in a different way.
It’s different, it’s not hard. It’s hard because we feel more use to on our own language. The stronger you set it as “different”, the easier to adapt on learning, you will not put your own language’s rules as top priority. you know they will have different rules on express things/meanings.
Think yourself like reborn, new to the world, you want to talk to people, you want to see new things, etc. like a child. put yourself into a child’s mind. Who says child can learn language so fast that adult can’t???

Materials

There are my ways of learning, I try to find ways to make it feels like printed in head, so I don’t have to re-learn them, even if I stop learning for a month. There are many other ways on learning languages, keep open minded if you want to try something new :) Those materials is good for now, I might change them later after learn more. and will share with you if you need them:)

Listen. Speak. Read. Write.

Key to me is to master four of them, not only to read or speak...

German Made Simple course

https://www.udemy.com/german-made-simple/ This is a paid class, I paid 10euro. if the price goes higher, you can put in the basket and wait for discount time. His pronunciation is very accurate, and a bit slow (which is good, easy to follow to practice, more accurate as well) the video can set speed, so you can also set it faster or slower base on your learning speed. He teaches little by little, so you will feel easy to follow as a beginner. Teacher gives you more infos on how to learn by yourself at the announcements page.The recent one is at 18 days ago. He keeps finding informations for students.

My way on using it:

1. Listen, and speak. (At the beginning it might feels funny because you are not use to it) Almost every class I have to laugh a bit . Its so funny. Besides, Better to laugh than to feel bad about the difference.
2. Write things down from the video, after third time of listening. so that I can bring this little book with me anywhere, to review them. see if I can pronounce without audio/video.

The foundation is very important, you know you will need to know all of them anyway. Doing so can learn vocabulary much faster than just a flash card. At least for the begining.

1. repeat until its printed in head or you can say it without the paper or watch the video. 50-60% is ok too. I usually go with 80% at least. Listen them when walking on the way. or you are kind of free. When you listen, try to focus a bit on repeating them in your brain, or very very little voice. make your mouth get use to it.

after section3, you will get use to speak in German for sure.
Try not to hurry on the course at the beginning, it can speed up even more later base on how good the foundation is been made.
The course will give you a test on each section. I almost don’t need the test cuz I memories them so well. Just by listen, speak, write, and read.

Learn German with GermanPod101.com

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTobWZV_HWGSoaRrhHyrJ-A This one tells you more info, a little bit faster. It is free, but the Youtube advertise jumps in the class quite often, that make learning not very pleasant. Also the music is a little bit disturbing. I don’t know if I will continue use it, for now I will still combine it cuz it tells a bit more info than the other one.

Learn German | Learn German for beginners A1 | Lessons 1 - 42

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLF9mJC4RrjIhS4MMm0x72-qWEn1LRvPuW
This is the playlist currently I am using, to combine with the other one. I started this after section 3 of “German Made Simple course”
Keep writing them down, listen speak, write and read.

Podcast / Videos

there are many podcast on iTunes for free, do more search, see which one you like. It creates an environment inside of yourself to get use to the language too.
also check on German embassy website they have some infos about learning as well. try to find more ways of listening, movies, tv shows, the beautiful voice and more academy style is better. Like Documentaries. You want to have good accent and beautiful language, Birds eye view of German：“Deutschland von Oben” (I will try to bring to you next time. together with youtube class above.)
Beautiful video nice speech, and learn some German Geography. History, Documentaries, Travel, Sports, etc etc. (also good for books.) I thought about kids book:)
Learn German by Podcast https://itunes.apple.com/cn/podcast/learn-german-by-podcast/id439843599?l=en&mt=2
Audio Tutor | Learning German | Deutsche Welle https://itunes.apple.com/cn/podcast/audio-tutor-learning-german-deutsche-welle/id405247258?l=en&mt=2
PODCAST – Radio D https://itunes.apple.com/cn/podcast/podcast-radio-d/id433122457?l=en&mt=2
DazPod https://itunes.apple.com/cn/podcast/dazpod-german-as-second-language-learning-german-language/id765048884?l=en&mt=2
I use different podcast to make learning more interesting, listen different ways of pronounce.

Pass the exam.

Exam is like a goal setting, passing by an exam or not isn’t quite an issue if you learn language with a method very well already. you will most likely get a higher score. Lets say I need to pass A1 at a certain time.
after section 2 of “German Made Simple course” I started to look for the requirement about the A1 pass, it has listen, speak (make some conversation), read and write etc.(when I saw that, I was like, AHA, I did it all! Nothing new.) Look a bit deeper on why they choose to set the exam -- for daily use. And how is the requirements: Based on living purpose.
Check what you are learning at that moment, and you will know already how the distance is in between what you have learned.



and practice when you feel ready.
The only one book I bought: exams for pass A1. for practice later. it’s mostly German, few Chinese, no need to read Chinese anyway. https://www.amazon.cn/gp/product/B008GRMXGI/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Key is to repeat on read, listen, speak and write.

write is a powerful tool to me, they help me memorize stronger, you probably know it as well.
My english writing goes so fast when I study German, but the German writes much slower, cuz less practice. I just know I need to practice more and more. maybe later it doesn’t needed that much writing? but for the begining writing defiantly helped me on getting use to this new “world”

Ipad pencil + Ipad pro is optional, I combine them, I like the feelings of writing on paper, but on the other hand, iPad can save paper, makes things a lot cleaner. I don't know which one is better. For now I will use both.

continue learning

grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation, etc.
They all have sort of a method, created by ppl from early beginning of human life, later more and more ppl agreed on it, that’s how we define them.
Know the rules, the rest of them are mostly likely repeat. some are different. but if you keep repeat on read and write, try to speak about it, automatically you will remember them all.
Vocabulary usually have basic vocabulary, the rest are “copy” or having some “similarity” Build the foundation strong at the beginning, memories them a lot, later it will benefit on learn more of them.
I like to combine them - by read books, even if I can’t understand all of them. Books you interested or you feel you need to know from.
That's more useful than learn them separately, maybe just to me, maybe others disagree. but I find it easier to just read books to learn more vocabulary. it makes more sense if you see them on a sentence, rather than just a single one.
Those are the basic rules to me to follow and repeat.

Be brave to practice, try to talk in real life.

Be ok with making mistakes, any strong mistake will alert you on remember them.
If I say something wrong, that makes people feel strange, I will remember it. just tell them you are learning, you might make mistakes, you are trying to do it perfect, but that's how learning takes. people will understand. Talk to casher, waiters, or your german friends.Think of some situation you might need to talk with and ask them how will them talk about in German, listen what they are saying.
Read things on supermarket, street, when you travel in Germany.
Put all learning into your life and find joy about it.

You will learn it easily and comfortably.

Learning can be fun, if you believe in it.
well, doing sports isn't that much fun at the beginning to me as well. but I try to focus on the good and benefit,
Thinking about long turn and sustainable life, and distribute them into little steps, then its is easier to achieve. Make small goals for current and vision your long turn goal will make you more active.
To finish all the videos/audios/books first, There are many books in my amazon basket already, I can not recommend you them if I haven’t read them yet. will share you my experience later:)

That is all for now...

It’s a bit long..
Once you “want to” do it, you know you will do it. the way will show itself.
Like I so want my feet get heal soon, its like the feet is listening, every time I try to move it, it makes a better movement.
Then go do it, you know it is a long way to go, so its ok. Many ppl feel they need thing to come “right now”, they feel sad if they can’t get it. But, True enjoyment comes little by little, Confidence builds more and more.
What could the worst to be? Can not pass the exam? simply just do it again. If you don’t even try, you will never gonna find out what is waiting for you. If you don’t do the best you can, don’t regret later.
I should say good bye now. it is getting a bit long now :P
Yeah, its great! you gonna learn German too!!! How cool is that. Fantastic~~~