Published on 12, July, 2020
Hey everyone,
I'm trying to learn German again. I've wanted to learn for years but have always had really bad memory problems. Hence trying to learn it at school didn't go too well, rote learning is tricky, just couldn't retain it, I know that was like a gazillion years ago, but I'm having another go. But puzzling over how the heck to get it to stick in my head?
Any tips?
I store hundreds of number plates in my head of all the cars in the neighbourhood in a wide radius (but only on sight if that makes sense) if you ask me to recite such-and-such's licence plate I haven't got a clue, I have a massive database of groceries & their prices in my head (nightmare when it all keeps going up week on week!) but this language thing just keeps confounding me!
It seems like some information is just sucked in by default, I mean not by choice, where some information you actually want to retain, is like trying to shin up a greased pole???
I used the app Duolingo to learn Portuguese and it worked quite well for me. It works on a simple process of levels for each category where it becomes progressively more challenging but has lots of repetition through interactive questions and speach recognition to get you better at it.
I found the repetition and way they build up the tasks layer on layer gave it time to sink in and then the practive options helped boost any areas you have a weakness in.
I notice you chose German - that is probably one of the hardest of the European languages to learn due to its complex grammar.
Is there a specific reason to chose German and not one of the easier languages?
Hey Iain, thanks for the advice. Well that's a bit of a complex question that brings reincarnation in to the equation! I've just always had an affinity to German. Wish I was fluent! It seems so much more interesting than english. I took 'Spanish for Business' course in higher ed, as I was thinking of moving there at the time. Can barely remember a single word! Tried Portuguese lessons once too - same thing!
You could always try to get a job for a British company in Germany - I ended up spending 3 years in Frankfurt working for the European Central Bank at the time of the Euro introduction and was able to survive for 3 years on almost no German, but plenty of my colleagues took the work supplied courses and learned the language.
Immersion is certainly an accellerant to learning as I'm finding with Portuguese here in Brazil.
If you are a visual learner then the likes of Rosetta Stone is more aligned with that, or if you just want it for vocabulary then some English German visual dictionaries are a great way I found.