Practicalities

Hi All

Was looking at the Survival lessons on all levels. Lots of practical stuff, but also a lot of words I will never need.

While we were in Germany, I had to haul out the manual for the car, as my husband needed some information. It was all in German, a huge fat booklet. I managed to get to the correct section and cobble together some of the information. I feel that we could do with some practical lessons on cars. Should Rocket ever want to add to the survival lessons. 

Improvisation and being able to get a general gist is great. I was looking for very specific stuff . 

So even a level 4 with more technical stuff would be wonderful. 

Would happily subscribe to that

Maxie

Hi Maxie

It would be nice to have a level 4, but I am not sure that Rocket would think it worthwhile. I wonder what proportion of people even complete level 3.

I think that once you get to a basic level of grammar, volcabulary is impotant.  For example I have made a set of flash cards with everthing I can think of related to food, fruit, veg, meat, cooking stuff. I have thought of doing the same with car parts or anything else that might seem useful.

I used Anki but Quislet etc would work.

I have been watching crime shows on German TV and have picked up a lot of crime related words, I am not sure how useful that's going to be. :-). However it is good for comprehension as the dialog is usually more delibate and relatively free of slang.

HI Simon

My vocabulary is growing in leaps and bounds. I am using Seedlang for vocabulary and to review. Using it for French and Spanish too, but am concentrating on German. I subscribe to Coffee break and in that they have travel diaries and a longer podcast called magazine. So much content there. one can access the podcasts for free, but I deemed it worthwhile to subscribe as wanted full access to notes and vocabulary. I also subscribed to their Coffee Break club. Access to 4 languages and the content is really good to. A subscription not a 1 off. I waited until they offered a really good discount. The magazine takes German to a new level. Some very interesting stuff. The first one is about the crime show “Tatort” 

You may want to listen to it. There is a bit where a subscriber asks a question which is annoying, so skip that. 

Have a good day 

Sharon

I have watched some of the Tatorts and they are great. They have German subtitles and you can watch them on https://www.ardmediathek.de/

I also like SOKO on zdf.de - they mostly don't have subtitles. I found SOKO Wismar good, WIsmar is a small town and things move a bit slower there.

It's amazing how much you can get of the plot you can get from the video and a few words of dialogue.I find it a goood way to practice hearing full speed German and you learn lots of useless phrases such as Er wurde mit einem stumpfen Gegenstand erschlagen. :-)

Simon

Hi Simon

Needed to translate that, as had no idea what the meaning of that sentence. I haven't watched any Tatort, but will at some stage. I enjoy European productions and we watch a lot of British programs. Here in Canada our viewing is focused on North America. Including our news. 

I still get the DW newsletter and find I am understanind more of the content. When in Germany we went to the Spreewald. Just a lovely place. DW published an interesting piece on that. As I said I use CoffeeBreak Magazine and Travel Diaries and that has expanded my voculary a lot. 

The challenge is always in the speaking and formulating sentences. 

Would love to spend more time in Germany, but the thought of those long flights not fun. With delays cancellations etc. Philip reckons he is not taking a flight ever again. He probably means it too. I will have to go on my own and that doesn't sound like much fun. He is a fun travelling companion, except at airports, but he makes me laugh.

Sharon

Even that useless sentence (he was hit (and killed) with a blunt object) has useful bits.

stumpf - bunt and der Gegenstand - object, are common words. 

There is the passive tense and the “er” verb prefix which here means he was killed by mean of hitting. And then there is mit followed by dative.

I like DW as well, but I haven't tried seedlang, I think it is linked to Easy German isn't it?

We have my German partner's daughter and 26 month old grand daughter staying with us at the moment. They were supposed to go home yeterday but the air traffic control computer failure meant the flight was cancelled. Now they are leaving on Friday. The kid is already bilingual and her English has improved dramatically in 2 weeks. It's incredible how quickly they absord language at that age.

Simon

Hi Simon

Yes Kids do learn quickly, but I think it is because they are not shy to make mistakes. I feel that way about my Portuguese. I am not scared to speak even though it isn't grammatically correct. 

Have never felt I have been dismissed due to that and people understand me. Not even Philip corrects my grammar. 

One thing I find interesting. I have Afrikaans South African neighbours, lots here in the valley. Mostly medical. They speak English, but with less of a South African accent. They speak with a Canadian one. So words like dance and aunt are spoken in Canadian, but they have very strong S.A accents when speaking Afrikaans.

Seedlang is linked to Easy German. Using that has increased my vocabulary. Some words just won't stick, so repeated timed intervals help. Normally small insignificant words rather than impressive ones. Like ironing board is easy, words like sogar and gueltig no so much. I got a free trial, but decided not to cancel my credit card payment, as I use it for 3 languages. Will probably renew in a year.

Keep well and enjoy your German

Sharon

Hi all!

Thank you for your suggestions, Maxie! I will pass this on to our development team :) 

In the meantime, there is a lesson on car maintenance (including car parts) in the new Play the Part lessons so be sure to check it out if you haven't already!

Viele Grüße, 

Julia

Danke Julia

I have got play the part, but have not got to the new section yet. I love Play the Part series, so practical. The first one Kaffee und Kuchen came in handy in Germany. My children don't speak any German and they were at the bakery everyday. So I got to speak, that said some of the things had difficult words to pronounce which caused much amusement.

Luckily I was not self conscious and forged ahead anyway

Maxie

Kein Problem Maxie :)

German bakeries are great, aren' they! 

Tschüss!

Julia

Hallo zusammen,

My finest moment, in ~1980, in using spoken German, was when I went to an auto parts store and successfully purchased Stossdamfer for my VW Rabbit.  It involved a phone call and having the chassis number fuer mein auto und also das Baujahr.  It was one of my most triumphant moments trying to speak German in the economy!  It felt great.  Although there was the time when I spent a Saturday driving around Muenich in search of Augustiner Brau.  I found a Gasthaus, but the owner was Greek and spoke German, but not English.  We made the purchase in German!  I will always remember this moment fondly.  I love all languages!

Golly, I  love this forum and course.  I think I may have died, und ist im Himmel gegangen!

Tschuss,

Elko Ed

HI Elko Ed

I know exactly what you mean. It is empowering when you can hold your own in a language you are learning. My finest to date was in Dresden during the summer of this year.

My family wanted to hike the Maler Weg, 7 of us and my husband rented a lovely old house with all the mod cons. The property manager was Russian and spoke no English. 

When he came around to introduce himself, my adult kids looked like deer caught in the headlights. I needed to ask about garbage, recycling and basically find out about paying for the electrcity. Managed with that and then we chatted about how long he had been in Germany, his grandchildren etc. Was quite delighted with myself. There were hand gestures as well, I might add. 

Happy learning

Maxie