Anyone have any suggestions to help learn German faster?

Let's speak English here.
Antworten
deadcat
Slow Speller
Beiträge: 18
Registriert: 20. Jul 2009 23:51
Muttersprache: english

Anyone have any suggestions to help learn German faster?

Beitrag von deadcat »

I've been learning german with my friend using his program, and it works great, I'm catching on quick (plus as a child I spoke it fluently) but I wanted to know if any other suggestions came to mind to speed this up a bit?




Arminius
Topic Talker
Beiträge: 61
Registriert: 13. Aug 2009 00:19
Muttersprache: Englisch
Wohnort: Kansas

Re: Anyone have any suggestions to help learn German faster?

Beitrag von Arminius »

Read. Read news articles in German like at welt.de and such. Read books if you can. For languages that I study, I buy books that I've already read in English translated into the particular language I'm studying. This way I know what's going on in the book and it makes it quite easy to figure out words from the context. If you don't know German grammar very well, I'd suggest getting a good grammar book to help you. Those crafty Germans have some odd sentence constructions! :tongue:
English, Deutsch, Dansk

Keswick
English Legend
Beiträge: 4795
Registriert: 30. Jul 2008 11:20
Muttersprache: Deutsch
Wohnort: Borough of Gateshead

Re: Anyone have any suggestions to help learn German faster?

Beitrag von Keswick »

Arminius hat geschrieben:Those crafty Germans have some odd sentence constructions! :tongue:
Vorsprung durch Technik, Arminius :wink: :tongue: .
Bitte keine Korrektur- / Erklärungsanfragen per PN.
British English (BE) Sprecher.

engless
Bilingual Newbie
Beiträge: 4
Registriert: 21. Nov 2009 15:04
Muttersprache: English

Re: Anyone have any suggestions to help learn German faster?

Beitrag von engless »

Read a lot of comics, Spiderman, X-men etc. Watch a lot of Youtube - look for Dr Who in German. ( and drink a lot of beer )

Keswick
English Legend
Beiträge: 4795
Registriert: 30. Jul 2008 11:20
Muttersprache: Deutsch
Wohnort: Borough of Gateshead

Re: Anyone have any suggestions to help learn German faster?

Beitrag von Keswick »

You're trying to be funny engless?
Bitte keine Korrektur- / Erklärungsanfragen per PN.
British English (BE) Sprecher.

elvisett
Bilingual Newbie
Beiträge: 1
Registriert: 12. Jan 2010 12:31
Muttersprache: German

Re: Anyone have any suggestions to help learn German faster?

Beitrag von elvisett »

What helped me to learn English was to watch english films and especially soaps. That should work the other way arround, too.

yoshua69
Bilingual Newbie
Beiträge: 3
Registriert: 7. Dez 2009 20:01
Muttersprache: Deutsch
Wohnort: Köln

Re: Anyone have any suggestions to help learn German faster?

Beitrag von yoshua69 »

Hi, I think the best wag to learn German is, to speak it. Perhaps with me? Because I want to improve my English and we can speak each other via Skype in German and in English? So please contabt me, if you want. Manuel
Carpe diem!

DanTheMan
Tongue Twister
Beiträge: 27
Registriert: 5. Jun 2007 13:43
Muttersprache: German
Wohnort: Munich

Re: Anyone have any suggestions to help learn German faster?

Beitrag von DanTheMan »

Hello Deadcat!

Here is one of many things you can do to improve your English.

Do you like music? If you do so you should think about getting one of these

A person talks about several situations in German and translates each sentence into English afterwards. In the background they play some nice music. I think it is very funny. Here you can listen to an example.

Again --> it is just one of many things you can do to improve your German. Normally it is thought to learn English but I`ve already heared of people using these CD's to improve their German.

friendly2004
Frequent Typer
Beiträge: 139
Registriert: 8. Aug 2005 15:05
Muttersprache: Deutsch

Re: Anyone have any suggestions to help learn German faster?

Beitrag von friendly2004 »

What has helped me to learn English (faster)?

- I have had pals to write with in their mother tongue.

- I listened exactly to the lyrics of songs and tried to write them down. Then I would check it with the help of the lyrics I found on the internet.

- Reading english magazines, books or teletext. All the words I didn't know/understand I looked up.

- Listening to news or documentations to improve the listening ability

- http://www.busuu.com -- I didn't use it for learning English but for Spanish. And when you really hang in there you will soon notice good results.


Maybe you could tell us a bit more. Like where you are at your learning process, what difficulties you are possibly facing, what you want to achieve, ...

Have a nice sunday

eeboot
Topic Talker
Beiträge: 52
Registriert: 27. Dez 2009 15:09
Muttersprache: Deutsch

Re: Anyone have any suggestions to help learn German faster?

Beitrag von eeboot »

Watch on youtube german cartoon series. The vocabulary and sentence construction is usually kept simple. The most series actually come from the US. You propably will find them in english aswell to confirm the things you understood (or look them up if not).

I was quite happy with reading harry potter books in english. It fitted quite good to me and my current english skill. I was able to understand the plot and had still a lot of vocabulary that i didn't know. I would suggest the same for you with a german version of Harry Potter or any other book you like if you tend to bash up Harry Potter reader ;-).

For understanding the nested sentence construction that may be used sometimes it only helps to listen to it until you understood it. :freu:

Duckduck
Anglo Master
Beiträge: 3687
Registriert: 1. Okt 2009 14:25
Muttersprache: Deutsch

Re: Anyone have any suggestions to help learn German faster?

Beitrag von Duckduck »

Dear friends!

I just checked when deadcat was here last and am sorry to have to tell you that obviously he/she hasn't been for about 6 months. So by all means, keep stating your advice about learning a foreign language but don't expect deadcat - who seems to be just that - to answer...

Miaow says
Duckduck :hammer:
Mein Farbcode für Korrekturen:
Fehler / Stil/Ausdruck / Anmerkung

friendly2004
Frequent Typer
Beiträge: 139
Registriert: 8. Aug 2005 15:05
Muttersprache: Deutsch

Re: Anyone have any suggestions to help learn German faster?

Beitrag von friendly2004 »

Duckduck hat geschrieben:Dear friends!

I just checked when deadcat was here last and am sorry to have to tell you that obviously he/she hasn't been for about 6 months. So by all means, keep stating your advice about learning a foreign language but don't expect deadcat - who seems to be just that - to answer...

Miaow says
Duckduck :hammer:
Gosh, didn't even realise how old this thread is. Quack and thanks ;)

Antworten