German Trip

I went to Düsseldorf for the weekend and then South to the Pfalz. My German language efforts are paying off. I learn much more slowly than I would like to. I forget a lot. But I am understanding more. I can also say things, contribute to conversations, in a very rudimentary way. It is a nice language to learn.

A picture from the weekend:

How I am learning German

I am going to write two posts regarding the learning of German. Writing them in English clearly takes me away of the stated objectives of this weblog. The only reason I do this is because it may happen that someone is also trying to teach her/himself German, and these posts may become useful. So far, no one reads this blog, so I can do whatever I want. There.

These first post summarizes my own journey so far. I cannot say that I have taught myself German. If I could measure how much German I have learnt as a proportion of how much it would take me to know German as well as I know English, I would say 5%. I still know more French than German, but not for long.

Two things could have been advantages --and probably are-- for me. I have been to Germany quite a few times. But my knowledge of the language was close to zero, so I spent all my trips either speaking English or just not speaking or not listening. I had my reasons (lack of time/energy mostly). The second advantage is that meine Frau is German. We always speak English to each other. But I can practice German whenever I want and I can get tips, explanations, pronounciation lessons, etc. This help is hard to compare. However, most of the progress I made involved me sitting down and trying to learn the stuff. I could then go and ask for clarifications, or just practice. But there is a moment in every German language student in which you have to sit down and learn the verbs, the cases and the prepositions. No one can help you with that. It is about you and your butt on your chair.

My first attempt was long, long ago with some online phrase book. Never, never, start learning a language with phrase books. Then I got the Tell Me More computer course. It is very good and super neatly done. It is made up of three CDs with plenty of things to listen to, read, exercises, speech recognition software, you name it. Superb. It does get limiting from a learning perspective. All of a sudden you have to solve an exercise by rearranging sentences or changing the case of pronoun. But you have to do this without prior explanation. And even if you do it right, you do not feel you are learning. It does not guide you properly.

I bought a few German for beginners and German for Dummies books. German for Dummies is popular, but it lacks good explanations and exercises.

If I had to learn German from scratch today, I would use what I am using now. I would get a book with good readings (expect them to be boring). In my case I am using the very old Deutsch Direkt, from the BBC. Full of pictures from the eighties and readings about local (German) farmers. But it does not overwhelm you with grammar and cases. Just read dialogs, learn words, read more. A slow process, mimicking how young children learn a language.

I also have an excellent and short grammar summary. I would advice anyone to get a grammar summary. I use the Paul Webster Grammar Handbook. Very short and concise. Readable and good reference. Try to get any GCSE Grammar summary.

And finally, the best course I have seen for the self taught. The Deutsche Welle page for learning German. Try out course Deutsche Interaktiv. Excellent. Start from the beginning and go all the way through. Very nicely executed interface, good listening lessons, and good vocabulary practice. Also, the difficulty increases very slightly through literally hundreds of mini-exercises. The level is also stanadardized to some European norm. Try it out.

The Deutsche Welle site overall is in general fantastic. You can listen to the news, read news with vocabulary notes. It is a little challenging at the beginning, but you can try the Langsam gesprochene Nachrichten: every day, the news, but read slowly. You can download the mp3 or listen to it online. There is the accompanying text. These people have hit the nail in the head with this.

Sigo con lo mismo

El tema del idioma es algo que tengo presente de una manera que no me pasó nunca.

Porque uno aprende inglés, viaja, se acostumbra ... y cuando se quiere dar cuenta uno está pensando en las cosas que tiene que hacer, contando las monedas, quejandose, todo en inglés. Y no es problema. Al cabo de los años, el inglés es la forma natural de pensar y hasta de sentir.

Esa familiaridad que uno desarrolla con el idioma adoptivo (en mi caso claramente el inglés) se vuelve mucho mas salient, cuando uno emprende el estudio de una nueva lengua. Porque ahora me paso una hora, aprendiendo pronombres y preposiciones en alemán. Y es una hora de navegar confusiones. Y entonces de golpe uno prende la tele y pone algún programa barato de Channel 4 y se da cuenta de lo natural y cómodo que es vivir en inglés. Y es exactamente la sensación que tenía cuando aprendía inglés, o mejor dicho, las primeras veces que estaba inmerso en un entorno donde se hablaba inglés. El inglés se ha vuelto mi lengua materna y el español mi lengua abuela.

El otro idioma que alguna vez supe se ha escabullido hacia alguna parte de mi memoria o tal vez fuera de ella. Aprendí Francés en la escuela secundaria. Y llegué a leer L´Etranger y libros por el estilo. Creo que puedo seguir leyendolo, pero soy incapaz de hablarlo. Estuve en Paris por un par de días y me fue imposible pedir un café en un bar. Una vergüenza realmente.

Pero seguiré así, aprendiendo una horita por día, repitiendo der, den, dem y tratando de aprender los casos y las cosas. El avance es lento y uno se siente con la desprotección del niño que no sabe cómo pedir que le cambien los pañales.

Tal vez algún día aprenda un nuevo idioma, para el cual el alemán será la lengua materna, el inglés la abuela y el español la bisabuela.

Mother Tongue

El problema es que parece que cuando uno aprende algo nuevo, pierde algo de lo que sabía. Hablo inglés todo el día, aprendo alemán en los ratos libres. Y para cuándo el castellano? De a ratos, sí, con colegas Españoles, por ejemplo.

Pero te va costando escribir en español. Se puede, pero es como volver a la cancha luego de años de no jugar. Y se va a poner peor.

Por eso este blog. Aunque ya veremos en qué idioma se va a ir escribiendo.