Learning a Language

[FreddoGoatpants]

I am entering my senior year of undergraduate studies as a music performance major, and plan to go straight on to grad school for a degree in musicology/music history and literature. A requirement for almost all of the programs I'm looking at requires "adequate knowledge" of either French, Italian, or German. I've chosen German, as a lot of the music I'll be studying is German/Austrian. What I'm wondering is: what is the best way to go about self-guided study (don't have the room to take a class) to learn a language? Rosetta Stone seems a little pricey, and all the books and whatnot at bookstores seem kind of cheap...so I'm kind of lost. Does anybody know of a program that (preferably not just listening to tapes/CDs) works well?

If this is at all relevant, (I think) I have decent command of the English language. I know parts of speech and word endings are an important part of the German language.

Thanks! :smallbiggrin:

[raitalin]

Rosetta Stone is pricey, but its also *excellent*. Really, the only thing better is just going to the country in question and learning through total immersion.

[Bouregard]

Buy books in that language. I'm born in germany and learned english via Terry Pratchett books and school. Start posting in german forums instead of english forums works too.

[GolemsVoice]

Buy books in that language. I'm born in germany and learned english via Terry Pratchett books and school. Start posting in german forums instead of english forums works too.

What he said. Try to combine fun with learning. Try finding a German band whose music you like, a band that sings German. Or try registering on a German board, although that requires at least enough grasp of the German language to be able to say something meaningful. Most people´, however, are alwys eager to converse in English should words fail you, and are often also very patient of they know German is not your first language.
Of course, books are always a good way to learn a language. Here in Germany, we have many books for people wanting to learn popular languages (mostly English and French) that are at their skill-level, and I don't know what you think is "cheap" about them. You sure won't read Goethe or Schiller right from the beginning, so you might have to put up with simpler stories, but that's the way it is.

Just vocabulary-wise, German and English do share many similarities if you watch out for them, and English speakers will have a far easier time learning German thatn, say, a Japanese, but I heard that German is still a farily difficult language, as those go. Let me know if there is anything else I can help you with, I find discovering a new language to be very exciting!

[Delaney Gale]

Hopefully this will make you feel better: the classicists and mathematicians I've known have said that a lot of grad schools define "adequate knowledge" as "can read a primary source or scholarly article with a dictionary and a bit of time".

If you haven't studied a language before, make room to audit a class. I can't emphasize this one enough! The real value of classes is partially in the material and partially learning how to teach yourself new material. If you have studied a language before, you're likely set.

Do you have a friend who's taken German and could loan you their text? You could probably work through that slowly and learn the important parts of grammar structure.

Given that you're likely expected to be reading, not conversing, try getting your hands on childrens books in German as a supplement. When I was learning Hungarian, going to the bookshops and looking at childrens books was really helpful.

[RTGoodman]

Personally, I would suggest trying to find SOME way to take the actual German class, at least maybe auditing them or taking them over the Summer or something. At least German 1. That'll get you most of the basic info you need on nouns, verbs, adjectives, tenses, cases, and whatnot. From there you SHOULD be able to get a basic reading knowledge via just slogging through stuff.

When I was taking German (since most Medieval-related grad schools want you to know Latin AND a "modern research language") I listened to a lot of German music (everything from Falco and Nena to Eisbrecher and Rammstein). Children's books are also a good idea, since the level won't be so hard you'll be behind with your basic knowledge of the language.

[Vmag]

Rosetta Stone is pricey, but its also *excellent*.
It's free for me. Really, nobody else can just go to Army Knowledge Online, put in their .mil address, and access Rosetta Stone for free? Huh, weird.

[Delaney Gale]

It's free for me. Really, nobody else can just go to Army Knowledge Online, put in their .mil address, and access Rosetta Stone for free? Huh, weird.

Oh, I WISH. I'm such a language geek, this would be amazing. Not amazing enough to skip out on my house/boyfriend/Ph.D. program, but pretty amazing.

[FreddoGoatpants]

Wow, thanks a ton guys! This is really helpful stuff. And that does make me feel MUCH better that "adequate knowledge" doesn't mean being fluent or anything. That way I can take my time with it and hopefully do it right.

I have one other quick question, for those German speakers out there that might possibly know about Latin as well. I took Latin in high school, and I remember I had a math teacher who was from Germany, and I think I remember her telling me that the cases (nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, ablative, vocative) were somewhat similar in German. It's been a while, but I think that's what she said. Anyone know if that's true?

[Corlindale]

I've never tried Rosetta, but Pimsleur is certainly good. It also suffers from being very pricey, though.

Other than that, my main advice is to expose yourself to the language as much as you can. It's useful to have some basis beforehand, though - whether through some beginner classes or some kind of language learning audio-files. Your local library may also offer some books specially designed to teach the language - the kind they use in schools. These often come with information on basic grammar presented in a gradual and simple way, and may offer a lot of easy to read texts with glossaries attached.

After you have the basics down, get hold of dictionary and expose yourself to all kinds of media in that language. Books, movies and - one of my favourites - videogames (if you like that sort of thing).

Your local library should be able to provide at least the books, perhaps some movies as well - though I think movies are the least useful type of media for your purposes. For games, I've used it to my advantage in studying both German and Spanish that changing the language of Steam changes the language of most of your games - but this obviously only applies to Steam users. Some games also offer language selection by themselves, and German seems fairly common as an option.

Also, as others have said you do not necessarily need anything near fluency to study the academic texts. I guess many of the foreign language texts in a given subject tend to focus on specific vocabulary which you'll quickly get down once you know the basic verbs and grammar of the language.
Another thing to keep in mind is that it may not be all that important to learn pronounciation and the like correctly, if you are solely interested in learning to read the language.

Your place of study may also offer some courses in the language at some point, if you are lucky. I study Philosophy, and one semester we had an optional course specifically focused on learning to read German philosophical texts.

[RTGoodman]

Latin and German are completely different language groups, but there are some similarities. The cases in German will look very familiar to Latin speakers - Nominative, Accusative, Dative, and Genitive. (I don't remember if it uses the Ablative or Vocative[?] - I took two semesters of German and we didn't get that far if it does have them.)

Outside that, I mean, they're similar in that they're inflected languages that have some English antecedents and have the normal language parts (nouns with different tenses, nouns, adjectives, gender, etc.). I was in both at once without any real problems (aside from switching in vocabulary between the languages). :smalltongue:

[Mellifera]

Have you checked your library? I know mine has online courses and Pimsleur ebooks available as well as carrying Rosetta Stone...

[GolemsVoice]

After you have the basics down, get hold of dictionary and expose yourself to all kinds of media in that language. Books, movies and - one of my favourites - videogames (if you like that sort of thing).

While this suggestion isn't bad per se, I really don't recommend movies for a new learner. I have written stories in English, and know and speak the languages without any problems, but movies are still problematic for me. Movies even more than video games and books and music will tend to feature at least some kind of dialect or slang, and speech often goes way to fast for anyone to follow that has just begun speaking the language. Also, games and movies tend to be synchronized horribly. Especially games.

But if you're into video games, why not try some originally German ones? The Gothic series comes to mind, (check the LP in the games section, it uses the German version for it's screenshots.) and the vocabulary shouldn't be too complicated.
And if you're into Role-Playing games, you could maybe pick up a German copy of The Dark Eye (Das Schwarze Auge), or at least the English one, and sign up to a German board. It's quite popular here in Germany, and you will have a common thing to talk about. (Yes, this is blant advertising. The games mentioned NEED all the love they can get :smalltongue:)

[YesImSardonic]

It's free for me. Really, nobody else can just go to Army Knowledge Online, put in their .mil address, and access Rosetta Stone for free? Huh, weird.

Not free. I distinctly remember being taxed.


Also, you can set the language of pretty much any program you use to German. Your OS, as well.