Anyone Know A Way I Can Learn German?

[Maximum Zersk]

Okay, last term in school, I was in German class. Now the class is over.

Now, this wouldn't be a problem, if not for the fact that I won't be able to take German next year.

So I'm asking if you guys know a way I can learn outside of school. Do those language programs work at all?

[Brewdude]

Plunk down the bucks for Rosetta Stone or go home. Ain't nothing else like it.

[Malfunctioned]

I've heard very good things about the Rosetta Stone line.

Edit: Ninja'd! :smalltongue:

[Force]

RS is good, immersion is better.

(and by immersion I mean go to Germany, find a place with a bunch of people who don't speak English and live there).

[The Glyphstone]

RS is good, immersion is better.

(and by immersion I mean go to Germany, find a place with a bunch of people who don't speak English and live there).

You'll rapidly learn to recognize the phrase "Hey look, here comes the stupid American who can't speak German" at least.:smallbiggrin:

[Maximum Zersk]

You'll rapidly learn to recognize the phrase "Hey look, here comes the stupid American who can't speak German" at least.:smallbiggrin:

I'm Canadian. :smalltongue:

I think I'll go check Rosseta Stone out. Thanks.

EDIT: I\d get used to saying "Ich bin Kanadian." at least. :smalltongue:

[Dogmantra]

I'm dubious of Rosetta Stone. If it's the same program my brother had to learn Japanese, it's good for basic stuff, but it only has images, and when you get to more advanced things, there are enlightening pictures like a businessman jumping off a table. Is that the word for "table", "businessman" or "to be a businessman and jump off a table"?

[Mando Knight]

I'm dubious of Rosetta Stone.

Well, it works. It's one of the few methods the US uses to teach military, CIA, etc. different languages.

[Dogmantra]

I may be misremembering then, because from what I saw, it was a bit rubbish. Might've been a free knockoff program made to profit from Rosetta Stone's popularity, because it seems rather popular.

And so that I am being productive: I suggest getting books in German, or finding websites that you're interested in and reading them. You'll learn a ton more words than you would in class too.

[Cealocanth]

If you're willing to do kids stuff, I suggest you check out programs on the TV that are based for kids. Watch educational TV that appears on german channels, you'd be surprised how much you'll learn. That'll giev you the basics, but I suggest something more professional for the advanced stuff.

[Force]

You'll rapidly learn to recognize the phrase "Hey look, here comes the stupid American who can't speak German" at least.:smallbiggrin:

Depends on the culture, I suppose. The Thai people thought the crazy Americans who didn't know Thai living in the ghetto was a hoot. You can tell when the market sellers spend more time teaching you words than selling you stuff. Not sure about Germans, though ;)

[Eldan]

At least in switzerland, the default feeling would be annoyance masked by politeness.

Anyway, I'd recommend the way I learned english: get some subtitled TV.


Now, if I only knew any good german TV...

[potatocubed]

If you've got a DS, there's a series of programs called My Language Coach or something - I made pretty impressive progress with the Japanese one just doing it on the train to and from work every day.

[Seonor]

Additional to a course you could watch german television. The Deutsche Welle is available via satellite in Canada and alternates broadcasts in english and german. Here (http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,4290768,00.html) is more information.
Also ARD (http://www.ard.de/), ZDF (http://www.zdf.de/) and Arte (http://www.arte.tv/de) have their entire programm available online. I can recomrend the Tagesthemen and Tatort on ARD, Heute Journal on ZDF and everything on Arte.

[Trobby]

Hmm...I know someone who loves to learn languages. She's in this program, and she's learned quite a bit through it. I'll ask her what it is when she signs on. Though I would at least echo the value of immersion.

[Timberwolf]

I'll just put my oar in if no one minds. This may be a bit controversial.

There is no substitute for immersion. Given that that is not an option sometimes, a lot of people get the language course and use that. However, I feel those don't really help you any, at least on their own.

This is because most of them teach you a load of set phrases and nothing else. Which is fine for showing you've made an effort on holiday and then hopefully the local will take pity on you and switch to English.

What happens when the local cannot / will not take pity on you and answers with something other than what you've learned is, of course embarrassing. If you are limited to "Unser stadt hat alles" and "Morgens regnet es hier immer" when you really want to know where the station is, you're kinda stuffed.

What everyone who learns a language needs is a framework of grammar on which they can build appropriate responses using their vocabulary. To this end, I can only recommend the following.

Use stuff like the Rosetta Stone, it will help you to speak it a lot. However, be very aware of its limitations.

To address these, and make sure you are actually in a position to do a bit more than having pity taken on you, there are a couple of books you should get.

Book number 1 is an oldie, but it's good, I can personally recommend it. It's called "Heute Abend" and, while it was first published in 1938, nonetheless its approach is good, it explains and gives examples. Obviously it is firmly out of print but Amazon.com has a few copies on it. (http://www.amazon.com/Heute-Abend-German-Course/dp/0602205018/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1272206601&sr=1-1) It's great because it gives you exercises to practice with.

The next thing is this. There was a really great book for learning French Grammar called "Mille et Un Points." It's a concise, tiny little grammar book and is invaluable. The German equivalent appears to be this (http://www.amazon.com/Schaums-Outline-German-Grammar-4ed/dp/0071615679/ref=sr_1_fkmr1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1272206475&sr=1-3-fkmr1), a handy, concise little reference book.

[Trobby]

Livemocha (http://www.livemocha.com/). It's not so much submersion, but it is learning to speak the language, while helping another person learn to speak your own.

[Maximum Zersk]

Thanks for the responses, guys.

Right now, immersion is out. I'm not in the position to go to Germany, and I don't really know anybody that could help that.

I understand the limitations of programs. That's why I liked my German Class, since the teacher would explain how the sentences worked. But I'd keep an eye out for stuff like that.

I'll see if I can find anything.

[enigmatime]

Thanks for the responses, guys.

Right now, immersion is out. I'm not in the position to go to Germany, and I don't really know anybody that could help that.

I understand the limitations of programs. That's why I liked my German Class, since the teacher would explain how the sentences worked. But I'd keep an eye out for stuff like that.

I'll see if I can find anything.

Immersion could still be an option with out leaving the continent. Two weeks ago, my German class and I went to a German immersion camp called Waldsee. The actual city is called Bemidji. Bemidji is in Northern Minnesota. The program is actually pretty cool. Depending on how far from the U.S. border you are, you could go there. I don't know exactly how it works for going there but it is a little bit pricey.

[GrlumpTheElder]

Get a German friend.

No, seriously, My German was terrible at the begining of the year, but just by hanging around with a German friend, I've picked up the language (We quite often speak in German, and sometimes I speak in German and she speaks in English, to help her :D.

Edit: I don't know how easy that might be for you, I mean I see her at school but you might not know anyone German.

Maybe find someone German here or on the internet, and talk to them over skype? Might help...

[LCR]

Have a look at the Goethe institutes (http://www.goethe.de/ins/us/lp/enindex.htm) near you. They will be able to provide you with everything you need.

[The Demented One]

Dating Germans seems to be oddly good at this.

[Keld Denar]

Not for learning the language, but a good quick reference guide is www.leo.org (http://dict.leo.org/ende?lang=en&lp=ende&search=). Its a great vocab look-up site that doubles as a thesaurus and also helps with tenses. It was immensely helpful for me when I was taking 300+ level german in college.

I learned it through immersion though, which is great. You do need some traditional learning though. I was comfortable speaking after only about 2 months of total immersion (I was in the old east, not many people speak english there, so learning german was an immediate need). I found once I got better at speaking, though, people wouldn't correct my tenses and genders, so while my vocabulary was pretty broad, my grammer tends to be rather terrible.

Also, listen to german music. I listen to a lot and can recommend some good stuff thats pretty easy to listen to. The 2nd link in my sig has the german version of Die Toten Hosen's Return of Alex, and excellent song.

[Escef]

Had a friend who did Rosetta Stone for German. He did ok most of the time, but he was also somewhat limited in vocabulary. He had to ask people to talk to him as if he were a child or a dog because he had a hard time understanding people. If he'd been watching German shows and sitting down with a dictionary he would have done batter, but that wasn't his job.

[Silverraptor]

Move to Germany.

Next question.

[Remmirath]

Most of the suggestions here seem like good ones, though obviously actually moving to Germany is not practical for most people. :smalltongue:

Not German, but my mom has been learning Japanese (and seems to be doing quite well with it), and she's been doing things like finding games, movies, music, television and all sorts of things with subtitles as well as looking things up. So those are probably good.

I've been using the Rosetta Stone for German (somewhat gave it to me, so why not?), and it seems to me that sort of thing does for the basics - though I'm not terribly far into it, so I don't know how far beyond basic it'll get. I'm certainly a lot better at it than I was before I started.

After I finish with that, I plan to get into the movie/game/book/music thing, when I have some hope of understanding parts of it. I figure if you understand a few words and know what's going on, it's a lot easier to figure out what the rest of it is from context. You probably already know that much, though, if I understand correctly how much of it they teach in school, so not a problem there.

Having somebody around who speaks the language also helps a lot. I imagine even just writing somebody instead of speaking to them in person would help a good deal.

[Escef]

Move to Germany.

I was in Germany for 2 years and knew barely enough German to order a value meal at Burger King.

[katans]

If actually going to Germany isn't an option, I'd strongly recommend a combination of all the stuff that has been stuggested above.
- Meet a native speaker and convince him of a "German only" time with you on a regular basis.
- Watch German TV on the 'net, or watch German movies (with subtitiles first, without later on). Just having TV running while you're doing something else is suprinsingly effective as you get more and more used to the general sound and intonation.
- Check the Goethe Institute. It's the biggest worldwide association for German language and culture.

Be aware that German has a sh*tload of local dialects with very different pronunciation and sometimes different vocabulary. You're going to hear actual Hochdeutsch only on TV and in the region around Hannover. Among dialects, some are pretty easy to get (Berlin dialect, Hamburg dialect, East German...), others are frankly a torture (Austrian dialect, Swiss dialect, South German...).