3 ms·

I've been living in Austria for 13 years now, and I still haven't learned the language. I couldn't find any German courses that would suit me. I found out I ca

by 4ad 2y ago

I've been living in Austria for 13 years now, and I still haven't learned the language. I couldn't find any German courses that would suit me. I found out I can trivially solve all exercises just by pattern matching. I'd get maximum points on everything we'd be doing, yet I was learning nothing. I've been to many courses. I aced them all, I learned nothing. I even found reading or listening very easy, and not because I understood the material. Thes exercises always asks for some sort of information to extract from the text or dialogue. "How many people were talking?", "where did Max go?", "what was the relation between the people talking?", etc. These questions are trivial to answer even if you don't understand the material at all. I heard 3 people (no idea what they talked about), some dude mentioned Spain (no idea what he talked about), mother and daughter were talking (no idea what they talked about). Writing was also easy for me, at least as homework. Just use a dictionary, and lookup the grammar rules! Yet I don't remember the words or the rules after I'm done with the exercise. The educational materials and the course organization have been totally hopeless for me. How do people learn this stuff? Looking for any sort of advice. Also keep in mind that, just as the parallel comment mentioned, I have work and other life commitments to attend to.

twixfel 2y ago
So why not move onto the next level? I assure you at B2 and C1, the questions cannot be solved with pattern matching.
eigenspace 2y ago
Honestly, it's kinda hard to give advice when it sounds like the fundamental problem here is that you're either consciously or unconsciously trying your hardest possible to avoid learning the language, and resorting to rather elaborate tricks to circumvent classes meant to teach you. Do you have any friends or family who speak German? Maybe a good start would be to try and get them to at least speak some basic German with you. Try to actually formulate German questions and try to think about what they respond with. I know this isn't a great fit for everyone, but I find simply listening to German podcasts to be immensely helpful for me in internalizing the language and learning it in a way that's more organic than rote memorization / repetition. The Easy German podcast is really good and I strongly recommend it.
watwut 2y ago
> Writing was also easy for me, at least as homework. Just use a dictionary, and lookup the grammar rules! Yet I don't remember the words or the rules after I'm done with the exercise. Common, no way this was easy. If you had to look up each word and look up grammar rules each time, it must have taken ages and ages. There is absolutely no way you could do this with longer texts which are part of pretty much all the courses I have seen later on. > These questions are trivial to answer even if you don't understand the material at all. I heard 3 people (no idea what they talked about), some dude mentioned Spain (no idea what he talked about), mother and daughter were talking (no idea what they talked about). That is beginner level questions. That is what you are expected to gather by the start, you do not need to understand everything. Later on, normal (not even good) courses add harder and harder questions, including tricky ones. I mean, even Duolingo was impossible to answer with pattern matching only, because the information you was quizzed on was indirect.
Gerard0 2y ago
Talk, talk, talk. I did a mix of talking together with some basic grammar. Right now I am super fluent in German but still make mistakes. Just the damn articles are a pain. When I hear someone speaking Spanish, my native language, and says a 10 word sentence, everything correct except of an article, I immediately think "oh shit, that's how I sound in German!", haha. Because even if almost everything was perfect, it sounds off. I could have written these words in German but it would have been much harder. As I said, I am much more fluent in German than in English although my English is waaay better. I can read a book and write things down; in German? Hard :o Motivation is really important. I work at Lieferando/Takeaway (courier with the bigass ugly backpack) and I am in charge of showing the workflow to the new hires. It doesn't stop to amaze me how many Syrians who fled the war can speak soooo good. There's all kind of cases. Half of the people hate the country, complain about it and hate the language. So many of them have been here for 5-10 years and their German sucks or just basically doesn't exist. No easy answer but you really have to like the thing and try to talk. Retrieval, retrieval!
wenc 2y ago
Interesting. It sounds like your analytical skills are really amazing which lets you get away with "solving for x". But sounds like your retention and generative capabilities are underdeveloped because you're able to get away with so much through purely analytic hacks. Many gifted folks suffer from this -- they take so many shortcuts because its so frictionless for them to do so (and they are praised for it) but they end up not developing much deep comprehension (unless it's something that really interests them). This is why many gifted kids struggle with having the grit to do deep work beyond the quick solves. Some things just require work, no matter how smart one is. Language production is what you might need to focus on, not "solving for" the language. You might need to use the Feynman method to train your generative skills (which will also train your retention). The Feynman method is a forcing function to train comprehension.

by 4ad 2y ago

twixfel 2y ago

So why not move onto the next level? I assure you at B2 and C1, the questions cannot be solved with pattern matching.

eigenspace 2y ago

Honestly, it's kinda hard to give advice when it sounds like the fundamental problem here is that you're either consciously or unconsciously trying your hardest possible to avoid learning the language, and resorting to rather elaborate tricks to circumvent classes meant to teach you. Do you have any friends or family who speak German? Maybe a good start would be to try and get them to at least speak some basic German with you. Try to actually formulate German questions and try to think about what they respond with. I know this isn't a great fit for everyone, but I find simply listening to German podcasts to be immensely helpful for me in internalizing the language and learning it in a way that's more organic than rote memorization / repetition. The Easy German podcast is really good and I strongly recommend it.

watwut 2y ago

> Writing was also easy for me, at least as homework. Just use a dictionary, and lookup the grammar rules! Yet I don't remember the words or the rules after I'm done with the exercise. Common, no way this was easy. If you had to look up each word and look up grammar rules each time, it must have taken ages and ages. There is absolutely no way you could do this with longer texts which are part of pretty much all the courses I have seen later on. > These questions are trivial to answer even if you don't understand the material at all. I heard 3 people (no idea what they talked about), some dude mentioned Spain (no idea what he talked about), mother and daughter were talking (no idea what they talked about). That is beginner level questions. That is what you are expected to gather by the start, you do not need to understand everything. Later on, normal (not even good) courses add harder and harder questions, including tricky ones. I mean, even Duolingo was impossible to answer with pattern matching only, because the information you was quizzed on was indirect.

Gerard0 2y ago

Talk, talk, talk. I did a mix of talking together with some basic grammar. Right now I am super fluent in German but still make mistakes. Just the damn articles are a pain. When I hear someone speaking Spanish, my native language, and says a 10 word sentence, everything correct except of an article, I immediately think "oh shit, that's how I sound in German!", haha. Because even if almost everything was perfect, it sounds off. I could have written these words in German but it would have been much harder. As I said, I am much more fluent in German than in English although my English is waaay better. I can read a book and write things down; in German? Hard :o Motivation is really important. I work at Lieferando/Takeaway (courier with the bigass ugly backpack) and I am in charge of showing the workflow to the new hires. It doesn't stop to amaze me how many Syrians who fled the war can speak soooo good. There's all kind of cases. Half of the people hate the country, complain about it and hate the language. So many of them have been here for 5-10 years and their German sucks or just basically doesn't exist. No easy answer but you really have to like the thing and try to talk. Retrieval, retrieval!

wenc 2y ago

Interesting. It sounds like your analytical skills are really amazing which lets you get away with "solving for x". But sounds like your retention and generative capabilities are underdeveloped because you're able to get away with so much through purely analytic hacks. Many gifted folks suffer from this -- they take so many shortcuts because its so frictionless for them to do so (and they are praised for it) but they end up not developing much deep comprehension (unless it's something that really interests them). This is why many gifted kids struggle with having the grit to do deep work beyond the quick solves. Some things just require work, no matter how smart one is. Language production is what you might need to focus on, not "solving for" the language. You might need to use the Feynman method to train your generative skills (which will also train your retention). The Feynman method is a forcing function to train comprehension.