How to learn German fast part 7
How to choose an online course for German/ How to do more fun stuff with German
I am going to conflate both parts 6 and parts 7 of my course about the German language into one single, gigantic post. Firstly I will deal once again with the Internet, but this time talk about some online German courses, both paid and free, and suggest some websites and resources about the German language that you might want to visit, and which will help you in pronunciation, speaking, listening, reading and writing. Having done that, I will go on to offer more fun suggestions on how to improve your German.
By this stage, you should know
why you are studying German and what level you wish to attain along with how long you want to study it,
have mastered the basic grammar and know the basic rules and tenses and cases of the German language,
memorised some vocabulary related to both colloquialisms and what you want to learn or study (your field, basically),
memorised a whole lot of phrases to kick start your language learning,
mastered the advanced grammar rules and the advanced vocabulary,
at least listened to TV Total, Der Spiegel Online, gone to youtube, or surfed the Internet for some available courses to augment your language learning and then now... you need to make some decisions regarding what kind of German courses you will want to take to advance your knowledge, if you want to pay for them, and if you don't want to pay for the course online, then where to find the free materials.
How to choose an online course for German? I have already suggested Linguaphone and Rosetta Stone for language studies in general and German in particular, but there are other courses as well in the paid German course arena, all reflected on my website and also all reflected in my earlier posts, where you can see which online courses and which German courses I recommend (my favourite being Berlitz actually). How does one choose a course then?
For a paid course, I suggest evaluating and having a look through all the options, especially Linguaphone and Rosetta Stone before making a decision to pick one. Maybe you would like to look at the costs before starting an online paid course? Maybe you would like to find out what books and materials are needed for a paid course that is not online? Maybe you would like to find out more about Linguaphone and Rosetta Stone before making a decision about which one is better? Ask yourself questions, and then ask some more. Look around.
For non paid courses, like those I have suggested as free sources online, you don't have to worry so much in the way of costs, but in the way of which sources and which courses online that are free would help me best? One that detailed all the rules of grammar would not be as effective for someone seeking to learn basic communication for leisure and holidays in Germany, and another website that offered lots of quick start phrases would be useless for someone seeking to do the Testdaf.
As a final suggestion, re-read this post and then the How to learn German fast part 6 once again, and then you should have a good idea on how to pick a course online, paid or not, and you should have by now a firm grasp of all the free or cheap sources, depending on your budget. Maybe bear in mind that the more money you pay and the more costs you incur, the language learning will be faster in terms of the resources that you acquire. Some free websites are free but only offer a teaser, and stuff like that, so beware sometimes.
How to do more fun stuff?
There are lots of fun things to be done to improve your command of the German language, and here are some of them suggested by me.
Here's up to your imagination:
Write German poetry and submit them to Yahoo Answers, and see what people have to say, especially Germans
Part of the fun is listening to how the Germans speak and interacting with them, so everytime you meet someone German on the streets where you come from, talk to them... ask questions, say simple things, ask for help and advice
Find something that is fun and enjoyable... after a while, youtube and Ehrensenf and TV Total do get boring, don't they? Take things further. Apart from Nena, there's Yvonne Catterfeld, Annett Louisan, Oli P, and more to listen to; there's the Next Uri Geller, there's all sorts of programmes old and new...
Why just watch and listen to the news with Der Spiegel online? Try a Swiss or an Austrian news service...
Go to your local library and look for German books; or go to your local bookshop and visit the foreign language section
You might want to have an immersion programme in Germany... by yourself, in a class, or with a group of friends!
Join the local German club and be a member where you can share and speak German, for instance, at the National University of Singapore there is the http://die-deutsche-sphaere.blogspot.com/ German society...
Lots more things that you can do, but I don't want to scare away my readers by writing more and more ideas on how to have fun. I am sure that you know how to have fun, and trust me, it's more interesting to learn language this way. Perhaps print out the lyrics to Eve by Annett Louisan and sing along, then try to do it without the lyrics to guide you, and sing by ear. That will help your German pronunciation. Maybe try 99 Luftballons, as that's a very famous song by Nena ... lots to do. Have fun experimenting!
Experiment, experiment, and then experiment again.
HOW TO LEARN GERMAN FAST!
Learn how to learn a language, with lots of fun!
