So, I've tried doing this in the past before but with a lot a failure. Nevertheless, I will continue trying to make a group!
REQUIREMENTS:
1. C1 to Native level in English.
2. Be open to group calling and 1 on 1 calls. The best way to learn a language is to SPEAK it. SPEAK IT!
3. All levels in German welcome, even natives. This Group is for teaching/practicing so natives are more than welcome to join! (Wir brauchen euch!)
4. Have fun!
Time Zones might be different so please post your time zone for reference, so that we wont bother your sleep, for example.
IF YOU ARE INTERESTED MESSAGE ME YOUR SKYPE.
Viel Spaß!
NOTE: I'm not intending to spam or get ALL my views from iTalki.
I'm providing in this video many helpful tips for learning a language. I use German as a base example through out the video as reference.
PLEASE!
Share with me any different opinions or methods on how YOU learn a language to contribute to this discussion!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XxYP6diGWwQ
Hello everyone! I'm not sure but if you click right now on community, you'll see "Language Hacking"
Basically there is this guy known as "The Irish Polyglot" and he has found ways to "Hack" a language. I have not seen him speak another language and I'm not going to hate on him just because he can supposedly speak a lot of them. But I will however give some advice that I think people should hear first before buying his products.
1. THERE IS NO SUCH THING OF "HACKING" A LANGUAGE
This is number one because people do and need a number of things to happen with language learning. Language learners want to learn a language FAST! We all do, admit it, we do, but the thing is that Language Learning Resource Providers such as "The Irish Polyglot", "Rosetta Stone", etc all, to some degree, want to make money. To make their "Fast" ways to learn products sell, they OVER-EXAGGERATE every thing. "Secrets", "Hacking", "Top X-Ways to learn", and "Fluent in X-Days" are all example of how desperate these sellers are. They make language learning look too easy, which of course appeals to people who just want to learn the language fast...not efficiently. People think these so called "Ingenious" "Ground breaking" and "Perfect" products are the key to learn a language in an unrealistic amount of time. I can't stress this enough: "THERE IS NO "RIGHT", "PERFECT" WAY TO LEARN A LANGUAGE" There just isn't and this is being said by someone who has bought these products to know that they all are border line SCAMS. Too expensive, too vague or unclear on major grammar explanation, too much technicality with "mouth position" "tongue position" or some other useless time wasting "tricks", and/or, I've never seen this, but God so help me if I do, they can be STRAIGHT. UP. WRONG.
2. MINDSET OF A FLUENT PERSON
Just start learning the language! It's THAT simple! There is no "easy" way out! You HAVE to make mistakes! You HAVE to practice! You HAVE to learn by reading, writing, speaking, and hearing! You might even HAVE to learn with large vocabulary list..only if you want to get fluent, and fast! You should NEVER expect anything to make sense in a language. IT'S A DIFFERENT LANGUAGE! OVER COURSE IT WON'T MAKE SENSE! People always say "Oh why is it like this!? It should be like this!" That right there is someone who does not like the language that they learn and they only learn it to impress friends or they have family who speak it or that they have ZERO respect for the language for what it truly is. This type of mindset is EXACTLY what these language learning companies want! They want some random desperate person to buy their product, just to make money, so they appeal to people who see a language as a puzzle that is solved in a certain way every single time, and not as a living breathing thing that evolves and changes based on history, culture, or other reasons. This is pretty much a mind set of "I WANT IT NOW AND IN MY WAY" which, by the way, ALMOST NEVER WORKS!
All in all, just find a system that works FOR YOU. If it takes a while to learn a language...SO WHAT! It happens, and there is really nothing you can do about it. Start with duolingo, move to something else if it's too repetitive for you, find free online resources to study, speak with natives who also speak your language at a high level, ANYTHING other than buying some horrible product that cost an arm and a leg.
Sorry if this was too long of a read, but I'm just sick and tired of people treating language learning like a bunch of children. I hope you enjoined and if you have different opinions, PLEASE comment so that I may see all view points. Thank you.
This was posted by me in another discussion but I thought it would be a gut separate discussion.
Every thing people usually don't do, I do to learn German, or French.
I LOVE big lists of vocabulary with one or two definitions of the word with maybe one example to help me get the context. I end up learning 20-50 new words a day, and that's only because I love lists and that they work for me.
I understand that some people need exercises in order to learn new vocab, but I honestly don't understand the point of them. Exercises tell you a context in which to write in, but in reality you will NEVER know which situation or context you will be in, therefor sometimes you have to MAKE your own context without referring to a past exercise.
I also love knowing EVERY SINGLE WORD. Some would say "That's stupid, just learn the ""common"" words" well I see where they're coming from but as stated above: You NEVER know what situation you'll be thrown in, so it would be embarrassing to know what you want to say in your mother tongue, but because you said "I don't need this" you might be misunderstood, or worse offend someone.
Also I avoid articles that have the words "secret", "(number) of ways to...", and "master...in X amount of months". Most of them are, inaccurate, vague, not well explained, or they try to make you buy something that has really horrible information, or at worse misleading and just straight up WRONG.
Other than the articles, I'm not saying all other ways are "wrong" ways to learn a language, they are just what works for me, and because of the mind set of "You never know" I became about 3/4 fluent in German in a year, with 0 "Secrets" Just pure hard work and dedication.
This group is for beginners of German, who have a decent knowledge in English.
I'll be there help you out with: grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation, and studying skills with great resources for learning. I'm a native English speaker from America. Now first off, Americans, yes, are prone to having a bad pronunciation. I however do not have this problem. I'm almost fluent i would say, even when I'm not in the mood to speak.
I hope to see some people in this group!
WHO'S IN?!
I understand that with a language comes a country and a culture. But when i hear people say "OH I LOVE [some language] CULTURE" I'm a bit confused and bothered. there is a threshold that says "hey these are two separate cultures" when it's crossed. For example: I as an american can not really say I LOVE British culture; to an extent yes i can but the only differences between British and American culture are the accents and vocabulary.
But It makes sense when a Japanese person LOVES, for example, Mexican culture, because they are quite distant. I just don't understand why people put so much emphasis on culture and barely put in the time to actually LEARN THE LANGUAGE. In my view I think people should spend 90% of the time on the actual language and 10% on the culture, IF they are for example learning German and they are Polish.
And Americans who "love" Japanese culture would never just talk talk, and talk about the culture until you get annoyed, they would speak the language 65% of the time and learn the culture 35%.
I'm not sure if anyone else agrees but what do you people think?
