1. Welcome
[00:00:16] Hello, my name is Susi. Welcome to the Better German Podcast. This is Episode 1. I will tell you a little bit about who I am and why I’m starting this podcast series, and what you can expect from it.
2. It’s All About Learning German
[00:00:37] I am a German teacher, but my vision is to help more people than I am currently helping learn German.
Sometimes learning German becomes too complicated, and people give up as they find it very difficult. My students have the opportunity to learn it a little bit easier, and they enjoy it, and I enjoy helping them. I want to help more people like you to also have this experience.
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3. A bit of History
[00:01:11] My native language is German. I was born and raised in Austria, and I am proud to call it my home.
I have been a teacher for about 18 years. At the end of 2005, I came back from the
United States. I had done my education, not only as an English teacher but also as a trainer. After this training, I started teaching English, and shortly after that, people asked me if I could also teach them German, and so I started teaching German. However, to be honest, in the beginning, I didn’t like teaching German so much, and it took me quite some time to find good materials. I have a colleague who worked a lot there, and I also developed a lot of materials myself. After starting to use those materials, I finally started to enjoy teaching German because now I could teach German using the same approach that I was using before in my English classes. A few years ago, in 2018, I started to mainly focus on teaching German.
[00:02:24] So far, I’ve been teaching courses or individual students either live or online. Presently, I’m only teaching online, but I have come to the point where I said, “Okay, I want to help more people,” and this podcast is one of the steps in that direction.
4. How It’s Going to Work
It’s going to be a weekly podcast. As of now, there’s going to be one episode every week. For example, there’ll be one week where there’s going to be some teaching, e.g., I’m going to teach and give you a list of words. In another week, there’s going to be some more general information, e.g., “how much grammar do we need?” and so on.
[00:03:08] In the beginning, the teaching is going to be more geared towards beginners. But there will be stuff for any level of German. You can look at the podcast titles and then figure out what you need.
When I’m giving explanations or giving you information about German-speaking countries or Austria, I’m going to speak English, and I’m also going to speak some German.
5. My Vision
[00:03:39] My vision is to help all learners of German learn this beautiful language without unnecessary complications or difficulties. Sometimes, in my experience, it has been made unnecessarily complicated to learn, and I want to help you discover a German learning experience that is without these complications.
6. Upcoming Episodes
[00:04:07] Let me know if you want something specifically covered or if you have specific questions, and it can maybe become the topic of an upcoming podcast episode!
[00:04:19] To just give you a little bit of an idea of what I have planned, some of the upcoming episodes are:
- We’re going to cover “The Reasons To Learn German.” (This one is live at the same time as this episode.)
- A few Keywords About German or a German Course.
- An Introduction To Learning German in different aspects of what you can do and what you need to do. Particularly, an introduction to how I teach.
- Then we’re going to have a first-word list, a Wordlist About Body Parts.
- And then I’m going into How Much Grammar We Need at what level of learning German?
- We’re going to cover How To Introduce Yourself.
- What are articles? The small words “der, die, das” or “a” and “the” in English. Just a small introduction.
- Later on, I’m going to give you part two of “What are German Articles?” and why we need them, and how to learn them.
This has been interesting for many students, because I’ve heard the complaint from many German students that this is what gives them the most trouble. So I’m trying to take some of the troubles away.
- Then I’m going to give you My Favourite Tips To Learn German for free.
[00:05:32] I’m also going to go over the different methods of learning German. In this case, you can do a course, learn by joining a group, or pair up with somebody else. You can also get an online course, and I’m going to go into what the different pluses, minuses, or the different aspects of each of these methods are. So, if you are unsure which one is the best for you, go into this episode that explains it all.
[00:06:01] This is just a small idea of the next few episodes coming up. Go to bettergerman.info/podcast, and there you will find all the upcoming topics and when they’re scheduled. You can also go to a specific episode by going to my homepage, on bettergerman.info/ -, and then inputting the number of the episode after the slash. This means for every single podcast episode, there is going to be a separate page on my homepage. Not only can you listen to every episode right there, but you can also listen to it on the usual places where you find podcasts. You can also download a transcript as well as find the show notes, complete with the links. Some of the episodes will have additional downloadable materials with the links to download them..
7. I Can Help
[00:07:21] As I mentioned before, after I did my training, I started teaching mainly English, and I loved the method that I was using. It took some time and a lot of work, which my colleague put in, for Better German to come to the point where it is now. This is how I got to effectively help students learn German.
I want to give all this hard work to as many people as possible. So if you’re learning German, or want to learn German, or have tried to learn German, I want to help you, and I will help you – if you give me the chance – to achieve your goal.
8. Action
[00:08:50] If you liked this episode and found it helpful, please share it with other people and let them know that this exists. And if you are looking for a course and you want to learn German online, then you can, of course, find all the info as well on www.bettergerman.info.
