1. Introduction
[00:00:00] Welcome to the Better German podcast. My name is Susi Blümel, and I will teach you German and everything around the language, the countries, and the culture.
In this episode, I’m going to go over a few tips that I think are good if you follow, that will make it easier for you to learn German or any language. So, whether you follow my podcast or you’re a student of mine or you’re learning German somewhere else, and follow my podcast, these are the things that are suggested to do that will make things easier.
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2. My 7 Favourite Tips to Learn German
a. Importance of Finding a Learning Partner
Tip Number 1: Find a Partner.
This could be a partner that speaks German, your target language, or a partner that speaks your own language or both. I mean, you can also work with two people.
[00:01:00] So if you find a partner that speaks German, you can help him, learning your language, and he, or she, helps you learning German. Or, you find a partner that you learn German together with. This is super practical, super important, because together you can practice. And you can use and apply what you learned, and this will help you improve your German learning speed and experience tremendously. Another thing is, obviously, it adds accountability. If you are working with a partner and you have times you meet, then it’s a good thing. It helps raising the discipline, it helps putting the time in, and so on.
So that’s also a very, very good point of doing that, and it’s more fun if you’re learning together. Okay, next thing.
b. Focus on Learning New Words
[00:02:00] With or without a partner, My Next Tip (2) is: Focus on Learning New Words.
And particularly when you’re a beginner, focus on learning new nouns. Nouns are words like table chair, lamp, love, light, sun. So, focus on those first. Because they’re easier to learn and easier to practice and then add some others, but generally focused on learning new words. Don’t worry so much about grammar in the beginning. Most courses and most books jump right into the deep grammar, things of life or German in particular. So don’t worry about that too much, focus on learning new words.
c. The Value of Keeping a Notebook
[00:03:00] And then, it’s sounds maybe not very spectacular, but I’m telling it, because I have so many students that don’t do that, unless I tell them to (Tip 3): Get a Notebook or a Binder, and put everything in there, like write it up nicely, write up new words, that you learn nicely, write up everything that you practice nicely and put it in this book or in this binder in sequence. One after the other. That is a very good thing, you will need it.
d. The Power of Practice
Because Tip Number 4: Practicing.
You need to practice much, much, much more. Don’t worry so much about learning new things. Practice the things that you start to understand, to a point where you basically don’t think about them anymore. So, when you learn those new words that I said before, the nouns mainly, practice them.
[00:04:00] How can you practice them? If you have your partner, or even alone, you can point on the different things. Even touch them if possible. And say: der Tisch (the table). die Lampe (the lamp), die Wand (the wall), das Bild (the picture). By the way, these are all words. From Episode number 11, these are all words that we’re actually learning in the next episode (Episode 12 – Learn German Words About an Office or Classroom). These are words from your environment. There is a list of words, like that, that we’re going to learn in the next episode. So come back for that. So, if you have words like that, or you have words like die Nase (the nose) – these are body parts from Episode 6 (Wordlist: Body Parts)- so if you have words like die Nase (the nose), then you can touch it. You can point to it. And another thing you can do is you can make sentences.
[00:05:00] Yes, use as many German words that you already know in a sentence, but you can mix it with your native language or English. So, I would make a sentence like: “Die Nase is small.”
Or.
“Das Bein (the leg) is long.” You can do that because you’re just focusing on this word and make many sentences with every single word. Make so many sentences that you are sure that you remember this word. I don’t know how you tried to learn new words so far. When I was in school, I was sitting there with my vocabulary book and it was trying to memorize it. I was trying to memorize, let’s say, I was learning the word “the table” in English. My native language is German.
[00:06:00] So, I would maybe say, “okay, the table, table to table table. Table, table. I have to remember that – the table. Okay.”
I think we’ve all done that. If you haven’t, then you probably wouldn’t be listening to this podcast, because you would already be speaking German. What do you do instead you take this new word, that you’re trying to remember “der Tisch” and instead of by force trying to force your brain of remembering this, you just use it. You look at your table and you say, “Der Tisch is white. Der Tisch is not big.” Or whatever, you can say about your table or the table that you have right there. So that’s another way how you can practice it. You can come up with different ways of practicing. If you have a partner, you can probably even practice this easier.
[00:07:00] So that’s tip number 4, practice new words. Do that both, as I said with speaking, but also write these things.
🎧Haven’t listened yet? Catch up with Episode 11 for 7 quick wins to learn German faster—practical, simple, workable!
e. Learning Through Movies and TV Shows
My next tip is Tip number 5. Watch Movies or TV shows with subtitles.
You can find movies or TV shows. With subtitles on Netflix, on Amazon, and on Disney+ . So, if you have access to any of them, and you probably have that, if you can listen to this podcast, you can probably get Netflix, Amazon, or Disney+ as well. And you can watch original German TV shows with subtitles. But even if you can’t find an original, you can do something like put on them. For example, a Disney movie, put the audio in German and the subtitles in English or in your native language.
[00:08:00] So even that helps; you can do that. But all three of these have German original movies or TV shows. Now with subtitles, I have an episode coming up, about this one specifically. And how you can use these to learn German. This is maybe something that works best if you’re not a total beginner, if you have learned a little bit of German already, but honestly, it will even work if you are a beginner, as long as you stick with it. I know people that learned German just by watching Austrian TV. Because it was the TV, they liked better than the TV in their own language, in their own country. So, it is entirely possible, and it’s fun. It’s entertaining, you don’t have to be like, “ okay, I’m learning now .”
[00:09:00] You can just watch this TV show with subtitles. Some of my students do it even like that. They watch the movie first in their own language, if it’s available in their own language, and then they switch it to German and turn on the subtitles. You can play around whichever works best for you. Or you can watch a movie that you already know very well and change the language to German, if it’s possible. But ideally, I would suggest to you, watch a movie that is German original and put on English or your native language, if possible, subtitles. So that is something that in itself is super, super helpful, and it will also help you with the speed. Because when you learn German and you just learn it from the books and a little bit in the class, maybe, and then you tried to speak to native speakers, it will be very, very fast in comparison. That’s normal, but watching movies will help you with that.
f. Following the Podcast for Learning
[00:10:00] My Tip Number 6: Follow This Podcast for more.
Basically, if you follow this podcast from Episode 1 ( Introduction to Better German ) on, you have a course, more or less. I’m recording these podcast episodes, more or less in the sequence that I will hold a course. There’s also courses coming up next year, but for now you can just listen to the podcast, follow the podcast.
g. Don’t Worry About Grammar
So, My Tip Number 7 is: Don’t Worry About Grammar.
Meaning you should try to speak correctly, obviously, but do not put so much attention in the beginning on grammar. Communication is way more important than grammar.
[00:11:00] So in the beginning, you need to focus on learning new words, and focus on using them, getting enough practice, and on using them in real communication. And not so much about the grammar. It’s a point of what is more important, particularly for beginners’ grammar and communication, and learning enough words is always more important than learning the grammar. And then once you have a lot of words and you’re able to communicate, then you learn, you improve your grammar, and make sure that you get better at that.
Okay, good.
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3. Conclusion and Next Steps
So, these are my seven tips that will help you to speed up learning German, wherever you are, whatever course you’re doing, or if you’re just learning German by following my podcast, this is going to help you.
[00:12:00] Okay, so stay tuned, I’m going to link to the podcast episodes that I’ve just mentioned that are coming up. The next podcast episode, as I said before, is a word list about things that you would find in a classroom or in a room around you, or in an office space, and the next episode is an episode about learning German with shows with subtitles. I’m going to give you a little bit more information about that, and I’m going to share a few of my favourite tips for students to watch. And then, we’re going to have more coming up, so see you then, stay tuned, and do well.
[00:13:00] If you liked it and it was helpful for you, 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 information as well on https://bettergerman.info/.
So, see you there and see you in the next episode.
Bye bye!
