Based off of the A2 rubric, I’ve decided that I’m no longer A1+, but instead A2-. I haven’t mastered all the required A2 skills (so I’d likely fail any real test), but I’ve got enough A2 level skills that I think A1+ is selling myself short.

I’ve picked up significantly more songs from Spotify, especially by focusing on translated Disney songs. Disney does offer very high quality songs that I already know. Of all the Disney songs I’ve listened to, I’m finding that the Lion King, Tarzan, Princess and the Frog, Tangled, and Frozen, seem to be the best songs. At least in my opinion.

On an “Anki” perspective, I had a big review this Monday. I dumped all of my remaining vocabulary into Anki and had a 500+ review session day on Thursday last week. Which of course followed up with 200+ review session days for Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. That got me enough practice that I feel like my review session/test was done well on Monday. Because I feel a bit burned out, I prevented any new words from coming into my Anki reviews for ~3 days (Monday/Tuesday/Wednesday). I don’t feel so burned out any more so I’ll add new cards starting Thursday.

I enjoyed “Herr von Ribbeck auf Ribbeck im Havelland”, though I don’t fully understand it yet. I’ll probably watch more of “Die Maus” moving forward.

https://www.ardmediathek.de/video/die-maus/herr-von-ribbeck-auf-ribbeck-im-havelland/wdr/Y3JpZDovL3dkci5kZS9CZWl0cmFnLTI0ZDA1MWExLTBlZTgtNDFiYS05Njc4LWEwZjBjMDFiM2Q4MQ?isChildContent

Thank you. English was indeed turned off for some crazy reason.

I did check for Undetermined before making this topic… But I forgot to scroll down also check English lol.

It looks like everything is working again.

Oh, one more thing. There are also “Grammar Workbooks” which consist of hundreds of pages worth of drills.

If you are a nerd, these hundreds of pages of exercises might be more important than reference material. Buying a workbook so that you can DIRECTLY write on the pages and try immediately is also helpful.

Grammatik Aktiv by Cornelsen covers A1 through B1 pencil-and-paper drills. Very dry stuff but it kind of works…

You need a separate textbook to know what order to learn things (it sounds like your Goethe Institute course covers this). You need additional reference (Basic German: A Grammar and Workbook covers this, a 2nd clear perspective focusing on grammar). Finally you’ll find that various bits of your speaking + writing skills suck.

Using Grammatik Aktiv exercises to drill on your weaknesses just makes sense. Maybe an intensive would try to complete the whole book but uhhhhh… self study means you get to choose when you’re done with exercises lol. Do as much as you see fit.

Grammatik Aktiv is however, 100% in German. You probably need to wait until you are A1+ before you buy Grammatik Aktiv, if only so you have enough vocabulary to even figure out what the drills are asking of you.

Maybe your A1 goal should be to learn enough German so that you can start Grammatik Aktiv, lol.

Basic German: A Grammar and Workbook by H. Schenke.

It’s short. Too short. Too few exercises and only covers material up to A2+ or so. But at only 200 pages, it’s so ridiculously short!!! One of the fastest reads you can do on this subject.

As long as you use this book as an auxiliary, it’s great. It’s not a primary lesson material, it’s to help explain other books / other lessons.

There are 1000+ page comprehensive grammar books. But beginners shouldn’t use those. Instead, using a purposefully short book that covers wide all the basics is best for a beginner IMO.

Copying others is the easiest language exercise you can possibly do. Just listen then parrot them.

So don’t just listen. ALSO repeat, either in your minds eye or even out loud if you don’t find it embarrassing.

Although I don’t understand every word… the A2 level “Kurz und leicht” section of Deutsche Welle is surprisingly readable to me now (!!!). At least, today’s story is working out quite well.

https://learngerman.dw.com/de/30012026-kurz-und-leicht-video-nachrichten-zum-deutschlernen/a-75729803

I still need to look up around 30% of the words in the article. But notice: the page has definitions (albeit definitions in German). I can understand some of the definitions (and for the definitions I don’t understand, I think its a good learning opportunity to learn more vocabulary).

My Anki Deck is seriously too full and getting very difficult for me to push through as it is however. So I won’t “study” this new vocabulary from this source. Instead I’ll take it as a more “passive” kind of learning. I’ll probably forget all these words by tomorrow, but I’m almost stressed out from the amount of Anki flashcards I have to do already… so I really don’t want to do anything to add to my current workload.

Once I’m done my classes, maybe I’ll add these words to Anki and study them seriously. But while I have classes and “normal” vocabulary words to get through, it really doesn’t make sense to increase my work (or homework) load.

I cannot “listen” to Kurz und leicht yet. I mean, I can try but its not sticking at all. I can only read (and read at a relatively slow pace at that). But now that its “comprehensible input”, I can probably start working up the speed-ladder and work my way to understanding this stuff through listening.

Reading is always the first skill you unlock at a level.

Hmmm, I need to raise my daily routine to 10 new words/day minimum again. I’ve realized that my classes are adding about +60 words per week. 5 new words/day (10 anki cards per day or 35 new words/week) just isn’t fast enough to keep up with my classes… and I actually have ambitions to do “better than my classes”. (I have pronouns to learn/drill, numbers, new songs, etc. etc.)

I’ve also begun to put some grammar into Anki flash-cards. “Everything” can seemingly become a good flash card with enough creativity and though (not necessarily a reversible card, but at least a “one-way basic” card). When Anki is my tool, everything I’m learning seems to be a “flash card” I can organize with Anki…

Anki’s true superpower really is hand-crafting your own cards that work for you. Only YOU know what songs you’re listening to, what books you’re reading. Your vocabulary (and grammar) Anki cards really need to be created and customized to your daily life and routine.

Alice: Schön! Los geht! Wir sollten uns von dem Theater um 14:30 Uhr treffen.

Note: Wikitionary entry for “treffen” suggests that the standard usage of the verb is “Wir treffen uns”, as it is a reflexive verb. However, we have a modal verb “sollen/sollten” here – sollten … treffen complicates this but I think the reflexive-uns goes here?

I’m going to make a summary thus-far (using the “most correct” form made thus far…)

Hans: Hallo. Ich bin Hans.

Alice: Hallo Hanz! Am Wochenende habe ich veile Freizeit. Magst du das Theater gehen? Ich will Hamelton sehen.

Hans: Ich gehe gern in das Theater am Wochenende, obwohl Hamilton zu teuer ist! Hamilton kostet über 500€! Welche Theaterstücke sind billiger?

Alice: Naja. 500€ ist zu teuer! “Wicked” kostet am Sonntag um 19 Uhr nur 150 €. Geht das?

New sentence from Hans:

Das geht nicht. Obwohl der Preis nicht schlecht ist, müss ich Früh am Montag arbeiten. Der Preis um 15 Uhr ist 170 €. Dürfen wir um 15 Uhr gehen?

Hmm, I’m realizing I’m using a lot of stuff from my A2 lessons and A2 classes. Although I’m at A1+, I’m obviously trying to practice my new lessons closer to A2 level. Strict adherence to the “level of German” doesn’t seem too necessary… as long as we’re in the rough ballpark.

Good info. Hmmm. I think I’ll go with your sentence exactly. It all looks to be A1+ level to me, and if its more clear + natural to a native, then that’s even better.

Alice:

Naja. 500€ ist zu teuer! “Wicked” kostet am Sonntag um 19 Uhr nur 150 €. Geht das?

Could you tell me what the English sentence/meaning was that you had in your mind and wanted to translate? If it’s something along the line of “I like going to the theater on weekends, despite Hamilton being too expensive!” then disregard everything below this point.

However, if your intention was something more like: “I’d like to go to the theater this weekend, but Hamilton is too expensive!”, let me know, then I have some additional thoughts on the sentence.

The second paragraph is indeed what I was aiming to say. However, the subjunctive mood (“I’d like to…”) is seemingly above-and-beyond A1 or maybe even A2 level. I could of course study subjunctive mood and build such a sentence… but I’d be leaving the bounds of this exercise (A1+ level roleplay).

So my priority is to “Stay within A1, maybe A2-” (meaning not to use the subjunctive mood).

I guess that means I’m “forced” to accept the former (ie: first quoted paragraph) meaning as the true meaning. If only because of the skill-level issue. I’m having enough trouble with simple-past and indicitive as it is!

Hans:

Ich gehe gern in das Theater am Wochenende, obwohl Hamilton zu teuer ist! Hamilton kostet über 500€! Welche Theaterstücke sind billiger?

Further weaknesses identified:

1. Although I “know” A1 stuff such as every pronoun (nominative, genative, accusative, and dativ), I’m “slow” to come up with some of them. (ihr vs ihm vs ihn vs ihnen). I’ve decided that adding these as one-way Anki cards is my best chance to drill.

2. Although I can count to numbers up to 1-million in German, I’m also slow at it. So slow in fact, that reading the time (ex: 13:45) in a sentence interrupts me and forces me to start over. Its not sufficient to “merely” be able to read numbers, you must read them with such speed and accuracy that your thought process is not interrupted. Especially when working on harder grammar (ex: verb-last subordinate clauses, seperable verbs, dativ vs accusative details, etc. etc.).

The solution is just more Anki. Speaking practice identifies weaknesses, but its drills that can remove those weaknesses with more precision / speed than wholesale speaking practice.

EDIT: Speaking of Anki… with my focus on speed recently, I’ve pushed my average time from 11s per card down to 5s per card. It does require more focus though to go through the cards this quickly… but I’m better able to work with larger volumes of cards now.

A bit of a bumer note: the USA Snowstorm is forcing me and my teacher to meet over Zoom. It will be so much worse than usual, but better than nothing.

Alice:

Na ja. $500 ist zu teuer! “Wicked” ist nur $150 um 19 Uhr an Sonnetag. Das geht?

Ooophh. I think my A1 level vocabulary is hurting me here. I’m basically trying to have Alice ask for the 7pm show on Sunday, since Hamilton was rejected by Hans in the last sentence. Also yeah, these are the rough prices for Hamelton vs Wicked last time I checked NYC Broadway, the shows there can be stupidly expensive!

“Das geht” I’ve used in class as “that works for me”. I’m hoping the question form (“Das geht?”) is usable? I don’t really know though. Formally it’d be “Geht es das?”, but this is also a casual phrase that probably can’t be manipulated by formal grammar. I’m searching for a simple phrase for “Does that work for you?” (or really, trying to give Hans the opportunity to respond with “Das geht” next sentence).

DeepL did recommend the verb “kostet” btw. “ist” is how the sentence was formed originally with my own level of German. It does seem to flow better to use the verb kostet.

Thanks!

So corrected:

Hans:

Ich gehe gern in das Theater im Wochenende, obwohl Hamilton zu teuer ist! Hamilton ist mehr als $500! Welche Theaterstück ist billiger?

I’m changing the name to Hans. Apparently I’m very bad at spelling in German.

Hans:

Ich gehe gern an das Theater im Wochenende, obwohl Hamilton zu tauer ist! Hamilton ist mehr als $500! Welche Theaterstück ist billiger?

Is the correct preposition “an (akk) das Theater” in this case? I feel like it is but I’m not 100% sure.

Obwohl looks like a subordinate clause so I’m using verb last form. I’m not very good with mehr vs sehr either so if someone could double check my sentence structure that be great!

EDIT: I might have to use the subjunctive mood for the above statement actually. But that’s well above the A1 level I was hoping to keep this exercise to…

On the other hand, openly admitting to monetizing AI slop?

We don’t need this here. Banned for 5 days.

This article is junk if you took the time to read it. It was a waste of my time to evaluate it. The reason I don’t want to ban AI slop is because not everyone has the skills to tell slop or not slop.

But if you are the fucking source of this shit? Get the fuck out of here. You are not welcome here.

Alice:

Hallo Hanz! Am Wochenende habe ich veile Freizeit. Magst du das Theater gehen? Ich will Hamelton sehen.

Heterogenous scheduler support for big.LITTLE CPUs seems like a big deal to me, especially with the Advent of P+E core Intels.

A few weeks of in person tutoring has shown me exactly what my weaknesses are and what I really have to work on. Alas, it feels like a step back rather than a step forward, but I know this is mostly a psychological issue.

Learning about weaknesses is more important. I’m probably making more real progress than my psychology believes.

I’ve explicitly enrolled for classes because I knew my speaking skills sucked. They still suck but now I know the problem. More importantly, I’ve learned the importance of trying to form sentences of my own accord.

To correct this issue, I’ve been advised to start talking to myself (!!!) in German… and start trying to think in complete sentences, etc. etc. You cannot learn sentence construction and conjugation with paper work or exercises, you have to just make sentences over and over again.

A few weeks ago, this would have been impossible. I didn’t know enough vocabulary to talk to myself. But now… I can. With help from Wiktionary and other English-German dictionaries.

I shared some of the children songs with Learning German discord, and some B1-ish people were talking about how some of those songs felt challenging. So indeed, children songs can vary from A1 through B1, don’t be discouraged by the kid nature, some truly are more advanced than they look.

I did accomplish a new feat this past week. Upon listening to 99 Luftballoons, I suddenly realized how none of the lyrics-rhymes work in English. Then I realized that I knew this because I’m actually beginning to learn the German lyrics (to the point where I can sing some of the simpler lyrics: like the 1st verse while it’s still slow).

In particular was my sudden realization that it’s neun-und-neun…zig Luftballoons. (She has a bit of a pause in German before saying -zig). Plus all the nearby words that rhyme with zig/sich/Ich/mich/dich/veillicht . This absolutely cannot and never will work in English, it’s something that can only be appreciated in German.

So I did accomplish a new listening feat. It may have been an entire lifetime of listening to 99 Luftballoons, but now suddenly I’m truly beginning to understand it.

I’ll probably spend the next month working on vocabulary so that I can truly learn 99 Luftballoons. (I finished the vocab practice with Lagtrain German cover by Jinja, but it’s grammar is too difficult for me to comprehend even if I know the individual words).