Tips for becoming fluent in German from FluentU

1. Make Use of Your German Dictionary

You’re always going to have more questions than answers, and a dictionary helps you make progress in this area and allows more spontaneity in your learning.

If you don't have your own, here are a few suggestions: 

Langenscheidt language learning aids are high quality across the board.

If you want a challenge, the German standard dictionary “Duden” is for you. It’s universally respected and offers the definitive guide to past and current conventions relating to Rechtschreibung (orthography).

The Internet has many free websites which can help you on the road to fluency, including dict.cc (general accuracy, specificity and breadth of synonyms).

Google Translate can also be a useful tool, but refrain from relying on it too heavily. Google is frequently fallible and grammatically suspect, so you’ll need to check for errors along the way.

2. Use your German Textbook

You'll get a better idea of what remains to learn and what gaps still exist in your understanding of grammar and basic conversation.

3. Listen to German Music

Whether you love rock, reggae, rap, folk or fusion, there are German language artists waiting to fill up your music library and steal your heart.

Google around for artists in your preferred genre, get on YouTube and Spotify, see what you like and go from there.

Google radio stations in German cities for your preferred music genres and use their online streaming services.

Get artist recommendations from German music magazines like Spex. Many of them have music available on US iTunes and Amazon, or you can get adventurous and go through the process of downloading music internationally from MediaMarkt.de. [Remember – support the artists!]

3. Learn German Music Videos [on FluentU]

If you want to simplify the research and look-up process so that you can focus on learning, try out FluentU with its interactive captions – click on any word to see a definition, image, and examples. You can even see the word used in other videos.  [I believe you need to subscribe for the amazing caption service. --rsb]

FluentU takes real-world videos like music videos, movie trailers, news, and inspiring talks, and turns them into German learning lessons.  [Maybe you've noticed that I've recently posted quite a few of the items I've found on Deutsch-heute. --rsb]

One of FluentU’s features is

This demonstrates FluentU’s interactive captions in action.

5. Read German Children’s Books

You may like a reminder that I run a German library service. You can check all of the books you see on the shelves out from our classroom!  --rsb   They are charming and fun – plus you’ll gain cultural insights by learning the stories which Germans experience as kids. Some, like the Grimms Märchen (Grimm’s fairy tales) you may be familiar with in their English versions.

Others are German translations of English stories, like the classic “Die kleine Raupe Nimmersatt“ (“The Very Hungry Caterpillar”).

6. Read German Translations of English books

Get your hand on one of the “Harry Potter” books for instance. I'm afraid many of my own favorite titles have walked away in recent years . . .  

[My version of the first Potter film can only be played on a universal DVD player.] --rsb

7. Get a German Sprachpartner (language partner)

Use your GAPP exchanger! --rsb

Otherwise, you could track down a native speaker who’ll meet you for regular conversation sessions, surprising you with sentences you would’ve never extrapolated out of lifeless textbook pages.
Alternatively you could ask a leading German learning Twitter feed for a retweet to help you find potential partners. The language center of the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin even has an online tandem databank. There are options out there no matter your availability.

8. Find a Stammtisch (regular meeting of German speakers)

URI holds a Kaffeeklatsch every week. --rsb   Bored with talking to just one German speaker? Now it’s time for you to find an entire group of them!

Go meet them and learn their stories – many of these people have lived fascinating lives and will be happy to tell you all about it.

9. Follow German Twitter Feeds

 Use spare minutes to get the latest updates on all things German.  (Remember, you can also change your tritter language configuration to German!)  For humor, try

@NeinQuarterly

@mainwasser

@Aus_der_UBahn

@GrumpyMerkel

Learn through newsfeeds:

@SPIEGEL_alles

@dw_deutsch

@LearnXDGerman

Learn through phrases and single words:

@thegermanfor

10. Listen to German Podcasts

Search iTunes for Deutsche Welle and Goethe-Institut podcasts.

One I enjoy is   Slow German
It’s a fabulous way to accelerate learning for beginners and intermediates. The episodes are hosted by Annik, a journalist who lives in the city of Munich in southern Germany. For the absolute beginner, there are podcasts conducted in English which provide a gentle introduction to key German words.

There’s nothing like a good detective story!  In Radio D
 Paula and Philipp are “Radio D” reporters traveling across Germany to investigate several mysterious cases.

You'll find excitement and fun combined when you tune into  German Pod 101
With attention-grabbing podcast titles such as “How Far Will Klingon Get You in Germany?” and “Have You Ever Seen a Blind Fish in Germany?” the German language learner is guaranteed to be hooked from the start.  There are lessons designed for every level of ability, from the absolute beginner to the advanced speaker.

If you have 30 minutes to spare, take a coffee break with Thomas and Mark in Coffee Break German
Mark has a knack for asking the questions to which all students really want to know the answers. Explanations by Thomas are highly satisfying!


Prepare your conversational phrases and get ready to travel with host Stefen of Learn German for Free
which is a series for the beginner, with cataloged episodes covering basic greetings, numbers, ordering in restaurants, travelling on public transport, and so much more!

Programs like Deutsche Welle’s youth culture show “Pulse” and Goethe-Institut’s “Popcast” will also expand your German music repertoire.

Language learning isn't something anyone else can do for you.  As in mastering anything, your own time investment will pay off, if you just let it!  Please share her what works for you! --rsb  

Duden -- mit Englisch

NY TIMES 25 Sept 2013  

By ANNA SAUERBREY  OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR

How Do You Say ‘Blog’ in German?

WE Germans owe the English language a debt of gratitude. If English didn’t lend us one or two little words every once in a while, we would probably call blogs “digitale Netztagebücher” and apps “Anwendungen für mobile Endgeräte.” Even for German speakers, those don’t exactly roll off the tongue.

Such linguistic borrowing has been increasing, as technology both creates its own new words and facilitates the global spread of newfangled cultural terminology. Recently the editors of the Duden dictionary, the German equivalent of the Oxford English Dictionary, added 5,000 new words to its 26th edition, many of them English or of English origin, including “digital native” and “flashmob.”

The Duden has been around since 1880, and this isn’t the first time English words have been added. But the new edition has caused an uproar among linguistic conservatives. After the additions were announced, the German Language Society, an unofficial organization that has tasked itself with protecting the German language, voted the editors of the Duden the “language adulterers of the year,” accusing them of legitimizing the demise of German.

Most Germans are more liberal in their linguistic views and generally agree that the idea of protecting a country’s language is as megalomaniacal as it is futile.

It certainly doesn’t represent the view of the majority of my generation, the 20- and 30-somethings, who generally have a relaxed relationship with both languages. Our parents associated German music with Nazi propaganda and opted for Springsteen-only musical diets, but we embrace the renaissance of German pop and rap lyrics. At the same time, we see no harm in integrating English words into our language.

But the society’s stance has nevertheless touched a chord across German society, particularly among people you might call anti-cosmopolitans: those who feel unable to keep up with an internationalization they feel is being imposed on them.

That the reaction should come now, in a rapidly homogenizing Europe, is unsurprising. The feeling of speaking increasingly marginalized languages is vivid in many parts of Europe, even in countries with large populations of native speakers like France and Germany.

Of course, the motives for defending one’s language differ from country to country. In France, it is part of a quest to bolster the country’s self-perception as a still-functioning colonial power. It is government policy that radio stations must play a certain minimum amount of French music.

In Germany, the driving force comes from the opposite direction. Refusing to accept the internationalization of the German language is a way of rejecting internationalization as a phenomenon. It is a nativist attempt to stand up to globalization.

Walter Krämer, the president of the society, articulated this point of view when he lambasted the Duden for including Anglicisms commonly used by “braggers” — what in previous generations might have been called yuppies. There is some truth in that. The frequent use of English words has become a status symbol, not unlike a pair of pearl earrings or shopping at Whole Foods, a way of showing off your education. A way of saying that your world is bigger than that medium-size country in the middle of Europe that doesn’t even have the guts to support military action in Libya or Syria.

In Germany as in America, it is easy to make fun of such people. But as the German sociologist Ulrich Beck noted recently, cosmopolitanism is a reality, not a willfully chosen identity. There are those who will continue to embrace it and those who will see it as a threat, but it can’t be turned back, even if one insists, as the German Language Society does, on calling a laptop a “Klapprechner.”

As any English speaker fond of the term “schadenfreude” knows, German has its own share of wonderful, untranslatable words. One of those, “Zeitgenossen,” is particularly apt for the moment. If you look it up in a German-English dictionary, you will find that it means “contemporaries,” those who happen to live in the same day and age. But it means more than that. The German word “Genosse,” meaning “comrade” or “associate,” also implies a mutual responsibility.

Thus “Zeitgenossen” share a responsibility toward one another as well as toward the age they live in. It is an attitude that sees languages as complementary, not competitive, and sees the world as a continuum of cultures, rather than a set of distinct borders. It is an attitude I wish more of my fellow Germans would adopt.

Again, English, thanks for “digital natives.” In return, you can have “Zeitgenossen.” It’s yours. Take it. It is a wonderful linguistic paradox that one of the nations that currently struggle with the idea of cosmopolitanism should be able to express it best.

Anna Sauerbrey is an editor for the opinion page of the daily German newspaper Der Tagesspiegel