What should I listen to? Audio books sound tempting to get into, but I feel like they are just way too hard. does anyone have any suggestions?
I have just listened to “Daemon” by Daniel Suarez on Audible in English. Then I continued with listening to the same book in German. I suggest you trying this approach.
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Thanks Sergey! Great idea.
Angelika Bohn book “falsche adresse” , free copy easily available online and there is an audiobook on audible costs like 5 euros. Grammar structures used in the book are not that difficult. Additionally, she used day to day language no archaic words. She recorded the audiobook in a clear voice. You can give it a try. I wish I could read her other books. I thought they worth the cost. Unfortunately, They are available in Kindle format on Amazon but there is a problem with importing kindle books on LingQ at least for me.
P.S: if anyone knows where I can order her books in ebook format, I would really appreciate it.
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Read the book in LingQ. Then listen to it. You’ll be familiar with the language usage and the story itself so it will help to catch many of the words and since you’ll be familiar with the story, you’ll “catch up” so to speak if you get lost…i.e. somewhere along the way you’re going to understand something familiar.
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Not sure if you’re into podcasts, but I’m really enjoying the Easy German podcast. Each is around an hour or so and they touch on a variety of things. They speak very clearly and have pleasant voices, so even when I’m not understanding a lot it’s easy on the ears.
The are tons of other German podcasts. I haven’t explored them all, and most are well above my listening level. I’ve added another to my list “Eine Stunde History”. There’s lots of others on various topics so maybe you can find something on topics you may enjoy.
Edit:
I just went on my Podcast Addict app. Changed the language to search for to German. Went to “+” (looking for new things to add) and clicked “Top Audio”. Tons of different programs on various things.
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For me it was tough to bare not being able to understand most of a podcast or audiobook for a while so I’ll admit I waited a long time before I started to passively listening to stuff. And any podcast that was 90% English and 10% second language felt like a waste of time (basically the (Language)Pod101 content. These days my listening ability is much better so I was able to start doing it for content targeted at lower intermediate learners and now that I’m in the habit of listening to the content I feel comfortable listening to things way beyond my level if I have no other new content that’s at my level or if I’ve at least read the transcript first. So ya, I would say just get in the habit of it at least even it’s uncomfortable to start with. Considering you have 29000 German words under your belt I’m betting you will have way more content you can at least grasp the subject matter than I did when I started at 6000 words.
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Do you know the “Dino” series from André Klein?
Each book contains ten or so short and funny stories about the escapades of a Sicilian learning German in various German-speaking cities. The author produces audio for listening and you can also buy the books. Check them out on Audible, Apple Books, Google Play, as MP3 or on Compact Disc, or you can buy audio and paperbacks from Amazon, Kindle or direct from his website at andreklein.net
The books start with “Café in Berlin” and are now up to the eleventh book with “Lockdown in Liechtenstein”.
André Klein is a serious teacher, so he starts with simplified sentence structures, but there is progressive development, and his aim is always to get you to “appreciate and understand the intricacies of coherent German speech”.
Unlike many “beginner” books these are focussed on adult circumstances and introduce many everyday phrases. Well worth checking out.
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With the exception of Steve’s “The Lingquist,” I never got into the audiobook thing. In the beginning I listened to stuff in the LingQ library (warning: much of it, at least in Spanish, is not that great, but it is bearable if you’re using headphones/ear pieces. Less so if in a car).
Tonight I just finished my 800th hour of listening. More than half of that has been Netflix shows.
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Lower lever Audio books intended for 3rd-6th grade is a great start.
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