I've been working on and off with German since 2010, mostly off(O.k almost entirely off) and recently made the decision to try out LingQ until at least to the end of the year. Sometimes I feel like I'm learning words at a snails pace and things aren't sinking in. I recently went to Google Translate and just started typing in German to see how I would do and really surprised myself, I was pulling up words I didn't know was in there! And from the repetition in the lessons, I've been using a lot of Verals beginner stuff, I was surprised at how the grammar just seemed right and it made sense in Google Translate (which I know doesn't mean much).
I’ve seen a bit of Krashens stuff and am now a much bigger believer in his way of language learning, but I do think some grammar review is a good idea here and there. I’ve become a serial linker here and spend most of my times linking words and listen to the lessons maybe 5- 10 times. What worked for me was to go to lessons under 1 minute under 5% new words, now there all gone, now I’m working on 5 - 10 percent new words with lessons under 1 minute and it works great for me. This may not be the way to go for everyone but with too many new words and little comprehension it just discouraged me. Now I feel motivated as I can understand more. A lot of what Krashen said is true for me(low anxiety and a higher self esteem = better language acquisition) , nothing like experiencing it for yourself as they say you can hear it 1000 times but seeing/experiencing is believing.
Great. I see you made a thousand LingQs in the last week. That is a good amount and if you keep that up, you will notice huge differences in your comprehension. Why did you decide to start learning German?
It was in 2010, when I was at home living with my parents, I have german/austrian and english ancestry and thought I would give german a crack since my dad seems overly proud of being a german and uses the odd german words, but the truth is my great-grandfather came over from Austria when he was 17. So my grandpa, and dad was born here. I find it funny how patriotic my dad is to germany lol. Anyways, I’ve been interested in languages for a while and I think it was watching The bourne Identity when I thought to myself “man I really want to learn german”, I felt a strange interest in my heritage. I went about it very naively, with all the phony programs out there. I started with live mocha and paid for a 3 or 6 month membership I can’t remember. I wanted to learn german, spanish and french and there was this other course said you could learn a language in 3 months, and I believed it, man was I naive.
I wish I would have just started with lingQ and just stuck with it, I would probably be advanced now, reading novels, watching tv/movies, listening to the radio and speaking. I'm not sure if they had lingQ then but its better late than never. Live Mocha wasn't totally useless, but it will only take you so far, even after the course you'd only be a beginner, they clam to take you to intermediate but there's no way. If I did it all over again, I would probably get a short(cheap) Pimsleur course (just as an ice breaker to get used to the sound of the language) Buy a teach yourself book with the CD's. I've heard a lot of good things about Assimil (luca highly recommends it, along with a lot of other polyglots I've read about) And if lingQ were available at the time, I would go there, get a basic membership. After I knew enough words to be comfortable writing I would start submitting writing to lang8, an exchange language site where you correct Natives and they correct you, like they had at livemocha, but its much faster/superior. Then I'd see if I could find a language exchange skype site to chat with natives. I would also try LingQ tutors but only once in a while to see how I'm doing as I could only afford so much, there it is, my 2 cents...or 2 buckets. ;p
Interesting that you mention the 2002 movie The Bourne Identity. I also remember myself watching the movie and thinking “Man, I want to be there (in Germany).”
Ya, at the time I thought it was one of the coolest movies I’ve seen. Rarely am I even not bored at some point in the movie, with The Bourne Identity I found it riveting, the guy is a stud.