December Challenge | #1 Week: Improvements and set of activities
Hey there!
As I have said in my first post I want to finish with my A1 level until the end of this month, so that I can start 2020 with a “finished” goal ahead. I am doing this because everytime I get paralyzed as soon as we go for a new year and all my wishes and goals just stay as wishes and goals, because I froze and do anything!
Not this year, 2020! I will laugh at your face!
Being this my first week (from 01/12 to 07/12) I will start by sharing one of the tools I decided to use in my learning, and how I am managing to do it so (my daily and weekly goal).
I am also thinking about sharing some pieces of german learning I am getting from each tool (maybe vocabulary lists, german conversations, and so on), because I find really useful to see some post like this in my dashboard, it’s learning without noticing.
Goals x Tools:
I have decided to go with some small activies, knowing that with less than a hour a day I can have everything done (which makes me feel powerful, ha!) and also if I had a busy day, the chances are I won’t skip it that easily as if it was 2 or 3 hours a day, because it’s just 30 minutes, most of the time.
So here’s my first tool and goal for the first week challenge:
1. Goal: Improve my “basic knowledge” with practical listening x Podcast: Coffee Break German (this link goes to spotify).
When I was learning english everything was pretty quickly because I had too much contact with it (musics, tv shows, movies, etc), I had a rich vocabulary without even trying it, it was natural.
I don’t have it with german - despite the fact that now I’m living here in Germany, I never had too much contact with it before. So I find listening to a podcast that is willing to teach things to use in your regular life (how to order things in restaurant and how to make a reservation in a hotel) a way to feel more confortable with the language.
How I do it:
Step 1: Pick up a notebook, a pen or pencil, sit down and listen to an episode a day (most of the time they are less than 30 minutes!).
Step 2: go to google translator or any other similar tool (I like to use deepL as well).
Step 3: While you’re listening to it, try to type on your translator tool what they are saying (I think typing is better because is faster, so that you can follow their speaking and also my typing in google translator, it checks your spelling, so if you’re writing something wrongly the chances are that the tool will fix it for you and I find it very useful).
Step 4: pause the episode when you feel is too much and then write the information you’ve learned in your notebook. It should be something only to you return back if you forget, to review and etc, it’s supposed to be fast, so I like to use just a pencil and that’s it. First I thought I should do everything colorful and make it pretty notes, but I realized that it was only taking my time, and it wasn’t making my learning any better. But this is up to you.
Why using it?
I like the idea of achieving a goal a day, and in the end of the week and in the end of the month you have a big amount of small tasks acomplished, that together turn to be - in the case of this podcast - 30 episodes of 30 minutes each, with lessons about counting numbers, learning how to say your age, learning how to ask for food in a restaurant, learning the 4 different cases in german, how to ask for directions, etc. And by the end of it, basically in the end of a month, you would have all these informations with you. Just by sitting less than a hour a day to do so.
Then you can say “yeah, I not fluent at it, but I sure know how to speak german.” And the magic just happened.
My status
I am currently on episode 30 of the first season (I didn’t listen all the 30 episodes in a week, I’ve slowly listening to it, and now I’m looking for a consistency), and I realized that I’ve been improving my learning in many many ways. One of them, that for me is the most challeging is understanding someone speaking a little bit better, and also understanding some expressions such as “genau” and “aso”, that in the beginning would make me a little bit confused.
So, my tip is basically: don’t just listen to it, but sit down with a notebook and actually write down. Maybe go back a few times if you didn’t understand as well. And do it once a day.
It’s better than nothing!
Hope you liked this post and have a great week!
PS: I know that Coffee Break German has a paid version, that allows you to have some pdf and premium stuff, but I think just listening to the episodes is enough, at least for my goal - to get more confortable with the language.



















