What Intentional Language Study Actually Looks Like
I have the great privilege of being partnered with/living with a pretty fantastic German teacher who is endlessly patient with me. In an effort to be more organized with my language learning, I stumbled onto the graphic below in a reddit post and she helped me turn it into concrete actions I can take when I want to put in the time. I wanted to share it with Langblr because I’m grateful with the inspiration it provides me and I hope if people have concrete steps they can take then more people will post in this tag to keep me inspired! Selfish I know. :P
(Click on it to enlarge it, it’s easier to read that way)
Language Course/Language Grammar Study
For people looking to learn using completely free materials, this is the section that will be the hardest from what I can tell.
Her recommendations for me were to use a book we have on German Grammar Drills she found for cheap at Half Price Books. Each section opens with a little bit about the grammar rule in question and then is followed by several exercises. She recommended I take notes on the grammar section as if I was trying to explain it to someone else. Then perform the grammar drills on a separate page or make a copy so that I can redo the drills later if I need.
We also have other books on Verb, Pronoun, and Proposition Drills that she’s picked up over the years and she recommended a similar course with them.
After doing the exercise, she recommended using a German graded reader (mine is Cafe in Berlin), a song, or a German book and looking for examples of the grammar rule in action. I can copy the sentence, underline the relevant part and label it.
After that she recommended producing sentences with the grammar rule itself either with vocabulary I’m learning or as a part of language journaling - where you journal about your day in another language (maybe using a site like lang-8 or by hand).
Language Core Vocabulary
Here again I’m very lucky because my partner found a frequency dictionary at Half Price a while back and it is unendingly helpful. But frequency word lists can also be found for free online.
Here I’m slowly working through making flash cards both digital and physical for the first 1,000 most common German words.
I am also collecting words from my reading/listening practice and turning them into flashcards too.
She will occasionally give me vocabulary lists for related topics when I ask her to. They’re usually related to conversations we have the most frequently. And I turn those into flashcards too.
Basically, make flashcards and review them.
Making labels for things in your house in the target language helps too.
I have a graded reader I’m using called Cafe in Berlin. It’s an ebook and it’s fantastic. I highly recommend looking for something similar in your target language if possible.
We also have some German children’s books that I’ll be using eventually. She got me The Little Prince in German for Christmas since it was a text I’d read in English and French.
My goal is to someday be able to read through Siddhartha in the original German as it’s one of my favorite books.
I also use German news sites to get used to reading that style of writing in the language. I’ve got a few German comic books on my wishlist.
Basically find texts in your target language that aren’t super outside of your level. Note grammar rules used. Write down vocab you don’t understand well and add it to your vocab system. Review it when you do your vocab time.
If you’re studying a fairly well used languages, a lot of times the government of the country most associated with the language will put out learning materials for free online. Germany is amazing with this and is honestly the best out of any language I’ve studied.
One series I’m using for listening practice is called Nico’s Weg that follows a guy who speaks next to no German (with an inexplicably perfect accent) who lost his bag and his passport when he came to Germany and his trials and tribulations to get the bag back and reunite with his aunt who he came to visit. It’s kind of bizarre but it covers a lot of good ground. It’s got German subtitles and people speak slow so it’s perfect beginner’s practice.
Try to find a graded video series in your target language. It might take some googling but many have them.
I also will use News in Slow German when I’m slightly further along since being able to listen to that kind of information is important in a language.
For my french, I found Le Petit Prince on youtube as an audiobook and I’ll be using that to review. Look for children’s audiobooks, especially classics, on YouTube.
My partner is also a big fan of song dissection where you listen to a song through and try to write down as many of the lines as you hear them. Then look the song up and try to sing along with it as you’re able.
With all of these, translate the words you don’t know and add to vocab.
Here I’m very lucky, I usually just strike up a conversation with my partner and see how long I can last.
But for reviewing French where I don’t have a conversation partner anymore because of my mom’s stroke, she recommended reading aloud.
For people who are further along, she recommended finding questionnaires (her suggestion was specifically for RPG characters and the like) and answering them out loud as if someone has just asked you it as a question.
Another option is to read a text and have an imaginary conversation with someone about it out loud. You could ask a character questions, perhaps make up their answers.
The point is to practice spontaneously producing the language out loud.
I hope this helps other people like it’s helped me. So often language learning just felt so vague and I had no idea what to even do. Having concrete actions like this along with how much time to spend on it and what to focus on has made a big difference.
