Alison McNamara
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Where the Heart Is

ALI IN GERMANY
JAVA WITH ALI

German Language Learning

15/3/2020

 
Films
Main Films on Youtube - 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-eDoThe6qo - A1 level
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lg5P2w_Ro1c - A2 level
https://youtu.be/LkufozluseI - B1 level
https://youtu.be/JPrv_TmmnYg - small film

YouTube Channels
Main Youtube Channels - 24h Deutsch
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHpnIL-1QIUyVhdGVJ6rW3A
KonstanzeK
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCN0QV2z7IGymTlzL46xxIjg
Learn German with Ania.                                            https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZwegPHTG4gvnR0WLzaq5OQ
Easy German
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbxb2fqe9oNgglAoYqsYOtQ
Learn German with Jenny
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UClBrbJXNh2sFxOuvH4o5H9g
Learn German today
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbWUtDvkaxhabb6Sc7rucGQ
Learn German with GermanPod101
https://www.youtube.com/user/germanpod101

Netflix - The Big Bang Theory has the most accurate German subtitles that match what they are saying. The guys in work recommended watching everything in German with German subtitles to train the ear and I have tried a lot of other stuff and this was the best so far. I usually pause it and look up some words on google translate and as they are only 20 minutes it works out at 30 minutes to watch an episode with stopping and starting. The guys in work recommended https://www.deepl.com/translator over google translate as well as the algorithm is a lot better for translating whole sentences although it doesn’t keep a history. Obviously https://dict.leo.org/german-english/ is the best and most accurate but translating sentences is harder so I find the deepl one better for that.

Podcasts available online
You can get these either on Spotify or ‘tune in radio’ app. 
GermanPod101 has all podcasts for free on tune in app. it’s good for beginning but translates too much into English and you don’t have to make any effort in trying to understand anything or pause a thing to look it up etc. You can download the PDFs to read along with the podcasts online and if not I can email them to you as well. I have all 1-9 podcasts on my phone as I got them from work as an audiobook for free so goes from beginner to advanced German. It’s good for vocabulary initially and explaining some grammar but not ideal when you want full immersion and defeats the purpose of immersion! 
  • Slow German
  • News in Slow German
  • Coffee break German
  • Audio tutor DW
  • Wieso Nicht - DW
  • Warum Nicht - DW
  • One minute German
  • Learn German by Podcast
  • A flavour of German

Radio stations
  • SWR3 radio station for pop and they do the news 
  • hr-iNFO - news radio station

Songs available on spotify that are popular at the moment
  • Die Immer Lacht - released 2016 
  • Atemlos durch die Nacht - played everywhere especially at all the traditional events here in Germany in the countryside. 
  • Holz - not sure if it’s fully appropriate but it’s meant as a funny song and a lot of Germans sing this in work too
  • Johnny Daeap 
  • Hoch die Hande Wochenende - this is also said when leaving work on a Friday but it’s also a song. 
Playlists available on spotify with popular music
  • ‘Deutschpop’ is a playlist on spotify and there’s a few others. I made a playlist before going to Oktoberfest this year too. 
  • ‘German songs you should know’ - good but some are too far right and a mix of songs from both sides - my teacher in the German class said this. 
Class structure
The class structure for the intensive course was always the same - 
Start of every class we would repeat ‘Deutsch ist einfach’!
  • Read out homework - everyone had a chance to speak aloud even if it was one sentence - everyone had to read aloud. Everything is in German as most people are coming from all different countries and makes it full immersion too. When she explained words she usually drew pictures on the board of what it was and we could look it up ourselves if we still didn’t get it. We’d then be paired and repeat by speaking to each other with a question and answer that she’d give us. 
  • Describe what we see in a picture - there was always a picture at the start of every chapter - auf dem bild sehe ich…
  • Listen to the audio from the book and see if what we described was what was going on in that picture
  • Do an exercise from the book - close test, fill in the blanks, crossword together with your partner - someone sitting beside you
  • Once a week we’d do a language speaking game in groups of four and the exercises for this were at the back of the book and related to the chapter we just finished
Homework
Our homework every week was always one letter to write out and she’d take that home with her to correct and give it back the next day. We were paired with people to do some language exchange daily. Homework was usually the ‘test’ section at the end of every chapter and we’d have all of that page to do or two pages usually the “basistraining” and the test or just the test and a brief to write.

TELC practice tests
We did a practice test for the TELC every week once a week and were told in advance what day it would be on so we could prepare. This was usually the listening, reading comprehension and writing section. She’d mark it and give it to us the next day and go through the answers with us in the class. 

https://www.telc.net/pruefungsteilnehmende/sprachpruefungen/pruefungen/detail/zertifikat-deutsch-telc-deutsch-b1.html It’s similar to Goethe Institut and both are recognised the same for work and the work council. The TELC is paid for by the government or a portion is paid for for all European citizens and refugees too. 

It includes the ‘Leben in Deutschland’ at the end of the three levels A1-B1 course. https://www.bamf.de/EN/Willkommen/DeutschLernen/Integrationskurse/Abschlusspruefung/LebenInDeutschland/lebenindeutschland.html

Apps in order of rating 
https://www.mondly.com/ - the technology behind this is incredible. They use Augmented Reality on your phone so you can see a bird flying in your own room through your phone. It is brilliant. I haven’t used it as much as Memrise but it is impressive and there is an AI person talking to you too. 
https://www.memrise.com/  - learn vocabulary with articles - I used this extensively and can say it is the best app I have used so far. I have created my own cards on it as well and you can take other people’s words and add them to your own course. Memrise has 7 levels of their own and a year subscription is 45 euro at the moment. It is great to learn the words with articles. 
https://www.duolingo.com/learn  & Tinycards zusammen! - for more grammar but no articles with vocab, this gets you talking more as you have to speak aloud but you don’t learn anything with the articles which is really hard then later on when you need to know the four cases. Duolingo has been restructured and the stories are really useful for exercises. It’s been aligned to the CEFR now too so you can see what vocab matches what. I LOVE the Duolingo Stories though - they are great and a separate section on the website. They walk through what happens and it’s really entertaining. 

Goethe Institut - they have stories on their app - it’s good but not great. 
Drops - it’s good but not great. 
DW learn German - A little boring
Tageschau for the regular news, I usually watch that daily
FlashAcademy - not great

For connecting to native speakers - 
https://preply.com/en/lessons for connecting online with a native speaker - there are others as well but I find this really good. This is paid for but some are really cheap and worth booking in advance. 

Apps for all the books mentioned above - Menschen, Schritte neu Grammatik etc have the audio files for the books. I’ve tried a lot of others but this list are the ones I’ve kept on my phone! 
Books
​
https://www.klett-sprachen.de/
https://www.klett-sprachen.de/sophie-scholl-die-weisse-rose/t-1/9783125560246 was the book leading up to the war and comes with a CD to read along to which improved my German significantly. It is aimed at A2 level and an easy read. I was using this during my preply classes with the same native speaker I have kept for the last while. 

A1-B1 level Books for teaching
I had this in my A1 course. 
  • Deutsch als Fremdsprache nach Themen Ubungsbuch Grundwortschatz - Erwin Tschirner - Cornelsen
  • Deutsch als Fremdsprache nach Themen Grund- und Aufbauwortschatz - Erwin Tschirner - Cornelsen

B1 course
  • Menschen - Deutsch als Fremdsprache Kursbuch & Arbeitsbuch - B1.1. & B1.2 - Hueber http://hueber.de/menschen/lernen

Grammar books
  • Schritte neu Grammatik - A1-B1 - Deutsch als Fremd- und Zweitsprache - Hueber  - this was recommended in the SprachSchul2000 in Darmstadt and comes with all the solutions so I am working away on this by myself, same with the one below. 
  • Ubungsgrammatik fuer die Grundstufe - Niveau A2-B2 - Verlag Liebaug-Dartmann - Friedrich Clammer/Erhard G. Heilmann - www.daf-buch.de 

Supplementary material 
The teacher got us to use this and only this table for the entire course - http://www.graf-gutfreund.at/daf/02grammatik/03adjektiv/gr1_deklination.pdf and it incorporated almost everything - she added that if you use dem then the next word would always be en not em and things like that so you could go with the rules then. 
She also gave us this venn diagram. This was the other one that we had and always used the ‘Bewegung oder nicht’ as the rule for using Akk and then she would repeat continuously MIT --- Dativ etc
http://www.graf-gutfreund.at/daf/02grammatik/04praeposition/gr1_praepositionen.pdf




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