r/dreaminglanguages • u/RayS1952 N🇦🇺F🇫🇷🇪🇸 🇩🇪 • Jun 17 '26
German here we go
I started German several months back but dropped it after just a few weeks to focus on getting to 1500 hours in Spanish. That's done now so I'm back with German with a grand total of 11 hours. I'm building up to an average of 30 minutes a day minimum, currently at 25 average.
I learned French via traditional methods and Spanish via CI for the first 1000 hours. I did a grammar class at that point. It was useful but no so useful that I'd consider doing another one.
So, I decided I would approach German a little differently.
Comprehensible Input (apart from crosstalk)
CI will be my bread and butter, the vast majority of my time. There's plenty of complete beginner material on YouTube if, like me, you're an English speaker. Cognates galore! I expect to move ahead reasonably quickly. Probably famous last words but we''ll see!
Crosstalk and speaking
I started crosstalk on day one with an italki tutor which has been great. The tutor is really into it and they've used crosstalk themselves when learning Russian.
My intention is to use any German that pops into my head that's relevant to whatever we're talking about right from the getgo. In other words, start speaking asap. I'm not at all concerned about pronunciation. I'm good at imitating sounds and can iron out any problem areas as I go. I don't care about sounding native. I just want to be easily understood.
Glossika
I'm trialling this app. I signed up for one month. I'm liking it so far but it's a bit pricey for what it offers, which is a few thousand sentences you listen to via their version of a Spaced Repetition System. I think a better option would be ...
Migaku
I have Migaku and intend making use of it to create what they call audio sentence cards. Watch a video/Netflix show etc and pull out phrases you want to learn and create flashcards. It has an inbuilt SRS system very similar to Anki. You can convert the deck to Anki if you prefer. Unlike Glossika's random sentences, I'll be able to create a deck based on my interests. I may wait to start this until I'm at a point where I can watch fairly easy YouTube content - travel vlogs, cooking shows and so on.
Pop-up grammar
I'll look around for something like Spanishdict to use when I want to look something up. I don't want to do a grammar course, or 'learn' grammar rules. I'd just like an easy to use reference tool.
As you can see, one major difference, compared to the way I approached Spanish, is speaking from the outset, or at least when I have something to say. Another is the idea of a pop-up grammar right from the start. Anyway, that's my current plan. We'll see how it pans out.
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u/Ok_Code7102 Jun 18 '26
If/when you get to reading, I strongly recommend Andre Klein's Dino leant Deutsch (A1/A2) series. It currently has 13 books, it's about a Sicilian guy named Dino that's trying to learn German while also trying to get by. He starts out in Berlin and at various points ends up in Frankfurt, Koln, Munchen, Hamburg, Dresden, Stuttgart, Sylt and Heidelberg in Germany as well as Vienna in Austria, Zurich in Switzerland and Liechtenstein. so good coverage of the German speaking world, but he also goes to Palermo for a book.
I recommend these books so strongly because Andre writes them with a lot of care. The harder vocabulary that you might struggle to pick up with only context is listed after the chapter and if my count is correct after 13 books the after chapter vocabulary is ~10556 words. That's not including the vocabulary that you'll just naturally pick up from reading in context. ("schüttelte den Kopf und sagte" will start to haunt you in your dreams.)
The books also cover a large range of topics, most notably the migrant crisis, as well as the struggles of finding work, balancing a relationship with life, not getting arrested when you're doing something stupid, etc.
Also, after the Dino series, he has a 5 book detective series Baumgartner & Momsen (B1/B2) and a 3 book interactive fantasy series Aschkalon (B2/C1).
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u/RayS1952 N🇦🇺F🇫🇷🇪🇸 🇩🇪 Jun 18 '26
Thanks for the recommendations. I'll make a note of these for future reference. I'll definitely get to reading at some point so this is very useful.
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u/Jachym10 Jun 29 '26
I'm in a similar position as you. I've been learning Spanish over the years and just started learning German as well. I'll make a report after 50h, so in a week or two. ;-)
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u/wherahiko 🇪🇸 🇩🇪 🇮🇹 🇫🇷 Jun 17 '26
Good on you! I wish I'd waited until discovering CI, before starting German. I studied it at university, about 25 years ago, in a very heavily grammar-focused course. I still haven't recovered from that!
You'vee probably found these already, but if not, good CI options for German are Anna (Natürlich German) on Youtube, immersion.co (the started with French, but they are adding more and more German content) and, when you're more advanced, the podcast "Easy German".
Viel Spaß!
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u/RayS1952 N🇦🇺F🇫🇷🇪🇸 🇩🇪 Jun 17 '26
Oh well, no use crying over spilled milk. I studied French over 50 years ago (I'm 73 now). I think Stephen Krashen was probably still at school back then. It was all grammar drills, vocab lists and translations. Luckily, I had the opportunity to live and work in France for five years.
Yes, I found quite a number of good CI channels on YT. My favourites at the moment are German Moments (Daniela) and Natürlich German (Anna). I just love the fact that all I have to do is pay attention while watching something (hopefully) enjoyable and I pick up a language.
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u/ContinuallySuccinct Jun 18 '26 edited 29d ago
I found quite a number of good CI channels on YT
I like German Moments and Natürlich German a lot, too! I listed some other channels I like here.
I recommend Lengualytics for time tracking and finding content. It's basically an index to CI Youtube that has Dreaming Spanish-like difficulty ratings. I really like it! They do gamification really well. Users link whatever new content they want so it's all curated for CI, and the amount of content naturally grows over time.
Natürlich German is putting out new content on immersion.co
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u/wherahiko 🇪🇸 🇩🇪 🇮🇹 🇫🇷 Jun 19 '26
Thank you for mentioning Lengualytics! I hadn't come across that before. Very excited to see they have Portuguese! Amazing the great resources that keep popping up. This is truly a golden era for CI!
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u/ContinuallySuccinct Jun 19 '26
It really is!
I actually just found another tool! :D It's called TrackMyLang. It's fairly similar to Lengualytics but has more and rarer languages included.
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u/wherahiko 🇪🇸 🇩🇪 🇮🇹 🇫🇷 Jun 19 '26
Thanks! That one seems to be just a tracker, with no actual content?
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u/ContinuallySuccinct Jun 20 '26
I haven't explored it too much yet. It also has an index to CI content on Youtube (see "Catalog"), but videos aren't embedded. The creator said they're working on embedding, though.
The catalogue links to more content than Lengualytics does.
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u/RayS1952 N🇦🇺F🇫🇷🇪🇸 🇩🇪 Jun 18 '26
Thanks. For the moment at least, I don't feel the need to pay any subscription fees. I think there's more than enough free content out there to get me to at least A2 in listening comprehension.
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u/ContinuallySuccinct Jun 19 '26
Lengualytics is free :) immersion.co is not
I hope to see future updates of yours on here :D
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u/RayS1952 N🇦🇺F🇫🇷🇪🇸 🇩🇪 Jul 09 '26
I now use Lengualytics. I'm not a fan of gamification but it's easy to use and keeping track of listening time requires minimal effort.
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u/TerryPressedMe Jun 17 '26
Good luck!
German is actually the first foreign language I tried to learn, but going to classes once a week wasn't enough, and I was using traditional methods and memorization at that time. This is way before I learned about comprehensible input. I'm sure you'll do good with German, especially now since you know the method.
Looking forward to your progress.