Full transcript
0:00Hello beautiful people and welcome or
0:02welcome back to my channel. In today's
0:04video I want to do a deep dive on
0:06exactly how I learned German until C1
0:09level. I was waiting to make this video
0:11until I get my Goethe C1 certificate and
0:13I have it now, so let's get into the
0:15video. The way this video is structured
0:17is I'm going to give my own tips and how
0:20I did this journey. And also I'm going
0:23to give you some resources that you can
0:25do it for yourself. Some of them I have
0:27tried, some of them I haven't and I
0:29heard from other people. So I will just
0:31link everything in the description. Make
0:33sure to check it out. For me I think my
0:36whole German learning journey has four
0:39pillars and I'm going to go through each
0:41one and explain exactly what I mean by
0:43them. Number one, the most important
0:45thing before we get into it, is that you
0:48guys need to have your own motivation or
0:51your reason as to why you want to learn
0:54German. In my opinion any motivation is
0:57a good motivation as long as it is a
0:59strong enough for you. Because in order
1:01to master a language, any language,
1:04especially until an advanced level, you
1:07need to have some structure and some
1:09discipline, like at least some amount of
1:12discipline. My motivation was very
1:13clear. I wanted to study in Germany,
1:16also work in Germany at some point. But
1:18in my opinion something that really
1:19helps with motivation is when you start
1:21seeing progress. That is really good to
1:24keep you motivated. After you have your
1:26motivation, the second important thing
1:29is to have input from the language. A
1:31lot of people will tell you what you
1:33need is comprehensible input. Now if you
1:35don't know what comprehensible input is,
1:36comprehensible input is basically input
1:39that is a bit higher from your level, so
1:42maybe you're here and the comprehensible
1:44input is here. And so you understand
1:46around 70% of the topic and you don't
1:49understand like 30%. And in my opinion
1:52comprehensible input does help, yes. But
1:55for me personally something that I have
1:57done with almost all of my languages is
2:00that I have a mixture of comprehensible
2:03input and incomprehensible input. So,
2:05basically, I will get some media that is
2:08interesting to me, but maybe I don't
2:10really understand almost anything from
2:12it, and I watch those. I've already
2:15talked about how important it is to be
2:17okay with being really confused when
2:19you're learning languages, and I think,
2:21again, like there are two really
2:23important things that you should keep in
2:25mind. It's always okay to be confused,
2:27and it's always okay to make mistakes.
2:29You'll be making a lot of mistakes even
2:31at an advanced level. Sometimes, you
2:34will make mistakes that you're like, "Oh
2:35my god, I should have never, ever, ever
2:37made that mistake at this level." But,
2:39that's normal. You need to really
2:40mentally work on yourself to be okay
2:43with not understanding the input, not
2:45understanding some grammar topics, not
2:47understanding everything the first time
2:48you learn them. For me, comprehensible
2:51and incomprehensible input should go
2:53hand in hand. My own personal mixture
2:56was 70% incomprehensible input and 30%
2:59comprehensible input. I would just watch
3:00something that I thought was interesting
3:02even if I didn't understand what I was
3:03saying. Almost 90% of the shows and
3:07movies and anything that I watched was
3:09in German, either made in Germany or
3:11dubbed in German. The key here is to
3:13find stuff that are interesting to you
3:16visually enough that you would want to
3:18keep watching. Another thing that I used
3:20to do were books. In the beginning, I
3:23would usually read mangas in German cuz,
3:26again, there is a lot of visual
3:28depiction, and there are tiny speech
3:31bubbles, and you can learn a couple of
3:33words. The third thing that I think is
3:35really important is, and I've talked
3:37about this a lot, grammar and
3:39vocabulary. A lot of people tend to
3:41overlook the importance of grammar and
3:44vocabulary. In my personal opinion and
3:46experience, if you want to even think
3:49about mastering the language at advanced
3:51level, like C level, C1 and C2,
3:54you need to have a spend hours on the
3:58grammar. There is just no way around it.
4:00The same applies for German. Now, I like
4:02I study grammar, I find these long
4:04videos
4:06that are usually in my native language,
4:08and in them the person, the teacher, is
4:11talking about the full grammar of, for
4:13example, B1 in like 7 hour or 9 hours,
4:16right? And I watch those videos and I
4:18take notes. And then later on, after I
4:20learn the grammatical topics and I have
4:23like a whole overview of what I supposed
4:25to do, I go and either I practice, I
4:28make sentences, I speak, or I do
4:30writing, which I'm going to go to that
4:32in the next blur, but the idea is first
4:35you have to have like an overview of the
4:37grammar and how you're going to learn.
4:39Another thing that is on the same
4:41direction for vocabulary,
4:44I usually learn vocabulary in three
4:46different branches. The first branch is
4:48the vocabulary that I'm learning while
4:51I'm learning grammar. If I'm watching a
4:53German grammar video and in the video
4:56they are talking about, for example,
4:58essen as a verb to conjugate, then I
5:00will learn what essen means. And in this
5:02case, it means to eat. So, now I know
5:05some vocabulary that are related to the
5:07grammar. So, the first thing that I
5:08learn is those because I am watching the
5:11grammar video first and I'm learning via
5:15watching the video. The second thing
5:17that I learn is my own personal sphere.
5:20So, for example, I am studying at a
5:22university, I am studying music
5:25production, I love to do music and I
5:28love to paint and write stories and I
5:31like to act. So, I have a sphere of
5:34interest. I will go and learn about
5:37those stuff. And also definitely your
5:39interests, your likes and your dislikes.
5:40So, what is your favorite color? What
5:42sport do you like or do you dislike? I
5:45will make my own personal sphere and I
5:47will learn the words that are related to
5:50that specific sphere in order to start
5:53having conversations. The last pillar of
5:55learning vocabulary is when you go theme
5:58by theme, and you learn around 20 to
6:01like 30 new words based on the theme.
6:03Common themes, this is usually for
6:05higher B until C levels. Common themes
6:08that you will see generally in languages
6:11are environment, society, politics,
6:13things that are happening today. So,
6:15like news, studying, job, interests,
6:19hobbies, your day-to-day life,
6:21scientific research. And I would like to
6:24pick at least 10 of the bigger ones. So,
6:26for me, like society, environment, my
6:29interests, art and culture, job, and
6:31studying, families, and a couple of
6:34others. And I will just learn new words
6:37on the theme. For example, learning on
6:39environment, I have climate change,
6:41environmental protection, endangered
6:43species, global warming, and so on and
6:46so forth. So, you will learn words
6:48related to that theme, and then what you
6:51need to do is the last pillar, because
6:54this will show you exactly what you know
6:57and what you don't know. The name is
6:59active usage of the language. Basically,
7:01whatever you learned in your inputs, in
7:04your grammar, and in your vocabulary,
7:07you will put to use now. Disclaimer is
7:09that when you are trying to do this for
7:11the first time, you will probably not
7:14even be able to speak at an A2 level.
7:17And the reason is it's the first time.
7:19You just need to chill and let it happen
7:21again, and chill and let it happen
7:23again. The active usage, in my opinion,
7:25has two branches. It's either speaking
7:27or writing. So, speaking.
7:31Speaking can be done with a friend, but
7:34me personally, the majority of the time
7:36that I spoke German, it was with myself
7:39or on my phone. Because this is my
7:42personal experience, but a lot of
7:44Germans are very good English speakers.
7:46And specifically, if you start your
7:48friendship with them in English, there
7:50is hardly a chance that you will go to
7:53German, especially if you are at a lower
7:56level. So, right now, a lot of my German
7:59friends send me like German memes and
8:01comedy because there are some things
8:03that can't be translated into English.
8:05And when that happens, we talk in German
8:09for some time. But the majority of times
8:12they're not talking German to me, right?
8:14And this is a common occurrence because
8:16a lot of them do speak English quite
8:19well. So,
8:21for you it would be a good opportunity
8:23to practice, but for them it can be
8:25boring, right? So, that's why a lot of
8:28times you will see that even though you
8:30have German friends, you don't really
8:32have a lot of people to practice with.
8:33Which is why I did a different thing,
8:36and what I did was I started talking to
8:38myself. I would just record record my
8:40voice or record a video. And for
8:42example, I would talk about the what I
8:44just said, like environmental issues for
8:463 minutes or 4 minutes. After that, I
8:48would see the transcription of what I
8:50just said, and I would correct it. So,
8:52especially with speaking, a lot of times
8:55you are making mistakes, and this
8:56happens to me also regularly, that you
8:59are making mistakes that happen because
9:01you're trying to talk spontaneously and
9:03without a script. And it's completely
9:06normal this happen. When you're looking
9:08at the transcription, you can correct
9:10yourself. So, that's really helpful. For
9:12writing, again, writing is definitely
9:14helpful. I would suggest that again you
9:16pick a topic and put yourself some time.
9:20Like in the beginning maybe like 1 hour
9:22and a half, 2 hours, but eventually like
9:25maybe 1 hour for around 200 words. And
9:29then just write and write and write. And
9:31then correct that. And so on and so
9:33forth. If you have a teacher, that's
9:35definitely very more helpful, but I also
9:37think it's possible to do this on your
9:39own. So, that was it for this video.
9:41Thank you guys for watching, and I hope
9:43you enjoyed. See you tomorrow. Bye-bye.