REAL LIFE. WORKPLACE. EXAM.
How best to learn German
6 questions every German learner must answer
1. How good is your real life German? Are you learning words and sentences that directly help you with your life, exams or work? Or wasting time, energy, money on fake progress?
2. Are you confident with your language to get ahead in life? Interviews? Work place? Friends and contacts? OR is it preventing you from connecting with the life and culture around you?
3. Do you have an ultra focused syllabus? Or are you letting generic learning sources overwhelm you and waste your learning time?
4. Do you have a strong language learning path and method The real competencies, sub skills? or are you stuck not knowing where to start or what is important to get to your goals?
5. Do you understand native speakers well to continue a conversation? Or are you deciphering their first sentence when they are already on their third?
6. Do native speakers understand your German pronunciation or do you think interviewers, customers and others are just nodding their heads politely when you speak?
If you identified with even one of these problems, and finally want to learn German that matters to you, with clarity and confidence,
Then, here is something for you…
Discover & Benefit
If the lack of fluent real life German is holding you back in real life, we can help. Get access to:
Core material without clutter
Fundamentals & foundations, curated for your needs
- Are you sure about your pronunciation?
- Are you able to follow native speakers OR do you struggle?
- Are you confident about formality in speech?
- Do you find interviews and job opporunities slipping by?
- Can you express your needs confidently at a store or an office or street?
- Do you suffer emotionally because of your langauge difficulty?
- Do you wish to feel more connected and get ahead in the German society?
Like a GPS
Skill → Goal
CUSTOM CONTENT & CORRECTIONS
Create a path between your real goals and your current skill level.
Build a feedback loop, know your errors.
Course correct. Reach your unique goals.
Each of us is different. Don’t waste resources on generic German learning and abstract exercises without context.
Gain strong fundamentals and best practices while learning towards:
- what matters to you
- what is relevant and useful in your life
- what motivates you to start and continue
How?
Quality before quantity
underlying skills, competencies
Correct practice makes perfect. When practising, we need to know exactly what to correct. Just repetition, with hope is inefficient.
Length of vowels, exact pronunciation of diphthongs, consonants. While learning useful sentences, make these fundamentals stable.
Remember and repeat is OLD and inefficient learning method.
Instead,
- [MODEL] know what success looks like for your current scope and skill
- [COMPETENCIES] know what is preventing you from reaching there, at a competency level
- [DELIBERATE PRACTICE] learn how to control the sub skills of pronunciation, formality, practical grammar, template sentences to reach closer to your ideal model
What exactly? CORE vs electives
Talking about oneself, expressing needs and preferences, clear pronunciation of most frequent verbs – MASTER these first before ANYTHING else.
CORE
- Introduction: Talking about oneself/ formal & informal
- Real life situations Expressing needs : shopping, offices, appointments, direction…
attributes: size, color, other - Ear training: understand what the other person tells you or asks you
- Most used words – words, nouns, adjectives – pronunciation corrected
ADJUSTED TO YOUR LEVEL learn variations matching your skill – challenging not overwhelming
ITERATE, EMBELLISH each stage of repetition add more details tending towards native speech
FEEDBACK LOOP native teacher corrects and confirms regularly
COMPETENCIES strong fundamentals and underlying skills instead of mindless repetition and scattered syllabus
Everything else can be built on the confidence of these strong foundations.
Can it be done?
Focus – Chunk – Skill
authoritative, trustable teacher
Too much learning material – mistakenly we think the outer circle is what we need to prepare. The best results are gotten by a more focused inner circle. Due to lack of guidance, many of us end up learning the in between shaded part – irrelevant, no results.
Instead, let us define your long and short term goals. Define the ‘language projects’ you need to focus on while avoiding others. Make progress by directly controling the underlying competencies and skills.
Chunk down the syllabus to pieces doable in your real life among other commitments. Each step, trying to close the gap between how you do vs how it is meant to be.
AN AUTONOMOUS LEARNING EXAMPLE
German that matters to you
Collect real life sentences. What you would say in your mother tongue or english in situations you face regularly.
Start translating one or two every few days. Make sure the pronunciation is right. Generalize your pronunciation rules since German follows them across words, unlike English. You will be motivated to learn them, even if it is difficult in the beginning, since you know their practical value.
Get them corrected. Use till 80% confident and correct. Time and repetition is your ally if you make even a slight positive turn each time, regularly.
HOW WILL YOU BENEFIT:
SORTED FOR YOUR NEEDS
Youtube and course or app whirlpool. You waste time, money and effort with no result to show. We add a layer of logic and focus to the chaos, sorting and curating the syllabus strictly to meet your stage and progress timeline. Learn more >>
Half baked results. 1000 words, 100 sentences – mediocre pronunciation not useful with natives nor exam or interviews. Instead learn the underlying best practices and fundamentals to succesful real life and exam or interview German, while learning what matters to you. Learn competencies beyond content >>
Language is culture
Most of our languages express formal and informal variations. In German, formal vs informal has different pronouns and verb forms. Have absolute clarity on this to avoid unwanted results.
Many German usages are understood only in context, used by a native speaker, the situation and its reaction. Learn it as it is, without trying to translate. Slowly we get used to it.
“You talk like a king” corrected a friend hearing a German sentence that I had learnt from a very popular teacher. Learn within or just above your skill level. Learn it enough to express confidently and culturally correct.
How long will it take?
Remember how we will assess your current skill, work out clearly your goals, long and short. We will also list the competencies you need to develop while learning what matters to you.
Then we use error oriented deliberate practice to course correct at each point, making sure you are moving to your goal without wasting time, money or effort. Since we use tested teaching and learning methods, each unit of learning is optimized too.
You will hit small milestones relevant to you, reaching bigger goals. Whatever time you may take, you will achieve you small and big goals with the least money, time and effort because of our focused approach.
Reduce details to your level
You can learn the introduction sentences as basics.“Ich bin <your name>” – what can be more basic?
While learning them, learn the correct pronunciation. German pronunciations are the same across all words, not like in English.
Too difficult? Get the simplified versions to start with. Understand articles, how they change with akkusativ and dativ. Later iterate to more detailed embellished sentences.
Instead of learning random words and sentences, learn basics using what matters to you. Be smart with your money, time and effort.
Take the extra effort, add the extra layer in the beginning to sort and collect syllabus that matters to you. Learn it by reducing level to just above your current skill level, iterate to advanced.
Passing Exams Well
Prepare and rehearse
You will need an exam preparation course to pass exam for sure. Here in Germany, the teachers go between schools to correct each others’ students. So, they really know what you need to do.
Prepare the letters and rehearse the oral part beforehand. Don’t leave it to chance. Don’t be lazy with this.
Very clear syllabus
Sooner or later most of us have to pass our language exams. Stay away from ready made syllabus. Make sure to separate fluff from your exam preparation. Learn only what is within your stage and time frame.
Not all grammar is made equal. Vocabulary lists are useless and confusing since we can’t practice with them. It’s better to be thorough with limited but definitely needed exam syllabus. You will still get very good marks, as long as the basic criteria are met consistently.
Shyam's B1 and B2
Don’t lose marks – avoid my mistakes
The written exam
I suspect I lost marks in the written exam, even though I wrote exactly what the teacher had taught me, because the teacher gave informal sentences in a formal letter for some reason. I didn’t take my time to get a second opinion on it to make sure there are no mismatches.
Yes, teachers know what kind of letters and questions will come for the exam. They may not know exactly which one, buy if you prepare 3 or 5, one of them will be useful.
In the other areas I have lost marks simply because my skills weren’t upto the mark then. After the exams, spending time with native speakers, the formal education was used and converted to real life ear training and being able to converse with emotion, naturally.
Preparing for job interviews? Have a strategy. I’ve seen success by group sending template emails which are customized for specific categories of your possible job givers. Customize response when someone replies. Fach or expertise related words, subject vocabulary etc can be learnt to your specific needs. Contact for more information.
Culture shock is real
Culture shock experts recognize four different stages to the process – honeymoon, negotiation, adjustment and adaptation. After a few weeks or months of euphoria in the new place, we enter a stage of frustration, being conscious of our language inabilities, cultural incompetencies or lack of confidence.
Each of us have our unique cultural and language needs – one size fit all German learning will not work. Autonomous learning encourages the learner to create their own syllabus – learning what matters, while learning the basics and inner workings of the language.
We will help you do that – shorten the learning stages, learn the cultural and language aspects of German while learning what you can use in real life – not abstract and generic exercises, not fruit or animal names, not 100 different sentences with wrong pronunciation that a native won’t understand.
We will use recall, sort a tight and curated syllabus exactly meant to take care of your needs in a new country – avoid the psychological suffocation as much as possible, sentences you can use from day 01, giving strict attention to pronunciation instead of wide mediocre learning.
Learning hierarchies, instruction scaffolding & autonomy
Beyond remember and repeat German learning is unnecessarily difficult with apps and resources that focus on remembering and repeating 100 or 1000 sentences, without underlying structures, commonalities, comparisons. When learning with us, we will use the learning hierarchies and proven principles of instruction design for concrete practical learning.
Your next 1% Know where you are to what your goals are. Place a scope for your learning, what you can do within the next few months. Now look at the underlying lead measures that will move the needle for you. Your next 1% skill and competency that changes your German abilities.
Scaffolding, recalling vs stuffing We learn poems and languages best by trying to recall, fill up the blanks, not just mindless repetition. We will help you with instruction scaffolding – just needed brain squeeze for active learning.
Flipped classroom & corrections Different people, different pace of learning. You get structured content. The active interactions will take care of the errors you make, corrections towards your real goals. Instead of wasting time, we make sure competencies are acquired as best as possible.
Feedback loops and error gaps Theoretical learning and hobby language learning has the disadvantage of not sounding the way the language is meant to. Using group or recorded or 1-1 feedbacks, you will correct the pronunciation and cultural implications, not just more words.
Autonomous learning The student takes more initiative in the learning process, in the decision making. What matters to the student is given importance: real life vocabulary and usage, job related phrases and learning, interview or other needs. The fundamentals are made strong by learning pronunciation and other underlying aspects thoroughly.
learn by corrections
Rocket to the moon: course correct and reach.
Error oriented deliberate practice: start from where you are, know what to learn, keep correcting till you get there. Feedback loops:
Asynchronous You are busy – life, job. Record what you have learnt, send us the audio, we will send you the corrections and the clear next step. Practice the next step, repeat… till we have all gaps filled up.
1-1 and group calls Regular work. Accountability. More support at getting things done. Get your pronunciation, sentences, learner path corrected regularly.
Course correct Join a relevant course. Add asynchronous audio corrections or group and 1-1 call corrections for a perfect progress mix.
BENEFIT FROM INSTRUCTION DESIGN EXPERTISE
THE USUAL MISTAKE
Content dump & Database approach Avoid the mistaken notion of more is better. Half baked bread is wasted time, effort, money.
Selected and curated material, learnt deeper to understand commonalities and best practices will help your vertical skill growth. At the new skill level, you can widen your repertoire.
Make believe progress Misplaced gamification and rewards can disturb serious learners with real life needs. Assess your learning based on errors and real life feedback. Learn the competencies that matter regardless of what you are learning or the purpose.
Quantity vs quality Instead of learning wide and mediocre, create a focused syllabus that matters to you. Build strong foundations by learning the underlying competenices, pronunciation, relevant sentence structures, best practices while learning what matters to you.
Efficient learning: feedback loop & error closing
Focused syllabus
Not text book, nor gamification. What is your real life need? Exam? Interview? What is your current stage?
Underlying Competencies
Not just quantity, but quality of pronunciation, sentence template understanding & cultural context knowledge
Project Manage your Learning
Instead of content whirlpool, Create and manage your learning: used in real life, for you, at this stage.
Your personal curators
Shyam & Martina have proven track record learning & teaching (IIT JEE, cultural) + get results systematically.
LIFE HAPPENS
Accountability & real life Even if we know WHAT to do, we need expert help with HOW to do it an actually DOING it.
1-1 Guide Fix classes according to your schedule. Match with a teacher. Fix a focused syllabus. Reach your custom needs using measurable goals.
Asynchronous learning Recorded corrections. Practice when you can. Send recording to teacher. Get expert corrections.
Immersion & peers The best way to learn languages. From whereever you are, using our group calls and team work.
Self paced with support Access our real life courses made with instruction design expertise. Use for exams and interviews too.
Need your custom learner plan? Get in touch with a friendly guide.
Know how to proceed:
Your need & skill based learner path
- Is there an exam or intervew you need to pass?
- Is there any language or culture goal or skill you need clarity and help with?
- Learn to focus, chunk and do deliberate practice
Let us know.
Email: team@germanwithlove.com or use the form.