Study Tips:
How To Remember Vocabulary
Knowing words is absolutely essential if you want to speak another language! It’s like the bricks when you want to build a house – there is no use in designing a fancy balcony or big French windows if you don’t have any bricks for the foundation. Learn a few new words everyday! Only rich vocab will enable you to express yourself. Here’s how to make it easier:
· Use flash cards – they seem a lot of effort at the beginning but will save you a lot of time and frustration in the long run – you will definitely thank yourself later. Colour-code them according to the gender (pink for feminine, blue for masculine - and white for neuter or use less predictable colours!) and put the foreign word on one side, the English on the other. If the word is a noun note down the plural form and gender too. If it’s a verb note down any irregularities in conjugation. Also copy out a sentence where you got the word from so you are learning it in context.
· Group words on one card that belong together for you
· Then learn vocab in short bursts – on the underground, on the plane, in a queue at the cashier. Write your 5 daily new words into your diary or have that day’s cards lying on your desk
· If you absolutely cannot bring yourself to make up cards use a small notebook, something you can easily carry around with you. Use German on one page and English on the other, so that you can easily cover up one side and test yourself. As above include all the relevant information on the word as well as a sentence. Don’t be afraid to write the same word down many times – if you still don’t know it, write it down again. One saying goes, “You will never forget what you wrote down nine times.”
· Differentiate between need-to-know and nice-to-know: only learn vocabulary that you really need or are interested in – don’t learn words that bore you just because they are next in a list of words that comes from your course book. Personalise your learning by taking active responsibility for what you want to learn.
· When learning words say them out loud as well as read and write them, this is very important – the more senses involved in the learning process the better. If you are learning on the train or other public places at least mumble to yourself!
· Make the word active by doing it – e.g. when learning nouns (nouns are words for people, places, and things) look and point at, or draw the actual thing; when you learn the verb 'to stand', actually stand up, or 'to think', tap your head etc. Make your own sentences – at least one for every new word – and check them with your teacher. It is very important to learn new words in the right context. "Right context" means, right for YOU. Think about how you would want to use that new word in situations you actually encounter.
· If you find a word particularly hard to remember, use a compare-and-contrast-strategy – look at the word and actively think about associations it holds for you. E.g. notice how a word is unusually short or long, what vowels it contains, if it starts with the same letter as the English word, if it sounds like an English word or any other word etc. Or think of a picture or a sentence that can help you remember it. Take the German word ‘bald’ meaning ‘soon’. An obvious phrase [for some!] would be, “Soon I will go bald”. It doesn’t matter how silly these memory aids are, if it is vivid enough you will never forget the word. You can do the same for the gender, e.g. think how ‘das Bier’ is “a neutral thing” in that both men and women like beer, so beer is neither feminine nor masculine in gender, it's neuter… These are of course not rules, but only your own aides to remembering. Spend some time on each word that you find hard to remember, or each time you find the gender hard to remember.
Tips on actually Using Vocabulary
The idea is to say or write something in German every day! Here is how:
- Write your appointment diary in the language you are learning, count the stairs in the target language, read out telephone numbers and prices in the foreign language, list the things you do regularly in the office: reading email, writing reports, phoning clients. If you lack any of these words ask you teacher!
- Use every opportunity to talk to native speakers, such as friends and colleagues, even if it’s just for short bursts like, “Hallo, wie geht's? Ich habe eine Frage.” The worst mistakes you can make are to be shy or to be a perfectionist!
- Imagine an actual situation where you would like to use the target language and put together a little mini conversation in your head: could you tell a colleague over dinner what you did last weekend? Could you describe the main advantages of your new system to your client? Could you convince the seller to give you a discount using some straightforward arguments?
- Simplify sentences until you can say most of what you want to say - this is very important. You will not be able to say everything in German like you can in English, but that doesn’t mean you cannot say anything at all! Use simpler words and simpler constructions. Break longer phrases into two shorter ones. Only then look up those words you simply cannot do without in a dictionary – but not too many, otherwise you will never remember them all!
- Now practice this piece you put together, be it on paper or in your head, by telling a German friend, colleague, your teacher or even just yourself! It is very important to speak a foreign language. In your head you might sound perfect but as soon as the sounds come out of your mouth the truth will reveal itself!
- Get a dictionary – there is a good one, the Leo dictionary, on the web but it doesn’t tell you which word is the right one in your context. Therefore long term, it is more advisable to get a printed dictionary which gives examples of how to use each word you look up. There are many different ones on the market, get one that has been updated recently, possibly with some specialised vocab for your area of business or interest. Many dictionaries have sections with grammar or with a collection of useful expressions such as "ordering in a restaurant" or “how to express an opinion”, etc. Most importantly, get one that you like the feel and style of, so it makes you want to use it. “The European Bookshop” and “Grant & Cutler” bookshops have a good selection.
- If it seems hard-going at the beginning remember the more your flex your memory muscles by practising, the easier it will get. That's a promise.
Make language-learning fun and surround yourself with the culture from the German speaking countries!
The German experience is more than just the language lesson:
· Enjoy some German or Swiss chocolate - both the eating and the drinking variety (Suchard and Milka are the best in our opinion)
· Relax with a bottle of German beer and a platter of German or Swiss cheeses or treat your friends to a fondue
· Become a couch Kartoffel and rent a German video like Wim Wenders' film Der Himmel über Berlin (1987; Wings of Desire), a very atmospheric account of Berlin and angels observing the then-divided German capital - City of Angels with Nicolas Cage and Meg Ryan is based on this German film! Modern classics are Lola Rennt / Run Lola Run, shot in West Berlin; and "The Lives of Others / Das Leben der Anderen", an atmospheric account of life in East Germany before the wall came down.
· Download some German music either classical or modern. Marius Müller Westernhagen, Herbert Grönemeyer, Münchner Freiheit, Peter Maffay, Rammstein (metal) and the excellent up and coming Fotos , Clueso (rock/pop) as well as more established Die Prinzen, Söhne Mannheims, Blumentopf, and Ärzte (rock/punk) are all perfectly groovy; then there are also Marlene Dietrich and Schubert’s Lieder, Wagner and Mozart’s operas and Bach’s choral music.
· Go native by using German sounds, e.g. say “a-ha!” instead of “I see!”, “hoppla!” instead of “woops” and “auwa!” instead of “ouch!”. Or even swear in German by going, “Mist!” ('manure', but still perfectly polite) when things go wrong
· Get a German book with lots of pictures about one of you hobbies – motor sport, cooking, bird watching... and see how easily you can pick up words when both your previous knowledge and strong interest come together
· use the Internet: a great site of all things German – the culture, famous people, German businesses - is at www.german-way.com. You can also visit German chat rooms on the internet – you don’t even have to participate - to read the latest lingo. Many useful language aids can be found at www.german.about.com.
· Read German literature in the English translation to motivate yourself to learn better German or even better, read it with German on one and English on the other side of the page. Grant & Cutler and the European Bookshop have such books. Recommended: The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann, The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka, Steppenwolf by Herman Hesse and Perfume by Patrick Süsskind
· The most important words: Entschuldigung (I’m sorry), wie bitte? (pardon?), Damen (ladies), Herren (gents), Ausgang (exit), Prost! (cheers).
Useful Links
Grant & Cutler, the foreign language bookshop
German Way, for useful tips on German culture, how to move to Germany etc
German about, for useful language tips
Babel Fish, automatic translation tool (translations come out a bit gobbledegook but do give you a general idea)
Die Welt, major German newspaper, not as difficult to understand as the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung FAZ
Der Spiegel, news magazine
ARD, TV station, bit like BBC1
ZDF, TV station, bit like ITV
Deutsche Welle, radio station bit like BBC World; they have many interesting sub-pages, among others: slowly spoken German news for intermediate German students
Projekt Gutenberg - thousands of German books, complete and in their original, free to read on the web