Any cunning linguists here? (German)

[mikeymikec]

I'm trying to learn German again (my wife is German, I am English), this time I've been using Duolingo. I've got something like an 80-day streak with it so far and it's been refreshing my GCSE-level German plus some vocabulary here and there, but the real problem I find with Duolingo is that its method of teaching is like:

translate this (variation on a sentence you've previously been shown) into German
No, you got it wrong. This is what it should be.

But in the case of learning proper grammar and sentence structure, simply pointing out what a particular sentence should be isn't that helpful without also teaching why or at least going into how German sentences are typically constructed, like the difference between asking someone a question like:

Do you have to work early tomorrow

and

I have to work early tomorrow

(that's probably too simple a sentence but it probably contains the correct number of complicating factors)

My wife bought me a German grammar book and I pulled up the section talking about cases (nominative, accusative, genitive, dative), and admittedly I tried reading it late at night so I'll probably try again with a fresh brain, but my brain promptly went WTF and then I watched the Latin grammar scene from 'The Life of Brian'.

My wife says she can't help because while she picked up good general grades for German (first language) in school, she flunked the grammar section and says she just has "a feel" for it without understanding it.

I'm wondering if maybe I just keep re-practicing the sections I've had trouble with then maybe it will sink in without me necessarily understanding it either, but when Duolingo just wraps my fingers and says "wrong" repeatedly, it starts getting tedious (as well as free users only having 5 'lives' which can bring a learning session to an abrupt halt) and wears away my enthusiasm/patience.

 

[sdifox]

Err ask your wife?

 

[Paratus]

I could text my former German exchange student and ask but the DuoLingo Owl says I have to do a lesson right now.

 

[SteveGrabowski]

How much grammar do you know in English? Not how much you know to be able to process and create sentences, but how many explicit grammar rules do you think you could write down on a piece of paper right now? Not too many I would guess. So why care about learning a bunch of German grammar rules? I mean WTF does genitive case or dative case even mean?

Maybe go back and review a college freshman level textbook for German just to ensure you have a bit of a base to build off of but after that it's just going to take lots of hours of reading German, listening to German, and speaking German, as explicit study of a language can probably only take you to that base level. No one has time nor the brainpower to think about explicit grammar rules when watching a movie, reading a book, or especially talking to someone in real time.

 

[SteveGrabowski]

My wife says she can't help because while she picked up good general grades for German (first language) in school, she flunked the grammar section and says she just has "a feel" for it without understanding it.

Nah your wife understands German grammar completely to the point she doesn't have to think about it if she's a native speaker, the same way English native speakers understand the insanely complicated grammar of English. She doesn't know the grammar rules the same way I don't know the English grammar rules and you probably don't either if you're a native English speaker.

 

[mikeymikec]

How much grammar do you know in English? Not how much you know to be able to process and create sentences, but how many explicit grammar rules do you think you could write down on a piece of paper right now? Not too many I would guess. So why care about learning a bunch of German grammar rules? I mean WTF does genitive case or dative case even mean?

Fair point, but I hoped it would help me understand why for example (looking through my little exercise book of German bits I thought I should make a note of):

Willst du am achtzehnten das Oktoberfest besuchen?
(literally: want you on the eighteenth Octoberfest visit?)

Wann beginnt das Oktoberfest dieses Jahr?
(literally: when begins Octoberfest this year?)

The format of a question is often:

<main verb> <who is it directed at> <time setting> <nouny bits> <secondary verb>
In the second example it throws the time setting to the end, and looking at it again, I think it's because there's no secondary verb... I hope

I think I might scan-read the German grammar book to pick up anything potentially interesting and re-do a chapter or two in Duolingo and see whether my theory holds. I'll try not to cry if it asks me about the spelling of gendered/plural Canadians again

 

[repoman0]

Fair point, but I hoped it would help me understand why for example (looking through my little exercise book of German bits I thought I should make a note of):

Willst du am achtzehnten das Oktoberfest besuchen?
(literally: want you on the eighteenth Octoberfest visit?)

Wann beginnt das Oktoberfest dieses Jahr?
(literally: when begins Octoberfest this year?)

The format of a question is often:

<main verb> <who is it directed at> <time setting> <nouny bits> <secondary verb>
In the second example it throws the time setting to the end, and looking at it again, I think it's because there's no secondary verb... I hope

I think I might scan-read the German grammar book to pick up anything potentially interesting and re-do a chapter or two in Duolingo and see whether my theory holds. I'll try not to cry if it asks me about the spelling of gendered/plural Canadians again

You should ask your wife if mixing up the time placement would even sound that weird or just sound like a British dude speaking and learning German. Really strikes me as something that will evolve automatically within your brain as you listen and practice. To my knowledge that’s supposed to be the most effective way for adults to learn a language, same as children — listen and speak to get an intuitive understanding. At least as an American the only ones of my friends who can actually speak another language either are English as a second language or studied abroad despite the fact that we all take language classes in school.

I liked the Pimsleur tapes for Russian and German fwiw .. really helped nail the accents and get a bit of an understanding for the basics without talking about grammar at all. You might be beyond that.

 

[DigDog]

for whatever is worth, i don't speak german, but i do speak italian, and i've spent a lot of time on reddit's "learn italian" subreddit, where a lot of people use duolingo ..
and my advice is always the same .. don't. Instead download a whole bunch of german films (with comedies being *much* better) and watch them. Without subs. Yes.
it's ok if you literally only understand 1% of the film.
remember that at some point every german was a baby who spoke 0% of german and had no subs.

 

[SteveGrabowski]

for whatever is worth, i don't speak german, but i do speak italian, and i've spent a lot of time on reddit's "learn italian" subreddit, where a lot of people use duolingo ..
and my advice is always the same .. don't. Instead download a whole bunch of german films (with comedies being *much* better) and watch them. Without subs. Yes.
it's ok if you literally only understand 1% of the film.
remember that at some point every german was a baby who spoke 0% of german and had no subs.

With German subs turned on would probably be helpful. I have gotten a lot out of watching anime with Japanese subs turned on for example.

 

[SteveGrabowski]

Fair point, but I hoped it would help me understand why for example (looking through my little exercise book of German bits I thought I should make a note of):

Willst du am achtzehnten das Oktoberfest besuchen?
(literally: want you on the eighteenth Octoberfest visit?)

Wann beginnt das Oktoberfest dieses Jahr?
(literally: when begins Octoberfest this year?)

The format of a question is often:

<main verb> <who is it directed at> <time setting> <nouny bits> <secondary verb>
In the second example it throws the time setting to the end, and looking at it again, I think it's because there's no secondary verb... I hope

I think I might scan-read the German grammar book to pick up anything potentially interesting and re-do a chapter or two in Duolingo and see whether my theory holds. I'll try not to cry if it asks me about the spelling of gendered/plural Canadians again

It won't help you; it'll be a waste of time. Grammar isn't meant to be learned explicitly, it's something your brain will figure out slowly over a ton of repeated exposure when you hear Germans talking, when you read German writing, and when you speak it. Did your mom teach you how to diagram sentences in terms of noun phrases and verb phrases, indirect objects, auxiliaries, and the like when you learned English? No, she talked to you, you watched TV, you talked to the other kids in the neighborhood, at day care, at school, etc. So why would you expect to learn German any differently than you learned English? Hell, start off with something super easy like Peppa Pig in German. That was the first shit I watched in Japanese when I started learning it.

 

[SteveGrabowski]

Like this for example in the first 3 minutes: pretty easy to tell ichi, ni, san, yon is 1,2,3,4 or when they keep saying 'tamanegi' and Peppa Pig gets an onion. Then when they go looking for 'furuutsu' they show apples and say 'ringo', show oranges and say 'orenji', show bananas and say 'banana', then show a watermelon and say 'suika,' and then oh yeah 'furuutsu' for fruit makes sense too, and you're learning these words in context of Japanese speech in a show for Japanese kids.

 

[manly]

Honestly I don't even think I use Duolingo effectively, but I have a 1400 day streak going (it's not that impressive actually, they have streak freezes for free). Generally I do just a lesson or two each day, and I seem to have plateaued a long time ago in Spanish. I did take 2 good years of Spanish before age 15, but had no recall whatsoever when I started up again with Duolingo in 2018. I recalled verbs are conjugated, so at least I didn't have complete mental shock from it.

As far as grammar, Duolingo doesn't teach it in the main lessons. You have to read the unit "Guidebook" to get exposure to some of that. They used to have user commentary attached within the lessons, but they removed that a while ago. There were some nuggets in there if you needed to understand why something is. As Steve explained, we don't actively learn grammar to use grammar. All we really need are enough patterns for conversations but this is tricky because languages are so diverse not just in vocabulary but their essential structures. So unless you're learning a language related to one you already speak, you do need some occasional explanations before the rote memory kicks in.

Idk, this thread seems weird to me. By all accounts, the best way for adults to learn foreign languages is "full immersion." OP already has the wife who speaks German, so the best way to learn would be to enforce it at home. Once you've learned enough, you can graduate to TV or films but that could take a while. I still don't watch Spanish-language content although if I tried to, with Eng subtitles, it could probably be educational.

I disagree with watching foreign language films if you understand only 1% of the dialogue; I don't think you'll be able to learn effectively by osmosis with such low comprehension.

 

[igor_kavinski]

My wife says she can't help because while she picked up good general grades for German (first language) in school, she flunked the grammar section and says she just has "a feel" for it without understanding it.

A relative is in Germany so your wife saying she can't help tracks (Germans are efficient and don't waste time ).

Why do you want to learn German anyway? To impress her? Trust me, she won't be. I'm not sure what really impresses Germans. Maybe that's a question you can ask her.

The part about her having a "feel" for the language, yeah, gotta agree with that. English isn't my native language. But I started watching cartoons and movies as a kid in English and then developed a love for anything written in English. I would flunk an English grammar test badly. Don't care. Really don't. Grammar is masochism. People who know their grammar well are geniuses because their brain has the capacity to analyze sentence structure. I don't. I don't give a damn. Either it feels right to me or it doesn't. So based on that, watch German movies, youtube shorts, maybe interesting German personality talking about stuff that you have a keen interest in, try reading German books, try WRITING German (that bit helped me a LOT, except in English).

 

[igor_kavinski]

I disagree with watching foreign language films if you understand only 1% of the dialogue; I don't think you'll be able to learn effectively by osmosis with such low comprehension.

It depends on the person. Some are able to pick a language pretty quickly just by listening to it. Haven't you seen the movie https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120657/ ? The guy just looks at people talking in a foreign language and learns it in a few days/weeks. That's really how some polyglots are. Some brains are more specialized in that than others. We don't know anything else about the OP so not sure how he is with languages or foreign stuff in general. But typically, if you know just one language, it's harder to learn another because your brain mode is "set" in that language. To learn a different language, you need to start "thinking" in that language. I can "think" in two languages. I wish I had more language modes though. Would make me more of a brainiac.

 

[igor_kavinski]

for whatever is worth, i don't speak german, but i do speak italian

Isn't like half of it gesturing?

 

[manly]

It depends on the person. Some are able to pick a language pretty quickly just by listening to it. Haven't you seen the movie https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120657/ ? The guy just looks at people talking in a foreign language and learns it in a few days/weeks. That's really how some polyglots are. Some brains are more specialized in that than others. We don't know anything else about the OP so not sure how he is with languages or foreign stuff in general. But typically, if you know just one language, it's harder to learn another because your brain mode is "set" in that language. To learn a different language, you need to start "thinking" in that language. I can "think" in two languages. I wish I had more language modes though. Would make me more of a brainiac.

Few people are polyglots, and few people have inherent talent to learn foreign languages quickly and easily. The OP would already know if he was one of the few, because he certainly wouldn't be using Duolingo. I think I'm roughly average w.r.t. learning languages, but it's much more difficult than it was 30 years ago. Like some other intellectual pursuits, it's been said that learning new languages can "guard" against cognitive decline because it stimulates our neurons in new ways.

Agreed that most people think in their "native" language, and essentially have to translate into second languages. And like I said, it's one thing to learn Portuguese if you already know Spanish well, but it's another to try to pick up Chinese or some other unrelated language. English is mostly Germanic in origin, but more of a distant cousin at this point if I understand it correctly (thank the Normans).

Finally there are some systematic techniques that improve the learning odds; but like many things, it still largely depends on how motivated you are in the pursuit.

 

[Stopsignhank]

You need to read Mark Twain’s thought on the German language. 😀

 

[SteveGrabowski]

Stephen Krashen's theory on language acquisition has guided me to become much better at Japanese than I ever got studying Spanish the traditional way 25 years ago taking classes, buying textbooks, learning grammar, and such despite the fact it's universally agreed that Japanese is a far harder language for a native English speaker to learn than Spanish is.

That Peppa Pig video I posted above is a great example of getting a ton of comprehensible input even when you're at a very low level of language understanding and why I recommend the show to beginning Japanese learners (hopefully it's in German too but I haven't checked).

 

[SteveGrabowski]

Don't have to just do Peppa Pig though, even JAV (Japan Adult Video) has some great comprehensible input. I remember early on watching this JAV movie where they're at a pool party and one guy is fingering this girl and his friend taps him on the shoulder and says 'konero' to which he really starts going in on her. Koneru is a verb that means to really get into and mix/knead something with your fingers and the -ro instead of -ru at the end means he's telling him to do it like a command. It's a word I will never in a million years forget.

 

[sdifox]

Don't have to just do Peppa Pig though, even JAV (Japan Adult Video) has some great comprehensible input. I remember early on watching this JAV movie where they're at a pool party and one guy is fingering this girl and his friend taps him on the shoulder and says 'konero' to which he really starts going in on her. Koneru is a verb that means to really get into and mix/knead something with your fingers and the -ro instead of -ru at the end means he's telling him to do it like a command. It's a word I will never in a million years forget.

I knew Dr Ruth didn't die. She's Steve!

 

[SteveGrabowski]

Isn't like half of it gesturing?

And the other half is just cazzo and vaffanculo, at least according to my Italian friends I ate dinner with every night in college.

 

[TheELF]

Fair point, but I hoped it would help me understand why for example (looking through my little exercise book of German bits I thought I should make a note of):

Willst du am achtzehnten das Oktoberfest besuchen?
(literally: want you on the eighteenth Octoberfest visit?)

Wann beginnt das Oktoberfest dieses Jahr?
(literally: when begins Octoberfest this year?)

The format of a question is often:

<main verb> <who is it directed at> <time setting> <nouny bits> <secondary verb>
In the second example it throws the time setting to the end, and looking at it again, I think it's because there's no secondary verb... I hope

I think I might scan-read the German grammar book to pick up anything potentially interesting and re-do a chapter or two in Duolingo and see whether my theory holds. I'll try not to cry if it asks me about the spelling of gendered/plural Canadians again

You can absolutely say "Wann beginnt dieses Jahr dass Oktoberfest." in German.
You can also say "Willst du das Oktoberfest am achtzehnten besuchen." It's all about how you prefer to hear/say it, grammatically it makes no difference.

Educational kids TV.
Löwenzahn

https://www.youtube.com/@PeterMittendrin

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www.youtube.com

 

[nakedfrog]

You can absolutely say "Wann beginnt dieses Jahr dass Oktoberfest." in German.
You can also say "Willst du das Oktoberfest am achtzehnten besuchen." It's all about how you prefer to hear/say it, grammatically it makes no difference.

Now do it with with the formal "you"

 

[TheELF]

Now do it with with the formal "you"

The English part?!
Just change the 'Willst du' with 'Wollen sie' (It's just the plural)

 

[nakedfrog]

The English part?!
Just change the 'Willst du' with 'Wollen sie' (It's just the plural)

It's been a long time, couldn't remember if there'd be more beyond that. One of my least favorite language features