Hello and welcome!
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I have had on my mind to make this blog weeks ago but I decided to wait till I got my exam results π before I can give any advice.
Ok
I learnt a language in 2 months
On July 5th, 2019, I wrote the Deutsch A1 exam at the Goethe Institute in Lagos Nigeria.
On May 13th, 2019, I started learning Deutsch, my reasons were unknown even to me, as I had no reason to learn the language.
You might wonder, why not French, Spanish or any of the popular languages. Well now, I guess I can answer. God willing, I plan to do my PhD. in Germany and learning Deutch will help me on that journey.
How I learnt Deutsch
I attended a language school (Sprachschule) which I attended 3 days a week for 8 weeks. I started from the alphabets, then I moved to nouns and their genders. Then slowly to learning short and simple sentences.
E.g I have a car – Ich habe ein Auto
I learnt verbs and their conjugations slowly till I was able to memorize pronouns and how they are used.
Then I moved to writing letters both formal and informal letters (we were told to write to each other in the class and even to our teacher).
After that I slowly began to learn to listen (horen). This was specifically difficult tfor me, because I was unaccustomed to the language, before then I dont think I had ever heard anyone speak Deutsch. Slowly I began to understand spoken Deutsch, I had a lot of audio aids. I started listening to Deutsch music, and even watching their shows just to get unaccustomed to hearing the language. I am still not perfect but I keep practicing.
Then I moved to speaking which was fairly easy once I was able to translate what I wanted to say in my head. So I would speak to my friends (we were only allowed to speak Deutsch in the class). I sometimes record myself so I can correct my accent and pronunciations. This helped my speaking. I am still awkward but I can carry on easy conversations.
Advice
- Don’t give up
- Take your Horen seriously
- Download lots of Audio files
- Try listening to Deutsch music
- Keep writing until it is second nature
- Don’t hesitate to speak (might be awkward at first but keep at it)
- You have to do a lot of self study, you won’t be taught everything in the school
- Try to learn as much words as you can, because this would really help
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If you are in Lagos and you want to learn Deutsch, check out Tejurolex Sprachschule in Egbeda, Lagos. This is where I had my classes and it was really great, they were really attentive to all my needs
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Thanks for reading
I hope you enjoyed it. Feel free to ask me any questions
Congratulation darling. I love to start learning Mandarin next year for 2 reason cause I got to watch all my Chinese drama and I really want to add 2 more language to learn will definitely take your tips into consideration.
Mandarin… way to go. I keep saying I am going to learn Korean because of my kdrama addiction but I never do, this might be the motivation I need
Lol, hope I start next year cause am really tired of waiting for subtitles
Congratulations.
Thank you