The German language may seem overwhelming at the start with all the new words, phrases, and sounds. Here at GermanMind our students embrace the language with fun and enjoyment and progress weekly towards their goals with passionate and supportive teachers.
A question we get asked often in class is; ‘How can I improve my German?’ and here we dedicate this blog to five proven and effective ways to advance your German language skills.
Immerse yourself in the language - surround yourself with the language everyday by observing, listening, understanding, speaking, seeing in German. Like a young child learning their first language- they observe, listen and imitate. The best way to be fully immersed is by living in Germany, and although this is not possible right now, you can still immerse yourself by checking out point number two below.
Use it everyday - the best way to learn a new language is to use it everyday, from listening to German news on the radio, watch German movies, write in German, read the news in German and speak German everyday, no matter what level you are at. How about sending a few texts to friends in German, or writing your shopping list in German? Practise your vocab and pronunciation with friends and colleagues daily, and of course your fellow students. If you get into the habit of listening, reading and speaking German daily, your language skills will improve drastically.
Interact with German speakers - all GermanMind teachers are native speakers and in every class all students are encouraged to speak and learn from each other. A weekly chat in class is not enough time to fully develop your German linguistic skills, so we encourage all students to chat outside of class, to create group calls and virtual meet ups so they can practise and perfect their sound. The best part about speaking with a native German speaker is often the day to day phrases you pick up, and the German slang that one can use daily, for example: Ich verstehe nur Bahnhof, du hast einen an der Waffel, ich glaube, mein schwein pfeift.
Set goals and stick to a goal plan - at the beginning of each course we ask our students what their goals are, and this allows us to cater lessons to their needs and extracurricular exercises and activities to help meet the goals. Every student is different, but we like to suggest for example in addition to weekly homework, you can set a goal to learn 10 new words/phrases per week for six weeks, or commit to reading a German news article everyday, or watch one full German movie each week and take notes. Big progress starts with small steps and consistency.
Have fun - don’t get bogged down on learning the essential grammar, verbs and nouns, mixed with learning how to recite a German poem off my heart. We would love you to be able to translate every word to German, and this will come in time, but this is not the only end goal, we want you to speak the language, have fun with it, use it everyday and enjoy the language. We want you to enjoy the German language as much as we love teaching it.
At GermanMind our mission is to make learning the German language fun, interactive and a lifelong asset to our students. It is our passion to share the culture, language and more with every person who studies with us. In our latest student stories, our students tell us what they love about learning German, and how they enjoy their learning in class. Check out these videos here.
To celebrate St Patrick’s Day on March 17th, we are offering €17 off all courses when you enter ‘STPATRICK’ at the checkout. You can view our timetable and see what courses we have coming up next.
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