[Learning German] Things I Wish I Knew Before I Started Learning German

 Ah...

Looking back to more than a year ago, I would have never imagine that I would be able speak and understand another language aside from the ones I currently know. I am not saying that I am already good at it because although I am practicing everyday, I really don't have any formal schooling or education when it comes to learning German. Although this is the case, my desire to learn and study the language feels like falling in love. You get to be introduce to it first, get to know it, 'experience a daily conversation' with it, a lot more of getting to know it, trying to get used to the idea of having it in your daily life and then eventually, being with it for God knows how long.

My journey started with me casually reading to a German dude, "Ich liebe dich," as I go through a web page with German phrases and sentences. He froze and I was so confused with his reaction. This was quite unusual because even if I read out loud cursed words or nasty things in German, he would just laugh. I then read the translation beside it and we both laughed nervously as I try to save my ass from that awkward situation. I then promised myself to look more into it to avoid embarrassing myself some more in front of this guy. Even when I was still unsure back then if I am gonna be around him longer than a few Meets and Reddit conversations, I looked into the German language and started to be intrigued.

So I started Duolingo, then look for resources online like the German subreddit (where they provide a great resource list by the way!) and then even Pinterest where I got my charts and tables. It was a rough ride at first because I basically don't know anything about German except what Duolingo was trying to 'teach' me every single day. I was a virgin in this language and if I ever do go back in time, here are the things that I wish I knew:

1. Duolingo is ONLY great for vocabulary words.

Don't expect Duo to teach you about grammar WHICH IS VERY IMPORTANT by the way! You will get confused by the sentence construction and declinations (dependent on the articles)! As I said, it's only for enriching your vocabularies and maybe seeing a pattern in the sentences that can somehow guide you but damn, the Akkusativ, Dativ and Genetiv killed me here.

ctto

2. Use YouTube.

This favorite platform isn't only for influencers' dramas, it is also a great resource for learning new things. I have never imagined that a full A1 course (or somehow it feels like it), is being taught in here. I was already done with the Duolingo Tree and in the midst of 'taking exercises' in the VHS Lernportal (great free website btw thanks to the German Government!) already when I got tired of having mistakes over and over again due to the articles. Can you imagine? My dumb self trying to check if I can pass the A1 Certificate even without knowing the German noun cases by heart? It's a good thing that I found the videos of this YouTube Channel, Learn German.  It was really helpful and informative and will guide you with baby steps along your German language journey.

3. Memorize the words with the articles.

OMG! This is perhaps the dumbest thing that I've done while learning the language. Every time I see a word, I just focus on that and not the articles attached to it. You see, the German language has genders in them (pretty much like Spanish and I am giving this as an example because it's the only other foreign language I know with gender) and it pretty much dictates on how you structure your sentences dependent on its case (whether it's will act as a direct object, indirect object and as a pronoun). Please, please, memorize them with the articles. It would be really helpful that way.

I am including here a basic guide on how to 'guess' or figure out what's the article of a word if you happen to forgot about it or it's the first time you can encounter them. Highly unadvisable but can be very helpful. (ctto)

4. LEARN THE PRONUNCIATION OF THE ALPHABET BY HEART....

And listen to it over and over again to get it right. As a native Filipina, it made me giggle at first to listen on how ridiculous it is to hear how "I" and "J" are being pronounce after the other. It's childish but damn, that still cracks me up to this day.

It might be weird that this is on number 4 but I am not writing this down based on the level of importance and I can't believe I am trying to make an excuse for myself in here. Haha. But going back, if you know how to pronounce each alphabet, you would probably know how to pronounce them when you see them in a word. 

An example is the letter "v". 

You pronounce this as "fau" in German so you'll know from here that any word that starts with "v" will be pronounced as "f". 

A word example of this Volk (people in English -- that's why Volkswagen literally means people's cart). You pronounce this as FOLK.

Another example is the letter "w". 

You pronounce this as "veh" so any word that you'll see with this will be pronounced as "v". 

A word example for this is Wasser (water in English). You pronounce this as VASSER.

There are of course exceptions like "y" and "ß" which you can't really pronounce like that in a sentence. 

Also, be very wary of the umlauts. Those guys can fuck you up. Make sure to really listen to them carefully.

5. Practice SPEAKING and WRITING as much as you can. Don't forget to also LISTEN.

I can't really stressed out the importance of this. Learning a new language can be tough especially if you are not immersed on it in your daily life. If you're studying it on your own, in a country where it is not being used or spoken even, it is very important to listen, speak and write it as often as you can. 

Although I am a strong reader in German already and I can understand my boyfriend if he would speak in Hochdeustch in a moderately fast manner (really a freaking receptive bilingual at this point), I am still rather slow when in comes to writing and speaking. Most of it comes from the fact that I am kinda shy to speak the language, afraid to be corrected and therefore growth is slow. You shouldn't be ashamed, just speak and write and be grateful if you are being corrected because that will lead to your desired perfection or the level of fluency that you want. I myself can say that I am better in writing than in speaking because I have a hard grasp on the basics as I really started out with Duolingo.

As for the listening part, as I've mentioned regarding the pronunciation, it would benefit you greatly to learn faster if you are hearing the language often. Watch children's show, listen to Deutsch musik and more importantly, if you know someone who can speak the language, listen to them attentively.

Well, I hope this helps.
Would write some more about this language. 

Tschuss.