#learning german

"Altes Huhn, das keine Eier mehr legen kann"

-> old chicken that cannot lay eggs anymore

"Eierlegende Eierlegende am Eierlegende"

-> Eierlegende - egglaying

-> Eier-Legende - egg legend

(Languages taken from the top 10 foreign languages learned on Duolingo in 2024.)

I would like to bring your attention to two fundraisers that are near and dear to my heart.

@elhamhamdan-gaza is a young woman trying to survive in Gaza with her family. She was a top student at university until October 2023, when she and her family were displaced from their home in Khan Younis and forced to flee to Rafah. After the invasion in Rafah, they returned to their home in Khan Younis only to find it burned. They had no choice but to live in it. Elham and her family desperately need funds for blankets and clothes, because winter is here and nights in Gaza are very cold right now.

Elham's campaign is very low on funds! So far they have only been able to raise £594 and they desperately need more support. Please donate to them if you are able, and share this post and campaign with as many people as you can.

This campaign was verified by the Butterfly Effect Project (instagram) and is number 1180 on their spreadsheet, which you can access through the link on their instagram profile.

You can contribute to Elham's campaign by clicking on the link below:

Secondly, @drdarine is a young woman who is a medical student in Gaza. Despite being displaced and suffering hardships we can only imagine, Darine is continuing her studies and helping out others in the refugee camps and shelters in southern Gaza. Her family consists of seven people, one of them being my friend @dawoudi who is selflessly and unfailingly helping many other families in Gaza by verifying their fundraisers and promoting them on Tumblr. Everyday I see more campaigns added that he has verified, providing an important service to the many families in Gaza that need our help.

Darine's family has been fundraising since February, which is almost ten months! Despite that, they have only been able to raise $5,765, 19% of their goal. Progress on their campaign is extremely slow, often needing to wait multiple days for another donation to come in. We can do better than that.

This campaign was vetted by @gazavetters, and is number 15 on their spreadsheet, which you can find in the pinned post on their profile.

You can contribute to Darine's campaign by clicking on the link below:

Please support these fundraisers! Thank you!

Tagging for reach, let me know if you want me not to tag you in the future

Source

YouTube

Benjamin - Der Deutschlehrer

My favorite channel for specifically preparing for the exam. Very good at explaining letters, conversations, that sort of thing. Also very helpful with advice on what to add or take away in the delivery to make it sound more b1 rather than a2.

LordPappnase

I love his gameplay videos and his way of speaking. But frankly, he's more as an example here - go to youtube and type in your hobby/special interest/favorite game/favorite media + deutsch into the search box and you'll get a lot of auditory training, which you won't be bored watching! I have to admit, I get terribly bored watching all these videos that are specifically designed for language learners - they look in places like they think I'm an idiot >.<

Android Apps

Babbel

The best program for learning German in my eyes. Grammar, drills, interesting topics - it's all there. But, a small nuance - it is the best for those who know Ukrainian, because then you will have a full course without ads and restrictions. I do not know why. But it's worth taking advantage of if you have the opportunity!

Flashcards // Anki // Drops

You will always benefit from a program which is simply a deck of useful words to memorize.. I used Flashcards like 90% of the time, but the other two will also do the job if you like them better.

Tutor Lily

I can't put into words the usefulness of this app. It's a chatbot with whom you can talk a little every day - and thus literally force your brain to lay down the neural pathways of how you should communicate in a particular language. I credit my 97/100 on speaking to this program alone. It is 100% worth it.

Polygloss

Shows you images that you have to describe in your target language. It doesn't sound particularly helpful, but one part of the DTZ exam is literally describing the picture! So it's actually insanely useful - including the fact that it forces you to look up words to describe different objects, events, and the like (or think of what you can call it if you forget a specific word).

Clozemaster

Read more about how I use it here and here!~

Additional notes:

I'm sorry, but there is no way to “learn a language in two weeks”. They're lying to you. You have to sit and study, half an hour a day, ten minutes - even five minutes. Every day. Or every other day. Learning a language takes time, and even if someone was able to memorize a few lines for an exam to pass, factually speaking, it's a Pyrrhic victory - they still have to learn it all over again if they want to really know the language and not just pass the exam (which may work on b1, but good luck with b2 then, me dude).

You will be bored. You will feel like nothing is happening. That's part of the process - and there's no avoiding it. And that's okay.

Find something that lets you dip your feet into the language, but doesn't feel like bloody agony - for me, it was listening to the German podcast Easy German on the way to and from my courses. By the time of the exam, I had listened to about 70 hours of this podcast, which is 70 hours of uninterrupted German. By the end, I was even understanding it very well!

If you like playing video games, put on German voiceovers. Even if you leave the text in your native language, it's still an unconscious imersion - and every minute is worth it.

While you're at it - put German dubbing in your movies and TV series too. It may be strange at first, but it also helps a lot!

And in the name of all that is holy, don't use chat gpt. No, chat gpt's “wonderful courses and explanations” won't help you. No, if you throw your letters into it, it won't analyze them and give you a worthwhile assessment - it'll hallucinate and give you some faulty answers.

Please. We really don't need another person starting their German letter with “Guten Tag,”, as did at least 3 of my coursemates <.<