September 20, 2021
This is the first of a series of blog post that (hopefully!) tracks my progress from beginner to fluent German. My goal is to get from my current level to B2 level in one year.
Posts in this series:
- From Beginner to Fluent German in One Year: the Challenge (this post)
- The German Learning challenge: Lessons from the first two months
- The German Learning challenge: Month 3 report
Why German?
A key first step with any language learning journey is to be really clear about why you want to learn the language. For me, my partner’s Dad has just married a German woman and moved to Germany, my PhD supervisor is German (and my PhD* is based at his German Uni), I’m fascinated by German history and culture, and I love German beers (especially this one!). As David Goggins says, ‘Know why you’re in the fight to stay in the fight.’
*My PhD is on the topic of self-regulated learning. Essentially, I’m researching how to help people become more effective learners.
The goal
My goal is to reach a level of German that allows me to email and speak to friends and family in German, engage in German media and books without subtitles or translations, and also speak with German educators on education topics. Looking at the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages, this suggests B2 level, which is described as:
- Can understand the main ideas of complex text on both concrete and abstract topics, including technical discussions in their field of specialization.
- Can interact with a degree of fluency and spontaneity that makes regular interaction with native speakers quite possible without strain for either party.
- Can produce clear, detailed text on a wide range of subjects and explain a viewpoint on a topical issue giving the advantages and disadvantages of various options.
The required vocabulary for this is about 4000-5000 words.
My baseline
I’ve already been learning German in a fairly relaxed way for about a year. But I haven’t been very structured at all. My main practice has been a weekly language exchange (have done about 40 of these with my language exchange partner) and reading through the Dino Learns Deutsch series by Andre Klein.
I prepared for my first language exchange using a list of the 300 most important words for communication (I’ll blog on this list some time soon), and have subsequently done very little practice for my language exchanges, but I have made flashcards from my language exchanges (I’ll blog on this soon too!). My total flashcards at the one year mark is around 250.
Using this 250, in addition to reviewing a flashcard deck of the Top 4047 German Vocab with Native Audio Sample Sentences, I estimate that my current German vocab is around 800-1000 words.
The Plan
The required vocabulary for B2 level is about 4500 words. This means I need to learn about 3500 new words to reach B2 level, in addition to significantly improving my grammar. Thus, to reach my goal in in a year, I need to learn, and master, about 10 new words per day.
This is going to be a huge challenge, and I’ve never attempted to learn at this rate before. But I have some plans about how to get there, and I’m also drawing on some great advice given by a seasoned language expert, Bartosz Czekala in his language learning articles and resources to give me an initial boost. I’ll blog in detail about my evolving learning process and progress as the challenge continues.
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Wish me luck! I’ll aim to write a blog post each month to track the journey!
Next post in this series: The German Learning challenge: Lessons from the first two months