I was all excited to be able to sleep in today because it's the one day I close this week and I don't have to go to work until 2:30 (which means working till 11, but I'll deal). In any event, I was thinking I was going to be able to sleep for a ridiculous amount of time and wake up and laze around, get a workout in and do next to nothing for a few hours before I got ready for work. Apparently my alarm clock (that I forgot to turn off) had other ideas. So I woke up at about 6:30 and have been going (except for a brief attempt to fall back asleep at about 10) since.
I'm really glad I actually got up and worked though, because it's been an incredibly productive morning. I've been feeling incredibly overwhelmed by German grammar since I decided to tackle learning the language. This morning, I've worked on nothing but grammar. I've gone through the cases and read every bit of information I have on what applies when. I went back through material I thought I left in 8th grade - subjects, objects (direct and indirect), prepositions, objects of prepositions...you get the point - and I can finally say I don't feel overwhelmed by learning German (and actually, English makes a bit more sense now too). I finally feel like I can really actually do this - and it might not be that hard.
Even though it might not seem like there's a system, when you get down to the nitty gritty of it it's all there. There's a logical pattern to (almost) everything and all I had to do was find it. Now it's just a LOT of memorization, which I can do without a problem and applying the grammar to the words.
Going back to my last post... After thinking about it, I've determined that the problems that I have with speaking German are twofold: first, it takes me awhile to form sentences because my vocabulary is pretty small and up until now, the grammar was completely overwhelming. Second, I know my pronunciation is decent but there are a couple issues I have (most of them with the letter ü, and also the word der Apfelstrudel - but that's a whole other story) and I'm really, really self-conscious about them.
I think the solution to the first one is clearly to start writing in German - a lot. It allows me to take the time I need to think of the words to say and where to put them in the sentence without feeling pressured to spit something out immediately. I'm going to try to journal with the German I do know and I'll think about some other ways I can use written German more. Once I feel more comfortable with my ability to compose sentences, I can start speaking German with native speakers and eventually that should help get my pronunciation closer to where I'd like it to be.
Additionally, I can absorb as much spoken German as possible. I can watch videos or movies in German, find German vlogs or podcasts or anything - just listen to native German speakers in any medium that I can get my hands on. One of my friends told me the reason his English is so good is because he listens to English whenever he can with movies, TV shows, etc. Plus, the old AM at my store said that she learned English by watching it on TV when she moved here. It clearly works, so I feel like it'd be wise to take advantage of those mediums.
So we'll see how it goes from here on out. I'm glad I had a breakthrough, because I really needed one. I was feeling stuck in a rut so hopefully it'll be smooth(er) sailing from here.
I hope everyone has a nice few days and gets all of the last minute stuff done for Christmas! :)
Tschüss!
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