I haven't talked about much related to German lately, but I came across an excellent website a few days ago so I decided to talk a bit about the resources I have and use. I'm sure that I've mentioned most of my resources at some point, but I want to go over them for anyone who's trying to learn a language. I'm pretty sure that almost everything I use is available for other languages as well, so it's relevant.
The biggest resource that I use right now is Rosetta Stone
Spiffy picture, no?
Everything else I use is in conjunction with the Rosetta Stone. I absolutely do not recommend using this software by itself because it doesn't teach you grammar. It expects you to automatically be able to figure it out on your own. If I hadn't already studied German, I would be hopelessly lost and confused. Here are the rest of my resources:
Wie Geht's was my textbook for German at Truman and it is amazing and I love it. It is only limited by vocabulary, not grammar. It covers just about everything, as far as I can tell. I think I paid $4 for it used because it was a past edition too. If you're not studying German, I recommend finding a prior edition for a textbook that has good reviews to go along with your language of choice.
This book has been more amazing than I thought it would be. It comes in several different languages and if you are trying to learn a new language, buy it. It covers everything first in English and then in German, which is huge because you cannot fully understand the grammar of a second language if you don't completely understand the concept in English. It has made all of the difference in my understanding German grammar (which is a hot mess and can be completely overwhelming).
I purchased all three German SparkCharts (Verbs, Vocabulary, and Grammar) before I went to Austria the first time as a sort of crash course. I use the Verbs one most, because it lists all of the regular and irregular verb forms and conjugations, plus explains a bit of the grammar. I also really like the grammar one because it explains word order (to some extent). The vocabulary one covers a ton of random material, but I don't see the logic in some of the things they picked to include or leave out. They're $5 each, and worth it I think (at least for the Verbs/Grammar).
And last, but definitely not least, links!
I do have a German-English dictionary but I almost never use it because I have two amazing websites that I use instead:
These websites are amazing wonderful fantastic helpful etc., etc. Leo is the one all of my German-speaking friends use and I'm pretty sure most students of German know it. It's like a dictionary on steroids and I can't recommend it enough. The only thing I dislike about it is that if the word you're looking up is declined, Leo won't recognize it.
Fortunately, dict.cc will pull up declined words. It's not quite as good as Leo in general translation, but it does have a native speaker recording of almost every word and phrase which is incredibly helpful for pronunciation. Usually if I just need a basic translation I'll go to Leo, but if I want a better idea of pronunciation or can't pull something up on Leo, I switch over to this page.
I also use Google translate occasionally if I have a long sentence I need to translate. I dislike using the online translators cause they're never 100% accurate, but I've tried most of them and Google's is definitely the best. Just never put something in English in and expect to get logical German out on the other side.
The last resource I use is for German word order. Even for all the books that I have and all of the reading that I did, trying to figure out what goes where in German is not easy. Fortunately, I came across this page and it is everything I was looking for and then some. It does an absolutely fantastic job of answering pretty much every question you can think of regarding word order.
I hope that this entry helps someone's language-learning process a little! And if you have any suggestions for me, I'll gladly take them! :)
Tschüss!
No comments:
Post a Comment