Learning German: Initial Check-In

Fischmarkt in Cologne

One of the main questions that friends asked before we moved to Germany was “Are you learning German?”. One of the first questions that acquaintances here ask is “How is your German?”. Certainly we are very lucky with communicating in Germany. Nearly every German we have had to interact with in a professional or commercial setting has spoken English. Even our 80 year old neighbor knows enough to chat briefly with the kids, and is still trying to learn more words.

We are also lucky because Caroline speaks German well and I (Michael) am not starting from scratch. This is certainly a different experience than it would be if we were going somewhere where few people spoke English and where we didn’t speak the language.

Everyone’s path to learning German is different. Everyone’s learning style and starting point is different. I’m going to share our paths so far, and where we are at currently. I will also plan on posting an update after about 6 months and after a year. You can perhaps use our experiences as a reference for what to perhaps expect for your own German learning journey.

German Language Skills Rating

Germany, and the most (all?) of Europe use the CEFR levels to rate language skills levels. A1 is a complete beginner, B2 is partial fluency and C1 is considered fully fluent. C2 would be a near-native level of proficiency. B2/C1 is required to be accepted into a university in Germany.

German Speaking Status

Banjo

Banjo had no German experience and didn’t study. His approach has been sudden cold-turkey immersion. He speaks perfect dog German already. Fast learner.

How he’s doing: C2 level

Caroline

Caroline lived in Switzerland for 2 years when she was a young teenager. She later majored in German in college, including doing a 3 month study abroad in Vienna, Austria. She also traveled to Germany to do a tech consulting project while in MBA school.

More recently she has been reviewing German grammar with Duolingo (testing out of many sections) and with an Anki deck of common German words and phrases.

How she’s doing now: Probably a solid B2. She speaks German well, but is just a little rusty since MBA school was 13 years ago. She knows grammar rules really well, and can explain all sorts of complicated German rules pretty easily.

Michael

Banging your head on a door
Banging your head on a door

I took German 101 in the summer of 2000, and then accompanied Caroline to Vienna on the 3 month study abroad. German pop music (well, at least old Die Prinzen acapella CDs) has been in the playlist rotation since meeting Caroline.

About 3 years ago I started doing German on Duolingo. After a brief hiatus, I picked it up earnestly 18 months ago and achieved a 450 day streak. I completed all lessons to the 5-start level, completed all stories and got all of the available achievements. The Duolingo gamification really worked well for me. I got part way through the lessons at the purple-crown level and realized I wasn’t progressing very quickly any more.

At this point my brother (who speaks German) recommended that I try using Anki flashcards. I have been working through a deck with 4000 common German words and phrases.

Other background: I lived in Brazil for 3 years, and took 3 years of Spanish in high school. I consider myself fully fluent in Portuguese and highly fluent in Spanish.

How I’m doing now: Likely a strong A2 or weak B1. My grammar is poor and my vocab is limited but I know enough to feel comfortable making a fool of myself. I have ordered countertops at the hardware store, internet at the local phone company, rented a car and answered a dozen phone calls from delivery people. It’s an exciting time for me. I’m making it over the don’t-know-enough-to-try hump and up to the can-communicate-even-if-poorly slope. In a free-flowing context like open ended conversations or a Church lesson I have to focus very, very hard to keep the train of thought.

Ryan

Ryan took German 1 in high school two years ago. He has done a little bit of Duolingo. He recently had 9 1-hour tutor lessons through italki.com.

Other background: Ryan attended a Spanish immersion grade school from 1st through 6th grade. He is highly fluent and is confident in his ability.

How he’s doing now: Solid A1 skill level. Ryan can understand everything that Caroline and I say to each other. His grammar and vocabulary are limited, but he is confident of what he has. He has enough skills to be confident talking to people for transactional or informational conversations.

Calvin, Sophie, Hannah

The last three did a little bit of Duolingo and had 9 or 10 italki.com tutor lessons. About 6 months before we moved here we switched the preferred language for Netflix and Disney+ to German and told the kids that they could watch as much as they wanted if it was in German. After a few months we turned off the subtitles.

How they’re doing now: Weak A1 / pre-A1 level. All three have a solid base of basic vocabulary. They are happy to sprinkle German words into their English sentences at home. Their understanding of grammar matches pretty closely to their understanding of English grammar (Hannah: Not much, Calvin: Most out of the 3). They rely heavily on context and gestures to understand what is being said. They struggle to put their own thoughts into German beyond the few sentences that they are familiar with.

Fun "how to use the toilet" stickers that are in our house.
Fun “how to use the toilet” stickers that are in our house.

Family Next Steps

Caroline interacts with the neighbors frequently in English and in German. She is also applying for jobs where she expects to use German on a daily basis.

I interact with colleagues largely in English, but I am pushing to stay in German when I am the only non-German speaker in the conversation. I continue studying flashcards with Anki.

Ryan will be attending a school which will be mostly in German. His classmates will mostly be German and he will likely be joining clubs soon where he will need to learn to speak.

Calvin, Sophie and Hannah will be attending full German schools and clubs. We expect that all 4 of the kids will learn German very quickly once school starts again in August.

Related Posts