To broaden your horizons, you need to learn foreign languages. They will help you better understand a foreign culture, touch the great works of the classics of world literature in the original, and learn a lot of new and interesting things. When choosing a language, you need to be based on your preferences.

People interested in Germany ask the question: is it possible to learn German on their own? Those who have achieved success in this important task confidently say yes. You just need to try a little and spend some of your free time.

What is needed for this?

For a positive result, you need to have motivation and set a deadline for achieving the goal. It is equally important to organize the learning process in an interesting way, otherwise the desire to master a rather complex language can quickly evaporate. Determine why you want to start practicing. Perhaps you will be traveling to Germany, working in a German company, or communicating with native speakers. There can be many reasons. After all, Germany is the leading country of the European Union, and its language is very widespread and popular.

To learn German from scratch on your own, it is important to choose the right teaching material.

A good option is audio lessons. It’s convenient to listen to them on public transport, making good use of the time needed on the road and during your lunch break.
Along with an audio course, it is often necessary to use diagrams, special cards, textbooks or other didactic material to help you quickly master knowledge.
Along with audio lessons, it is useful to study the German language tutorial. Try using “German for Beginners”, compiled by V. Bukharova and T. Kessler. With its help, you will quickly remember basic phrases.
Be sure to purchase a comprehensive German-Russian and Russian-German dictionary. Set a goal for yourself to memorize 10 new words every day, and you will not notice how your vocabulary will be enriched.
Visual information is perceived more quickly by many people. Therefore, to learn the language and improve pronunciation, video lessons are needed.

If you can’t remember articles and irregular verbs at home without outside help, sign up for courses and study as part of a group. There you will receive regular tasks to complete on your own, communicate with like-minded people and, perhaps, achieve success faster.

Alphabet and umlaut

You need to start studying from the beginning. The first step for a language learner is to understand the alphabet. For those who attended English classes at school, this will not be difficult. The languages belong to the general group - Germanic, and their alphabet is of Latin origin.

If you set yourself a serious goal, you can master a language quickly. In it, words are written in the same way as they are pronounced, you just need to know the consonant and vowel sound combinations well and remember when an umlaut is placed above the letters Ä ä, Ö ö and Ü ü - two dots on top.
You need to figure this out and learn how to pronounce the umlaut at the very beginning, otherwise your speech will be difficult to understand correctly.
Most often, two dots appear in words used in the plural, but sometimes they change phrases completely. It is convenient to learn how to pronounce them by listening to educational audio or video material.

Some people mistakenly compare umlaut with a feature of the Russian alphabet - the letter E. In fact, there is absolutely nothing similar between them. These points have different meanings.

Start of classes

The main difficulty in the German language is articles. With their help, the gender of nouns is determined. German grammar differs from Russian, so at first students have to memorize nouns along with articles in order to speak correctly.

If you don’t give up on learning, articles will gradually cease to be a problem, and language acquisition will begin much faster.

Learn new words systematically. These should be not only nouns, but also other parts of speech. To successfully memorize prepositions and verbs, it is advisable to find educational poems or songs. In this form, they are stored in memory faster.

Remember learning a foreign language at school. At first, children learned to describe pictures, memorized basic expressions, names of days of the week, months, and kitchen utensils. Don't neglect this moment. Simple words are essential for communication.

A little later, it is important to understand how Germans construct sentences. They do it differently than the Russians, so it’s difficult for beginning students to understand.

The Russian language has its own rules, and it is easy to arrange words in a sentence in a wide variety of orders. In German this is strictly prohibited. There, each word has its place, and their order is strictly fixed.
To understand, you need to learn conjunctions and remember that in German grammar the subject always comes first, and the predicate comes second.
In addition, it is important to learn the forms of verbs, which can also be difficult. You need to learn how to manage them, decline them by case, use them in the plural and singular.

If you need to know how to learn German on your own and quickly, after mastering the basics, start watching films released in Germany. It is useful to include a film that you have seen many times in Russian dubbing, so you are well familiar with the plot and dialogues of the main characters. A simple way of studying will bring a lot of excitement and significantly increase your vocabulary.

Search the Internet for the series in German “Extra Deutsch”. It is designed specifically for learning. The characters in the film pronounce phrases slowly and clearly, so you can calmly repeat the expressions after them. Each episode is accompanied by subtitles in German, so you can remember the pronunciation and spelling of words at the same time.

What to do next?

To quickly learn a language, it is useful to use it in different areas of life. Find a German news site on the Internet and read the notes published there every day. Right away you will need a dictionary and a lot of time for this, but gradually you will notice that you instantly understand what is written.

Read a fiction book in German. It is advisable to choose a familiar work, then you will have to look less into the dictionary, because you will understand some words intuitively.

Change the language in your mobile phone settings and try to figure out the controls.

It is useful to study information about the origin of the language. This is an interesting topic that is intertwined with the history of countries such as Sweden and Denmark.

Final stage

When learning a language at home brings positive results, think about communicating with the residents of Germany. Thanks to modern technologies, this is easy to do without leaving your apartment.

Communities of like-minded people dedicated to the study of German culture, history and language have been specially created on popular social networks. There it is easy to find friends who are fluent in the foreign language you need, enter into correspondence with them and subsequently start communicating via Skype.
This practice is incredibly useful because mastering spoken language is the most important step in learning any language. It will help you perceive words by ear, recognize slang expressions and abbreviations.

At first, certain difficulties may arise. To reduce them to a minimum, arm yourself with the necessary notes during a conversation, open a phrase book and be sure to turn on the online translator on your computer. It will help you translate unfamiliar phrases of your interlocutor. By talking regularly, you will no longer need helpers and will understand everything on your own.

According to the observations of people who are interested in how long it takes to learn spoken German, it takes about 2 months. During this period, a huge vocabulary is developed and an understanding of how to correctly construct sentences comes.

To learn German from scratch, it is important to immerse yourself in the language environment, read more, listen to songs, and study the culture of Germany. If possible, it is advisable to visit this country, admire the beautiful castles, museums, nature and communicate with people. Having set a goal for yourself, feel free to do everything to achieve it. Of course, at first it will be difficult, but gradually you will get involved and the process will become easier. The main condition for success is regular study, perseverance, and then you will quickly be able to speak German and understand native speakers of this beautiful language.

How to remember a huge number of words and complex unfamiliar rules? Especially if there is a task. You probably already understand that the classical method of memorization, despite its effectiveness, takes a lot of time and effort, and these resources are the most valuable thing every person has. However, there is a way out. And this solution is to use mnemonics to learn a language!

What is mnemonics

This technique involves memorizing new information by visualizing or creating an associative series.

For example, most Russian-speaking people associate the German word “reisen” (to travel) with the word “flight”, and the word “wollen” (to wish) with the word “will”. At the same time, it is not enough just to find sound and logical correspondences. When using mnemonics, each concept still needs to be “linked” to a picture. In other words, you need to clearly imagine the actions, events, processes and objects that are associated with the material being studied.

What does this look like in practice?

Let’s take the word “Brille” (glasses) as an example. What word from the Russian language does it resemble? Absolutely right - “diamond”. Now we introduce glasses with diamond lenses, and the association is complete! Having remembered the picture, you can retrieve the desired word from your memory at any time.

This principle can be used to learn words, articles, prepositions, verb forms, adjective declension and other grammatical structures. Try turning articles from meaningless letter combinations into animate objects. Let the feminine article “Die” become a young girl, the masculine “Der” an old man with a white beard, and the neuter “Das” something neutral, such as the sea.

If we need to remember what kind of word das Schiff (ship), we imagine a ship flying through the waves. But das Eisen (iron) will drown in this sea.

How effective is mnemonics?

It largely depends on your mood. At first, the techniques described may seem a little absurd, but if you really want to learn German quickly on your own, give it a try. Within a week you will understand whether the method is right for you.

And if you are committed to traditional ways of learning German, we will be happy to share other interesting materials that will help you quickly master the grammar and pronunciation of German residents. Go to the section. Good luck.

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Do you need to quickly learn German before traveling or for a job interview, business negotiations or exams? In this article we will tell you whether it is possible to quickly learn German and how best to do it: on your own or with a teacher.

Let's say right away: we won't reveal the secret of learning a language in three days, but you will learn how to effectively learn German at an accelerated pace.

Our articles help improve your German. But a good teacher can handle this even better.

Is it possible to learn German quickly?

First, let’s answer the main question that our readers often ask us: “Is it possible to learn German quickly?” Yes, this is possible and reasonable in cases where you urgently need to prepare for one of the following events:

passing an exam for admission to a Russian or foreign university;
passing the interview in German;
travel abroad;
moving abroad;
certain work situations (negotiations, presentations, promotions, etc.).

If you are preparing for one of the above events, we recommend learning German with a teacher. This method will be the most effective and fastest for several reasons:

Well-structured program- the teacher himself will find the optimal materials for classes and provide them to you.
Complete understanding of materials- the teacher will present information in a logical order so that you understand everything and do not get stuck on one topic for a long time.
Control and motivation- the teacher will monitor your learning process, monitor your progress and motivate you for further studies.
Expertise- the teacher knows all the nuances concerning your event, for example, he has experience in preparing students to successfully pass an interview in German. The teacher understands from his own experience what you need to know and what to pay attention to.

If time is running out and you need to learn German very quickly, contact the school.

If you want to learn German quickly and independently, read on.

How to speed up learning German with a teacher

Learning German with a teacher is the fastest way to achieve your goal. We want to tell you what you should pay attention to in order to achieve maximum results.

1. Find “your” teacher

Even in a rush, try to find a teacher with whom it will be pleasant and interesting for you to study. Decide whether a strict and demanding teacher is right for you or a person who jokes a lot and presents even serious topics with humor. In addition, the teacher must be a true professional and have experience in the issue with which you are asking him (passing an exam, passing an interview, etc.). If the teacher meets all these requirements, then you will definitely not quit classes after a week, but will happily continue studying until you achieve your goal.

2. Determine the scope of work

At your first lesson with your teacher, explain in detail why you are studying German, so that the teacher can determine what topics you need to study and what exactly you need to know. Check the exact date of the event so that the teacher knows how much time you need to learn all the material.

3. Exercise 3-5 times a week

Preparing for an interview or exam is not the time to relax. You need to gain as much knowledge as possible in a short time, so be prepared to work hard. It is optimal to study with a teacher 3-5 days a week for 1-2 hours a day and devote the same amount of time to independent work: doing homework, repeating material, etc.

4. Do extensive homework

Be sure to ask your teacher to assign you extensive homework. This way you will repeat the material you learned in class, consolidate it in your memory, and at the same time find out how well you have learned the information. The teacher will check your work, identify errors and help you get rid of them, so be sure to take the opportunity to test your knowledge.

5. Don't neglect writing

The ability to do written work in German will be useful for almost any language learning goal. As you write, you find and use new words and phrases, expand your vocabulary, your rote memory kicks in, and you better remember the words you use.

6. Try studying with a native speaker

If your level of German is confident Pre-Intermediate and higher, then you can try taking additional classes with a native German speaker, especially if you are going to move abroad or travel. During the lessons you will not be tempted to switch to Russian, and you will also learn a useful thing - the ability to paraphrase what you want to say. This will help you if you forget a word in German.

What to do on your own to quickly learn German

Have you decided to prepare for the event yourself? Well, the work ahead is not easy, but interesting. In this part of the article, we have collected for you only working techniques for quickly learning German.

But even if you study German with a teacher, no one has canceled independent work. The more time you devote to German, the faster you will learn it and the more material you will absorb. So the materials below can be used in your free time outside of class.

1. Choose a good authentic textbook

This point is important for those who study without the help of a teacher: the textbook will help you structure your knowledge and “dosage” it correctly. We recommend taking 1 unit lesson every 2-3 days if you want to quickly master the material.

2. Learn phrases by heart, not individual words.

Many polyglots practice this technique in order to quickly learn German: they cram not individual words, but entire phrases on topics that interest them. You need to do the same.

3. Retell thematic texts

This technique will help you learn the necessary vocabulary in context and remember frequently used phrases. For example, let's say you are preparing for an interview with an oil company. Search texts on oil production to familiarize yourself with the technical terminology. Retell the text after reading, using new useful words and phrases.

4. Repeat what you have learned

No matter how much you rush to quickly “swallow” a layer of the German language, take time to review previously studied material, otherwise it will very quickly fly out of your head.

5. Immerse yourself in the language environment

To learn German faster, you need to try to create a suitable language environment around yourself. This can be done as follows:

Listen to audio materials With the help of podcasts you will develop your listening comprehension of German speech. First of all, of course, you need to listen to the audio recordings for the textbook and complete the attached tests in order to immediately assess your achievements in German.
Watch videos Wonderful educational videos will help you understand grammar topics and improve your vocabulary. And if you love watching videos, films or TV series, you don’t have to completely deny yourself this pleasure. Just watch a video in German that interests you, so you will practice your listening skills, and you can also find and learn useful vocabulary.
Read books and articles The best texts for studying are texts from a textbook, but if you are used to reading at least a couple of pages of an interesting book at night, try reading it in German. In the text you will see how words and grammatical structures of the German language “work” in practice. If time is short, read short texts in the original.

6. Run tests

Tests not only test your knowledge, but also help you understand a misunderstood rule if there are comments on the tasks. Be sure to take tests from the textbook you are studying from, and also visit sites with grammar and vocabulary tasks.

7. Do translation exercises

Perhaps such tasks will remind you of school lessons, but in fact, grammar-translation exercises are very useful: they will help you learn how to quickly and correctly formulate your thoughts in German. At the same time, it is better to practice translating phrases and texts on the topic you need; this is an excellent way to quickly learn German. You can check the correctness of the translation on various forums on the Internet.

8. Change activities

Try to alternate different types of exercises every 20-30 minutes so as not to tire your brain with monotonous tasks. This way you will better absorb knowledge and you will be interested in studying. Alternately engaging in different activities is the only correct way to quickly learn German.

9. Study other people's experiences

Read on the Internet about other people's experiences: how they passed an exam, prepared for an interview, learned German for travel. They usually talk not only about how to learn German quickly, but also about their main mistakes, pitfalls, frequently asked questions, useful resources for preparation, etc.

10. Use proven ways to quickly learn German

And finally, we would like to warn you against using techniques in the style of “scout method” or “German in 7 days”: they do not bring the expected results.

Now you know how to quickly learn German if you need to prepare for an event. The work ahead will not be easy, but if you work hard, all your efforts will pay off handsomely.

Learning nouns.

So, you have started learning German. And, accordingly, you need to learn the words that make up the German language. I would like to draw your attention to those points that may help you.

Always learn the word together with the article. More precisely, learn the gender of the word. But it seems to me that it is more convenient to learn the word with the article. And we learn to learn a word correctly by reading it in the dictionary.

Example:

das Fenster, -s, = - window

What does this entry mean?

das (article) indicates that the word is neuter.

— s – indicates a particle that is added to a word in the genitive (Genitiv). Let us remember that the genitive in German answers the question wessen – whose? In Russian, the genitive (genitive case) answers the questions of whom - what - whose?

An example of such declension

Verwenden des Fensters– Using (what?) a window.

= - this entry indicates that the word does not change in the plural.

Example:

Die Fenster sind offen. The windows are open.

As you can see, in the plural this particular word has not changed; the ending typical for neuter words has not been added to it – er.

But here's a particle – s, added in the genitive, this is the standard ending for such words.

Hence the rule to make it easier to memorize words in German.

We always learn the gender of words!

Why is this important? Firstly, we will often use the word with the article.

Das Buch ist interessant.

(This) book is interesting

Simply say - Buch ist interesting- is fundamentally wrong.

In addition, we will need to use the article in possessive pronouns.

Das Buch ist interessent. Ich habe es gelesen.

The book is interesting. I read it.

N.B. Please note that the word “book” in German is neuter. Very often the gender in German and Russian does not coincide.

We teach the genitive declension for a given word when it differs from the standard one. I would like to note right away that in almost all cases the genitive of nouns is formed using standard endings –s or –es. Therefore, we can almost always skip this declination in the recording and not teach it.

Start learning short, single-root German words. If you come across a long German word, be sure to break it down into its roots and learn those roots as well. For what?

Example:

das Rathaus – town hall, literally "council house".

der Rat– advice

das Haus – house

So we broke the word into its components and understood how it works. Why is this important?

Now we can understand many words that we had not even learned before, but we know its individual components.

For example, we come across the word raten. Upon completion –en and by the fact that the word is written with a small (lowercase) letter, we can assume that it is a verb. What does it mean?

Root Rat(advice) we already know. Of course, this is the verb “to advise”!

Here's a new word - der Ratgeber.

Particle „ geber“ clearly from the verb „ geben “ – give, ending –er indicates occupation. Those. “giving” something.

What happens? “Giver” + “advice” - advisor, consultant! So, without knowing the word itself, but knowing its components, we can understand this word on our own, without looking in the dictionary.

Learning adjectives and adverbs

They are best taught in pairs. Those.

klein-groß ( small – big)

kalt-hei ß ( cold – hot)

Learning verbs

Verbs need to be taught by paying attention to the following points.

1. Is this a regular verb? If the verb is irregular, it is better to learn it separately; they are usually learned in a special table.

2. Pay attention to whether the verb is reflexive or not. Those. is the verb used with a particle? sich ( or mich, dich etc.). In Russian, such verbs are used with the particle – tsya, -tsya.

Example: rejoice (please yourself) - ich freue mich(I'm glad, I'm glad). Be sure to learn the verb with this particle so that you can use it correctly.

3. Pay attention to the verb control, i.e. with what preposition and case it is used. Why? Because, the control of a verb in German may differ from Russian.

Example:

I'm shooting at the target.

But in German the control of the verb schießen (to shoot) is completely different!

Ich schieße auf Ziel – literally, I shoot at the target.

Or a very common phrase

I'll call you (on the phone).

The German word has a verb anrufen, this is a verb with a separable prefix (another subtlety).

In German the phrase will look completely different:

Ich rufe dich an – literally, I will call you.

Studying prepositions.

Please note that there are prepositions that are used with only one case.

Example:

Prepositions used only with the dative (dative case)

mit, nach, aus, zu, von, bei, seit, außer, entgegen, gegenüber

Prepositions used only with the accusative (accusative case)

durch, für, ohne, gegen, um, bis, entlang

Prepositions used only with the genitive (genitive case)

während, trotz, statt, wegen, ungeachtet, außerhalb, innenhalb

Once you have learned how to use such prepositions, you will be able to easily construct sentences correctly in German in the future.

05 Feb

How to learn German?

If you already have basic skills in any language (except German, of course), it will be much easier for you to learn words and expressions from the speech of residents of Germany, Austria or, say, Switzerland. They already understand grammatical structures, there are standards for comparison and analysis, which means that learning will take less time.

Currently, a lot of language centers offer their services for quick learning of the German language. They talk about some incredible techniques that will help you master German in just a couple of months (!). There is truth in this, but only a small part. In fact, their approaches simply focus on spoken language and spend very little time on the grammatical aspects of it.

Start small and learn the German alphabet. He is located.

Of course, it is impossible to talk about total mastery of German in three months. This technique serves to liberate and bring the student to the contact stage. In principle, any spoken language has a similar goal. The problem is that with the standard, “school” approach, the transition to speaking occurs very slowly, or even never at all. So the technology of teaching German in such centers can be considered rational.

Difficulties of the German language

If you do not want to attend specialized language courses, you can learn the basics of German language and speech on your own. To do this, you just have to stock up on some time, patience and the Internet. In the “web” you will find all the necessary audiovisual tools (audio recordings, pictures, visual aids, dictionaries), which will help you master German at the initial stage. Having made the necessary supplies, use the following action plan.

Listen to real German speech. This starting technique will allow you to feel the melody of German sentences, to grasp the subtleties that distinguish the language from others. But there will be differences - that's obvious.
Repeat what you heard after the speaker. At this stage, you immediately begin to immerse yourself in the atmosphere of speaking German. Teachers at language centers monitor this process, and in their absence we recommend using a voice recorder. By recording yourself and then comparing it with the original source, you can evaluate how well you are doing. Intonation and rhythmic errors will be immediately audible, and you will be able to quickly correct them.

It is recommended to practice phrases at least once a day. You can spend about an hour or two on this - it all depends on the number of conversational units you are working with. At first, it is possible that their perception, repetition and involuntary memorization will take more time. But every time you learn German, you will learn German faster and faster. After about two weeks of such active practice, you will begin to notice how you involuntarily strive to use a familiar phrase from the German language in everyday situations. If this happens, you are doing everything right.

Compare what you hear with what you see. Here we already mean the transition to the stage of mastering the letters of the German alphabet and developing the ability to put them into words. You will have to act in two steps. First, using the help of a speaker, as well as any phrasebook or German-Russian dictionary, practice pronouncing the letters. Then you can move on to mastering the rules of reading. (For this point, the German language should be given a separate Danke, because in comparison with the same English or French languages, most of the letter combinations seen are pronounced in the same way as they are written; there are rare exceptions and features that will not be difficult to remember).

Knowing how words are read, you will be able to practice on simple lexical units from the most understandable areas of our lives (daily routine, leisure, being, flora and fauna, weather, etc.). Plus, this will ensure visual memorization of the word and its association with the Russian version. Therefore, the vocabulary will gradually be replenished, which is also quite important.

Reinforce vocabulary with grammar, and theory with practice. In parallel with reading, begin to master the grammatical rules of the German language. Start with the simplest ones - those that will be useful at an early stage. For example, read about how to construct sentences or how verbs are conjugated in the present tense. Don’t forget to consolidate the material you’ve learned by completing tasks from reference books, which are also easy to find on the Internet. By completing such tasks, you will write down answers and thereby train written speech, including not only visual, but also muscle memory.

And don’t give up oral speech either! Try to meaningfully “substitute” familiar colloquial constructions in situations of everyday communication. If you are in a store, imagine that you need to find out in German how much an item costs. Or in the morning you need to greet your “home” or neighbors, or work colleagues... You never know what else you can think of! In a word, practice.

As a rule, if you deliberately set out to learn German, your main enemy can only be time and family circumstances. Having “seven people” makes it quite difficult to engage in self-development. If you need to learn German for work, this procedure is equivalent to forced measures. Here you can already turn on the “I don’t want” or “Oh, how lazy” mode. Then you should remember that you are not in school, and you need this for growth, career and, perhaps, even prosperity.

It turns out that you can quickly learn German. It all depends on what goal is being pursued. If you need to communicate in a language, a decent result can be achieved in 2-3 months. A thorough study will require more time, the main thing is that the initial goal is justified by the means invested in the process of achieving it.

Several sites for learning German online: