{"id":7389,"date":"2020-08-06T15:16:46","date_gmt":"2020-08-06T15:16:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/?p=7389"},"modified":"2022-07-06T12:49:28","modified_gmt":"2022-07-06T11:49:28","slug":"my-week-learning-german-with-utalk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/my-week-learning-german-with-utalk\/","title":{"rendered":"My Week Learning German with uTalk"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><em>With over 2,500 basic words and phrases in more than 150 languages, there\u2019s plenty the uTalk app offers for you to learn. But as we all find ourselves getting busier and busier, how much time do we realistically have to spend on language learning? We decided to find out by having Norma, our Marketing Intern, use the app for one week to see how much German she could learn.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"padding: 2em 1em 2em 1em;\">\n<h2>Contents<\/h2>\n<ul><li><a href=\"#challenge\"><p style=\"font-size: 125%;\">Why take up this challenge?<\/p><\/a><\/li>\n\n<li><a href=\"#choose\"><p style=\"font-size: 125%;\">What made me choose German?<\/p><\/a><\/li>\n\n<li><a href=\"#day1\"><p style=\"font-size: 125%;\">Day One<\/p><\/a><\/li>\n\n<li><a href=\"#day2\"><p style=\"font-size: 125%;\">Day Two<\/p><\/a><\/li>\n\n<li><a href=\"#day3\"><p style=\"font-size: 125%;\">Day Three<\/p><\/a><\/li>\n\n<li><a href=\"#day4\"><p style=\"font-size: 125%;\">Day Four<\/p><\/a><\/li>\n\n<li><a href=\"#day5\"><p style=\"font-size: 125%;\">Day Five<\/p><\/a><\/li>\n\n<li><a href=\"#day6\"><p style=\"font-size: 125%;\">Day Six<\/p><\/a><\/li>\n\n<li><a href=\"#day7\"><p style=\"font-size: 125%;\">Day Seven<\/p><\/a><\/li>\n\n<li><a href=\"#takeaway\"><p style=\"font-size: 125%;\">My Takeaway<\/p><\/a><\/li>\n\n<\/ul><\/div>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"padding: 1em 0em 1em 0em;\"><h2 id=\"challenge\"><strong>Firstly, why take up this challenge at all?<\/strong><\/h2><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>I tend to change my mind about what language I want to learn every other week, so I wanted to challenge myself to make a bit of a routine around a new language that I can keep up after the seven days are over.<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"padding: 1em 0em 1em 0em;\"><h2 id=\"choose\"><strong>What made me choose German?<\/strong><\/h2><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>The truth is, I had only ever studied romance languages before and I wanted to go out of my comfort zone. Considering that German is a harder language for an English-speaker than Romance languages are, I thought it would be a good bridge to non-romantic languages. Plus, I\u2019ve always wanted to visit Berlin, so why not try and learn some German to use when I eventually make a trip?<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Prior to this week I had very minimal knowledge of German, just the numbers one to ten and a couple of basic phrases, but not enough to even get me out of the airport without using English.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"padding: 1em 0em 1em 0em;\"><h2 id=\"day1\"><strong>Day One<\/strong><\/h2><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>Given my lack of knowledge of German, I started from the basics. This meant learning more numbers (Numbers up to 10 million took a few tries to pick up), First Words and Essential Phrases. Like I said before, I had only ever seen the numbers one to ten, so I had never seen how different double digits are in German. It\u2019s safe to say that I was surprised when I saw the second digit written before the first one, i.e. 35 becomes \u2018five and thirty\u2019, which took some getting used to.<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Luckily, there are a couple of similarities between English and German in the Essential Phrases topic, so some words were easier, and the pronunciation helps too. However, I keep getting the three genders (feminine, masculine and neutral) mixed up, and the word order in the few phrases I\u2019ve come across seem quite different.<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>What really helped was going through the Phrase Practice carefully before starting, even just to familiarise myself with the phrase associated with the picture. This way, if I forgot what a phrase meant in German, the picture it\u2019s associated with would help me remember.<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Topics tried: First Words, Numbers up to 10 million, Essential Phrases<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"padding: 1em 0em 1em 0em;\"><h2 id=\"day2\"><strong>Day Two<\/strong><\/h2><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>Even though I won\u2019t be travelling to Germany anytime soon, I decided to practice the \u2018Directions\u2019 topic. Yesterday I noticed a difference in the word order in German, so I was hoping that this phrase-filled topic would help me better understand how phrases are constructed, instead of just knowing a couple of random words which I can\u2019t string together in a sentence.<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>By the time I got to the Hard Game I still didn\u2019t understand the purpose of every word in the phrases on the grammar side of the things, but at this stage I was just happy to understand the general idea.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Despite my previous confidence, the Recall Game is really hard and took me a while because of all the phrases I kept forgetting! However, I still find it the most helpful exercise to consolidate the phrases in my head.<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There aren\u2019t too many vocabulary links that I\u2019ve noticed with German and English so far, so I was very happy when I come across \u2018die Stra\u00dfe\u2019 (road), which is a bit like \u2018strada\u2019 in Italian and \u2018street\u2019 in English; Google tells me that the word for \u2018street\u2019 in English, German, Dutch and Italian are cognates!<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Topics tried: Directions<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"padding: 1em 0em 1em 0em;\"><h2 id=\"day3\"><strong>Day Three<\/strong><\/h2><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>I started the day by going back over the Essential Phrases through the Recall Game, and realised there were many phrases I needed to go over again.<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Almost halfway through the week feels like a good time to try the Social Phrases topic so I can at least introduce myself!<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>By this point I noticed that verbs are sometimes put at the end of the sentence, although it doesn\u2019t seem to always be the case. I tried to literally translate the phrases in the Phrase Practice (often unsuccessfully) to help me by the time I reached the Recall Game.&nbsp;<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Since the word order is different, I had to check the uTalk Phrase Book a few times to make sure I didn\u2019t assume that one word means something, a mistake which I made on Day 7 when I saw the sentence \u2018I like dancing\u2019 and assumed that the word \u2018like\u2019 was the word \u2018dancing\u2019 and vice versa.<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Whilst this did help, I still don\u2019t know a lot of the prepositions in sentences like to, from, at and so on, and I don\u2019t know where to place them either, so it\u2019s still tricky to remember the phrases at the Recall Game.<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Topics tried: Essential Phrases (again), Social Phrases<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"padding: 1em 0em 1em 0em;\"><h2 id=\"day4\"><strong>Day Four<\/strong><\/h2><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>I struggled a lot with the Directions topic on day two, so I started by going back over it to refresh my memory and get some more phrase practice before starting with Colours and Family (no phrases this time!).&nbsp;<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Overall today wasn\u2019t so bad, but I can\u2019t help but question how the letter \u2018s\u2019 is pronounced? Sometimes I hear it pronounced as it is in English, but sometimes it sounds like an \u2018sh\u2019. Could this depend on the letter that follows it, or is it a case of memorising certain words which use one sound, a bit like our spelling irregularities in English?<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Topics tried: Directions (again), Colours, Family<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"padding: 1em 0em 1em 0em;\"><h2 id=\"day5\"><strong>Day Five<\/strong><\/h2><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>I started by going over the Family topic from yesterday quickly with the Recall Game to test my memory. Thankfully, I remembered most of the vocab besides a couple words like grandson (der Enkel) and husband (der Ehemann).<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I then went on to the Travelling topic; not only would this help me complete my goal of being able to leave the airport but I was hoping that it would help me become more familiar with the language because of the large list of words and sentences.<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I noticed that two or three words in English are sometimes put together in German, like \u2018bus stop\u2019 which becomes \u2018Busbahnhof\u2019.<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Topics tried: Family (again), Travelling<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"padding: 1em 0em 1em 0em;\"><h2 id=\"day6\"><strong>Day Six<\/strong><\/h2><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>In the hope of helping my ability to string a sentence together, I decided to try the Prepositions topic. The main difference is that phrases like \u2018in front of the\u2019 and \u2018in the\u2019 can be translated a couple of different ways &#8211; could this be the three genders?<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Luckily, words like \u2018unter\u2019 (under) were helpful by the time I got to the Recall Game.<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I followed up with the Adjectives topic and I was taken aback when I saw that \u2018sch\u00f6n\u2019 means beautiful, a word which I had only seen as part of the word \u2018Dankesch\u00f6n\u2019.<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Nonetheless, this was one of the topics where I saw the most links with English because of words like \u2018laut\u2019 (loud) and \u2018hart\u2019 (hard) &#8211; yay!<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Topics tried: Prepositions, Adjectives<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"padding: 1em 0em 1em 0em;\"><h2 id=\"day7\"><strong>Day Seven<\/strong><\/h2><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>Since I went over Prepositions yesterday, I decided to pick a topic with phrases to see if I had improved. To test this theory, I decided to try the Likes and Dislikes topic, as well as House (no phrases in this one!) later on.&nbsp;<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I was hoping that the Likes and Dislikes topic wouldn\u2019t be too bad, but I was surprised to see how many different ways that \u2018like\u2019 can be translated in German! Somehow, \u2018I like\u2019 can be translated into \u2018Ich mag\u2019 or \u2018gern\u2019, which doesn\u2019t seem to act like a verb. Instead, it\u2019s often put at the end of the sentence to make \u2018I like to read\u2019 into \u2018I read like\u2019. Albeit confusing, at the end of this week I can say that I have become slightly more familiar with sentence structure, which is really encouraging!<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Topics tried: Home, Likes and Dislikes<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"padding: 1em 0em 1em 0em;\"><h2 id=\"takeaway\"><strong>My Takeaway<\/strong><\/h2><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>Whilst I am nowhere near fluency, it was really fun starting from nothing with a language and building somewhat of a foundation to go from in future.&nbsp;<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Since this was a challenge, I was trying to fit in a lot of vocab in one week, which may not have been the best idea to ensure that the words would stick. In future, I plan on spending more time going over and consolidating vocabulary in one topic a few times, maybe over a few days, before going on to others.&nbsp;<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you would like to try learning a language for a week with uTalk, click <a href=\"https:\/\/utalk.com\/utalk\">here<\/a> download the app!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Click <a href=\"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/2019\/10\/18\/my-week-learning-scottish-gaelic-with-utalk\/\">here<\/a> to hear about how Charlotte, our Marketing and Sales Co-ordinator, got on with learning Scottish Gaelic for a week!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img src=\"https:\/\/lh4.googleusercontent.com\/WrXBDRHK1rVnTdYGhXI61ztEqaarEUOb06C8r9VPFACl3DpEZtWRapl_P_Fa_7bqzKgcQmNzBVazwnjUQgdqCyl5_S8ajNSXs0vmh3MscaPcF-2Ql8An9XHOOKP7vjNT8glgj3zF\" alt=\"\"\/><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>With over 2,500 basic words and phrases in more than 150 languages, there\u2019s plenty the uTalk app offers for you to learn. But as we all find ourselves getting busier and busier, how much time do we realistically have to spend on language learning? We decided to find out by having Norma, our Marketing Intern, &#8230; <a title=\"My Week Learning German with uTalk\" class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/my-week-learning-german-with-utalk\/\" aria-label=\"More on My Week Learning German with uTalk\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[32,64,333],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7389"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7389"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7389\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8842,"href":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7389\/revisions\/8842"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7389"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7389"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7389"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}