How to learn German

Hello beautiful people! Today I wanted to share one of the best experiences I've had throughout my whole life. If you are a "language" person like me, you are gonna love the things I'm going to write about. I've always loved learning a new language, getting to know a new culture, meeting with new people from other countries. I don't have an extraversion personality, in fact sometimes I wonder if I have social anxiety disorder but when you do what you love, you overcome those kind of fears easily. I've always loved English, I have always been successful at my English courses. I loved everything about America and this made me want to learn English so bad. I was just talking to myself in English when I was a child as if I was an American lol. English is a must course that we have to take as foreign language in Turkey, and most schools also offer a second language such as German, Spanish and French. Some schools will give you a chance to choose the one you want if you are lucky but most of them do not ask for your opinion lol. I was never asked too but if I was asked to choose one, I would definitely go for German. So, I was lucky because I took German class, even if they did not ask lol.

When I was in Junior High School ( 7th grade), I started to listen to some German bands, I am not gonna give names because I don't want to humiliate myself.😜 And just like every other teenage girl, I fell in love with one of the boys. Eventually I convinced myself that he was the man I was going to marry, so I decided to learn his language which happens to be German.

My first impression was "damn it's hard". It was not like English. There were different cases. This was the first time I found out about this "gender" issue of the nouns. WHAT THE HECK? Can you believe a chair is "male" in German language? Ps: Currently I am taking Russian classes at my university and during the first course I leaned that chair is "male" in Russian too.

Anyways, I will recommend a few things which I believe will help you learn German.

By the way, do not be afraid of making mistakes, you are not native and it's not a bad thing. People won't judge you. Do the best you can.

🇩🇪 First of all, when you are learning a new language, try to integrate it in your life as much as possible. If you decided to learn German, use your phone in German, watch german series and listen to German bands. Read in German.

Click here to listen to my favorite German songs.

My favorite German books:

Adena Halpern - der zehn beste tag meines lebens

Sophie Kinsella - Kennen wir uns nicht?

Use Netflix to watch German movies.

🇩🇪 Do not give up. Every language is different and hard. But if you want something you have to work for it. Do not give up, fight till the end.

🇩🇪 You are not going to learn a language if you don't use it. Studying for hours on coursebooks will not make you speak German. Practice the language.

🇩🇪 Memorize 10 words a day.

🇩🇪 Talk to yourself in the mirror. It may sound crazy but this is a chance to use the language.

🇩🇪 Find yourself native friends. There are plenty of applications that you can download, here are my favorite ones;

HelloTalk Language Exchange

Plyglot Club

🇩🇪 If you have a chance, visit the country. I had a chance to stay in Germany through a student exchange program when I was in High School. I stayed with the best family in the whole world. The city I stayed in was Münster and I really liked there. So if you have a chance to study in Germany, go for it. Erasmus, Commenius, Work and Travel are the programs that I am familiar with.

🇩🇪 While learning the language, also learn about the culture.

🇩🇪 Be patient. Do not worry, it will take time but it will totally worth it.

For those who are in need of a great app recommendation, here are the ones that I liked and benefited from most;

https://www.babbel.com/learn-german-online

https://www.fluentu.com/blog/german/

And my favorite YouTube channel: Learn German with Anja

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZwegPHTG4gvnR0WLzaq5OQ

Pass gut auf dich auf!