...Hallo?
Good morning, today is 2025-07-19, which means I just woke up to a post left by some guy on this site announcing I am apparently to learn German. Easy for him to say, but now it falls to me to make this reality. Ugh.
I will likely be enrolling in some kind of course by a university (humanities-oriented ones probably have those) once the next semester starts to learn in a more structured way and practise speaking. However, I am supposed to start today and not delay until some hypothetical future point. Uh-oh. “Structured” is also not the word I’d use to describe my approach to English, and that worked out wonderfully.
The problem I find is that most online courses and textbooks that start from total beginner level seem to have all these stories and characters and try to be approachable, and it annoys me enough to not pay as much attention to what is being taught. They also, for obvious reasons, often stress importance of audio and video. But I will have that later, and for now just want a written tool. Give me words and how to use them with abstract examples, exercises to practise, and I’ll be on my way reading Das Kapital and Kafka’s Die Verwandlung or whatever people read these days. Ironically, my university’s English textbook is closer to that. Just words - rules - exercise - boring text - over and over. Or at least I think so, I only skimmed through it once…
The main 2 parts of a language as I understand it are vocabulary - what words you know, and grammar - how to string words together. It appears if I will have more success finding something more “serious” by learning words on my own and then using a grammar book. I went over it today, and current plan starting tomorrow (and no, today still counts as work!) is:
- Anki cards with words to acquire basic vocabulary. I think I’ll try these A1-level ones first.
- Going through Basic German: A Grammar and Workbook I found mentioned here
- Use Hammer’s German Grammar And Usage for more in-depth understanding
Once I gain confidence, I’ll start attempting to read news or actual books. Obviously, I’ll understand nothing, but then I’ll write down new words into another deck, note how sentences were written, and that’s is called progress. This can begin once I grasp around a thousand common words and basic grammar, i.e. by mid-August if I’m lucky and September more realistically.
Or I could just tolerate the occasional childishness of existing resources since they were probably created by people who know what they’re doing. But that would be boring.
Anyhow, see you later. Tips are always welcome.
…Auf Wiedersehen?