Ask HN: What methods would you recommand to learn German? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: What methods would you recommand to learn German?

2 pointspsychoslave8 comments

Method can be taken in a very broad meaning in this question.

If you have application/website suggestions, please indicate if it allows to also test oral expression and understanding.

My goal is mostly to be able to follow basic conversations in a German street and read news but I’m also curious to dig into poetry and philosophy.

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Look up your nearest Goethe Institut. The courses are excellent. https://www.goethe.de/en/index.html

If you really want to go at it independently without a teacher, I heard good things about the Deutsche Welle courses: https://learngerman.dw.com/

That depends on where you are and what languages you already know. Without any context this is a tricky thing to answer. If you can afford it and if it doesn't interfere with the rest of your life: move there and immerse yourself. That's the very best way to learn German. The next best thing is to find German immigrants where you live and befriend them, ask them if they'll want to teach you by refusing to speak any other language but German to you. Websites and applications can give you some vocabulary but won't get you to the fluency level required for poetry and philosophy but they might help you as a tourist.

French is my native language, English is my daily work language (working in a remote position), I can speak Esperanto fluently and I live in Strasbourg.

I actually already learnt German most of my school days but it’s all 20 years ago now and didn’t practice it since then.

Strasbourg is adjacent to Germany so immersion is a few km apart from home, but as is I wouldn’t be able to even have a basic conversation with a cashier for example.

Ok, so then your easiest choice is to start doing your shopping there, those conversations will happen whether you are capable or not :) And if you have some school German to help you that will unthaw rapidly in my experience, you tend to remember more than you think you do. Good luck with this!

for exercising oral comprehension you might enjoy "World of Wolfram" (10 eps): https://www.youtube.com/@WorldofWolfram

Thanks for sharing. I get that it can be enjoyable though I am not in the intended audience I think.

The best advice for most people is also the most intuitive: sign up with a trained German teacher, go to classes, do the lessons, put in the time and effort. Best of luck, German is a beautiful language with a rich humanistic and technical corpus!

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