[0:00]I went from zero to fluent in German and you can copy exactly what I did. No fluff, no secret methods, just a system that works. Here's a quick question for you. How many words do you think you need to know to understand the majority of spoken German? The answer is around 3,000 words. Just 3,000 words can unlock 95% of spoken German for you. But if you have ever tried learning a foreign language, you probably know that simply learning words is not enough. You need to hear them in context over and over again to really understand and start using them. And that brings me to the first and most essential part of learning German that I want to share with you.
[0:45]Comprehensible input is about consuming content that you can mostly understand. Even if there are some words or grammar that you don't know yet, so it should be challenging enough to push you forward, but not so hard that you feel lost. Let me give you a personal example here. When I had approximately B2 in German, I thought I was advanced enough to start reading some serious stuff, so I decided to combine two of my interests, philosophy and learning German. I chose the original German book for it, which was Nietzsche's Also sprach Zarathustra. But of course, it didn't go as planned and I gave up after just a couple of pages. I mean, what else would you expect from trying to read sentences that consist of 60 words like this one? And it's not just about the length of the sentences, but also the style of the language that Nietzsche is using here. So instead of Nietzsche, I picked up something that was more appropriate for my level, which was Schachnovelle by Stefan Zweig. That was comprehensible input for me. This book was still challenging, it was a bit above my level, but I could still guess the meaning of some words from the context. And that's the key this method applies to any kind of input, whether it's books, podcasts or movies, they have to be level appropriate for you and you might be wondering, where can you actually find this kind of books or movies? When it comes to books, there is a big variety of literature that still tells the original story, but the vocabulary was adapted to different levels. So you can search for these adapted books online, like, for example, Die Verwandlung by Franz Kafka. As for movies or series, here are some of my favorite ones. For A1 learners, I recommend Nicos Weg. For A2 learners, check out Extra auf Deutsch or Nicos Weg for A2. And for B1 learners, I recommend Türkisch für Anfänger. For B2 and C1 learners, you can already start watching regular German YouTube channels and documentaries like SWR Doku. And if you want to find more amazing and free resources for learning German, I have an entire video about it, which will be linked in the description below. Once you have started to learn German with comprehensible input, the next step is to start using it even more actively with this powerful method: retelling stories. This one is probably the most useful thing I did when I was learning foreign languages. Now, this method does take some discipline and it's nice to have someone to practice it with, like a teacher or a friend. The retellin method perfectly combined with comprehensible input that we talked about earlier, and this is how it works. You watch a series or read a couple of pages from a book that is level appropriate for you. But instead of just consuming information and forgetting it, you'll have to be intentional with it here, because your task is to retell what you have seen or read in your own words. The story doesn't have to be long and could be really short, maybe just a minute or two. But you might need to write down some key points that you want to talk about, note the chronology of events, or put down the vocabulary that you want to use when you are retelling the story. This is a cool way to push words from your passive vocabulary into your active one. It forces you to actually use the language instead of just passively consuming it. Another very important part of what I was doing when I was learning German is grammar drills. Grammar might feel boring at times, but it's the foundation of every language. So having a resource for grammar drills, whether it's a hard copy book or an online tool, will benefit you a lot. A good example is Schubert Verlag's grammar exercises online. This will help you speak German automatically without having to stop for an entire minute to think whether you should say "Ich habe gestern ins Kino gegangen" or "Ich bin gestern ins Kino gegangen." Finally, here's a fact that applies to any language learning system and that we all really need to accept. Learning is always messy. It's a non-linear process with lots of ups and downs, and as much as we'd always like to have a structured approach and steady progress, that's just not going to work. You might think that once you have reached the B1 level, you will stop making mistakes with things like word order or articles, but mistakes will still happen and that's okay. Developing your language skills is like a stock market, it goes up and down, but the overall trend is upward, hopefully. And that's what matters. So embrace the process, accept the messiness and keep going.
