deutschtrove

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it’s so painful to study another language when there isn’t a lot of content available in your country. what was the internet even made for, if not to share knowledge across borders? here i am, stuck watching dubbed american tv shows, when there is a whole world of native german shows that will never reach my screen.

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“I’m just a girl” first of all you’re a grown ass woman second of all free yourself

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If you’re an English speaker learning German or an German speaker learning English I guarantee you’ve gotten angry about the words who and where. Oder Wer und wo. Because that’s a level of false cognate that’s just unfair

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Materials that helped me pass the DTZ B1 exam and not lose my marbles

YouTube

Benjamin - Der Deutschlehrer

My favorite channel for specifically preparing for the exam. Very good at explaining letters, conversations, that sort of thing. Also very helpful with advice on what to add or take away in the delivery to make it sound more b1 rather than a2.

LordPappnase

I love his gameplay videos and his way of speaking. But frankly, he's more as an example here - go to youtube and type in your hobby/special interest/favorite game/favorite media + deutsch into the search box and you'll get a lot of auditory training, which you won't be bored watching! I have to admit, I get terribly bored watching all these videos that are specifically designed for language learners - they look in places like they think I'm an idiot >.<

Android Apps

Babbel

The best program for learning German in my eyes. Grammar, drills, interesting topics - it's all there. But, a small nuance - it is the best for those who know Ukrainian, because then you will have a full course without ads and restrictions. I do not know why. But it's worth taking advantage of if you have the opportunity!

Flashcards // Anki // Drops

You will always benefit from a program which is simply a deck of useful words to memorize.. I used Flashcards like 90% of the time, but the other two will also do the job if you like them better.

Tutor Lily

I can't put into words the usefulness of this app. It's a chatbot with whom you can talk a little every day - and thus literally force your brain to lay down the neural pathways of how you should communicate in a particular language. I credit my 97/100 on speaking to this program alone. It is 100% worth it.

Polygloss

Shows you images that you have to describe in your target language. It doesn't sound particularly helpful, but one part of the DTZ exam is literally describing the picture! So it's actually insanely useful - including the fact that it forces you to look up words to describe different objects, events, and the like (or think of what you can call it if you forget a specific word).

Clozemaster

Read more about how I use it here and here!~

Additional notes:

I'm sorry, but there is no way to “learn a language in two weeks”. They're lying to you. You have to sit and study, half an hour a day, ten minutes - even five minutes. Every day. Or every other day. Learning a language takes time, and even if someone was able to memorize a few lines for an exam to pass, factually speaking, it's a Pyrrhic victory - they still have to learn it all over again if they want to really know the language and not just pass the exam (which may work on b1, but good luck with b2 then, me dude).

You will be bored. You will feel like nothing is happening. That's part of the process - and there's no avoiding it. And that's okay.

Find something that lets you dip your feet into the language, but doesn't feel like bloody agony - for me, it was listening to the German podcast Easy German on the way to and from my courses. By the time of the exam, I had listened to about 70 hours of this podcast, which is 70 hours of uninterrupted German. By the end, I was even understanding it very well!

If you like playing video games, put on German voiceovers. Even if you leave the text in your native language, it's still an unconscious imersion - and every minute is worth it.

While you're at it - put German dubbing in your movies and TV series too. It may be strange at first, but it also helps a lot!

And in the name of all that is holy, don't use chat gpt. No, chat gpt's “wonderful courses and explanations” won't help you. No, if you throw your letters into it, it won't analyze them and give you a worthwhile assessment - it'll hallucinate and give you some faulty answers.

Please. We really don't need another person starting their German letter with “Guten Tag,”, as did at least 3 of my coursemates <.<

And good luck!~

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god I would be UNSTOPPABLE if I was capable of consistently initiating tasks. just you wait. you'll be waiting a while but just you wait

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134/365 - 07.05.2025

Ich habe einen coolen Kanal auf YouTube entdeckt: Cosy German. Ich liebe wirklich diese Videos. Ich beschloss, ein Diktat aufzunehmen. Los geht's!

Wie ich mich motiviere, wenn ich keine Energie habe

Es gibt Tage, an denen die Energie fehlt (missing). Man wacht (wakes) müde auf, obwohl man genug geschlafen hat. Die to-do liste ist lang, aber der Antrieb (drive) fehlt. Solche (such) Tage kennt fast jeder. Egal (doesn't matter), ob man in Deutschland lebt oder anderswo. Die Frage ist, wie schafft man es trotzdem (despite it) ins Handeln zu kommen? Zunächst einmal (first of all) ist es wichtig, die Ursache (reason) zu erkennen (recognize, identify). Energie ist nicht nur eine körperliche (physical), sondern auch eine mentale Ressource. Wenn man sich erschöpft (exhausted) fühlt, kann das verschiedene Gründe (reasons) haben. Zu wenig Schlaf, zu viele Aufgaben, emotionale Belastungen (burdens) oder einfach das Wetter.

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I very much agree with these suggestions. Forcing myself to write was the way I could finally start to become an active rather than a passive user of the target language.

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129/365 - 02.05.2025

aufhören - to end, cease, stop, quit

Hören die Spiele ⚽ immer so schnell auf? (Do the games always end so quickly?)

gehören - to belong

Löwen 🦁 gehören zur Familie der Katzen 🐈

hören - hear, listen, obey

Ich fühle mich! immer ruhig, wenn ich Queen 👑 höre.

Diese Wörter sind sehr ähnlich (similar).

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"Jedes Zuhause ist ein zufälliges: Dort wirst du geboren, hierhin vertrieben, da drüben vermachst du deine Niere der Wissenschaft. Glück hat, wer den Zufall beeinflussen kann. Wer sein Zuhause nicht verlässt, weil er muss, sondern weil er will. Glück hat, wer sich geographische Wünsche erfüllt."

Aus HERKUNFT von Saša Stanišić

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Male pattern baldness: boo boring, sounds absolutely pathetic

Geheimratsecken: alpha male superiority, chad, holds a high governing position

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Hi, I want to watch some YouTube videos in German without subtitles in English, and I was thinking whether or not I should use autogenerated German captions. I'm worried that they might hinder me if they're not that accurate, and that they might simply be too much of a distraction when I'm listening just to get the feel and rhythm of the language. What would you recommend? (Asking from my main, my sideblog is deutschtrove.)

hello hello!

i think it won't hurt more than it'll help but it'll probably depend a lot on you. It could be helpful to see words that were just spoken to help you keep up and understand more, but if they're the wrong words it might confuse you.

I think if you're using it just as a little helper while just consuming content, it'll be fine/good, but if you're using it to actively study the language it'll be more frustrating/wrong than effective.

If you find that they're confusing you/distracting you, just turn them off. And always take them with a grain of salt (especially when the speaker is comparably erratic (or it's multiple speakers) instead of speaking slowly and clearly (like an audiobook narrator might)

Anything that gets you interacting with the language is good though :>

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✨"Sehr geehrte Besucher, aufgrund Ihres hohen Alters ist unsere Leopardin leider gestorben"✨

The marking on the picture around the word "Ihres" points to the importance of proper capitalization of the formal you in German to distinguish it from her/your

ihr = her (feminine singular possessive pronoun) / your (plural personal pronoun; this doesn't make sense here though)

aufgrund ihres hohen Alters -> because of her (the female leopards) old age

Ihr = you (formal)

aufgrund Ihres hohen Alters -> because of your (the readers)visitors) old age

Dear visitor, due to her old age, the female leopard has unfortunately passed away.

vs.

Dear visitor, due to your old age, the female leopard has unfortunately passed away.

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German Pluralmarkers

In my Language Acquisition course, we got to the topic of plurals. Why are they difficult? Because there's SO MANY!

My prof criticized the tip "just always learn the plural when you learn the word" because yes, that is helpful but wouldn't it be more helpful to know that there's some regularity?! Just like the gender of nouns is not completely random (post about that here) Here are some of my prof's slides about the rules/probabilities:

the rules above cover around 40% of german words. there's more, of course, but they only cover around 4%:

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In my L1-acquisition class two weeks ago, our professor talked about how only 9% of the speech a baby hears is single words. Everything else is phrases and sentences, onslaughts of words and meaning!

Thus, a baby not only has to learn words and their meanings but also learn to segment lots of sounds INTO words. Doyouwantalittlemoresoupyesyoudoyoucutie. Damn.

When she talked about HOW babies learn to segment words our professor said, and I love it, "babies are little statisticians" because when listening to all the sounds, they start understanding what sound is likely to come after another vs which is not.

After discussing lots of experiments done with babies, our professor added something that I already knew somewhere in my brain but didn't know I know: All this knowledge is helpful when learning an L2 as well:

Listen to natives speaking their language. Original speed. Whatever speaker. Whatever topic.

It is NOT about understanding meaning. It is about learning the rhythm of the language, getting a feeling for its sound, the combination of sounds, the melody and the pronunciation.

Just how babies have to learn to identify single words within waves of sounds, so do adults learning a language. It will help immensely with later (more intentional) listening because you're already used to the sound, can already get into the groove of the languge.

Be as brave as a baby.

You don't even have to pay special attention. Just bathe in the sound of your target language. You'll soak it up without even noticing.

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Erdbeeren im Frühling zu essen, ja, das gehört zum Leben dazu.

Vincent Van Gogh, in einem Brief an seinen Bruder Theo, vom 23. Dezember 1881

Vincent Van Gogh, in a letter to his brother Theo, dated 23 December 1881

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in an age where machine translation is getting better and better I BEG you to keep learning languages and keep your brain sharp and keep an open mind. learning a language is so much more than memorizing a bunch of words, it opens up ways of seeing the world you hadn't considered before that are inherent to the way things are phrased in another language. it gives you a new lens through which you'll view life. it will make your life fuller, more well-rounded, more fulfilling. please learn languages other than your own.

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Welches meiner wichtigen Nichtigkeiten soll ich dir zuerst erzählen?

— Jane Austen, Briefe an Cassandra Austen (Juni 15, 1808)

Which of all my important nothings shall I tell you first?

— Jane Austen, Letters to Cassandra Austen (June 15, 1808)