How to Learn German | Best Tips & Tricks just for you!

How to learn German efficiently and with success? That's the big question. A question we often get asked by our students and a question which is not that easy to answer just in a comment or so. Therefore I'm doing this video a little bit weird because I'm the teacher but I saw these techniques these tips on my students and after 10 years of teaching I know what is working and what is not. So take a pen and a piece of paper and write down these tips with me together because if you only apply 50% of all those tips I'm going to share with you I'm convinced I'm sure you will make progress and you will see progress. It doesn't matter if you learn German by yourself with YouTube for example or you already taking German classes. This video is for all of you and actually also any level. It still applies for any level. Of course it's meant to be for beginners because usually people who would search for this video they are beginners but it's also definitely useful. Some tricks here for intermediate and advanced students and if you are already taking classes then stick around because at the end in my bonus tip I'm gonna share some tips and tricks how you can make the best out of your German classes from a teacher's view. So I give you tip as a student how you can make the best of you out of your classes and in case we haven't met you're watching your German teacher the YouTube channel to learn German. Okay if you want to learn German or actually any other language you need to focus on four four main parts which are number one lesen. Lesen to read. Reading. Number two schreiben. Writing. Number three hören. Listening. And number four sprechen to speak. I'm gonna give you tips to all four of those topics but what's the most important thing is it's actually in deinem Kopf. It's in your head. It's the mindset. You cannot just say and say tomorrow I think I'm gonna learn German. No problemo. Kein Problem. Not gonna happen because it's as you probably already know not the easiest language to learn and everything which takes a lot of effort a lot of work you better take goals you better write down your goals so you need long-term goals which are for example studying in Germany or get a job in Germany or maybe just traveling I just want to travel in Germany and then I want to speak a little bit German and then you also need short-term goals if you have weekly schedules right try to write down a weekly schedule this can be for example next week I want to learn 30 new words 10 verbs 10 nouns 10 adjectives or I want to watch a movie completely in German with German subtitles but not just enjoying it maybe also like taking notes and writing down words you don't know these are short goals but important they have to be realistic be patient German learning German is not a sprint it's a marathon like many other things in life as well so we have to be patient and your goals have to be realistic I often saw this with students that they're super motivated in the beginning and say oh I want to learn German it's great and it's amazing and I'm gonna I'm gonna have B1 in three months and then at some point their goals were just too high and their expectations were quite high as well and it was not possible to do and then they lost the motivation so do baby steps and step by step small steps take your time and be patient you will get there at some point and of course you need some teaching material you need a textbook and a workbook you need some guidance and you need to have some help to follow along what is the next step these are two options we both Johannes and me worked together with for the last couple years and we found them very useful especially for beginners or and I'm very excited to announce this you can also go on our new website yourgermanteacher.com why because since today our first A1.1 complete beginner online course is ready and available it's meant for beginners of course but it's also probably very interesting for intermediate students because what we got this feedback we had intermediate student testing this course and their feedback was it was actually also very useful for them so it is important to get the basics right it is important to understand the grammar from the beginning especially in German all right let's go to the first topic which is lesen reading if you already have a textbook you might also have some texts in there which you should read in detail meaning if you don't understand the word look it up in a dictionary and write it down which brings me to an important tip vocabulary how to learn vocabulary and there I still think the best system on the market by far is still the good old flash card system and now you might say oh Lucy that's so old school I do just I use my phone I have apps for this and I would say yeah it's okay but it's not that efficient because if you use your phone you're just typing like this it's not really helping but if you write flash cards you're using your hand with a pen and you're writing it down and it will stick here in your head way easier so how to write a efficient flash card system on the one side you have the German word and on the other side you have your translation in your preferred language now this is important if it's a noun you always always write it together with the definite article definite article always together with why because German genders probably also know this already is one of the biggest problems for all German learners it doesn't matter what level if you do this right from the beginning you definitely have an advantage later and less problem because it's going to be important these genders are going to be very important now the second thing if it's an adjective write it together with the opposite and so on if it's a verb write it together with a whole sentence a simple easy sentence then to write and then a sentence in German keep it simple but make a sentence not just the verb try to use it think of something you like to say and like this it will also stick here much better also try to use different subjects not always make the sentence with ich as ich schreibe eine e-mail du schreibst eine e-mail try to use different subjects do er sie wir also plural very important this is something a lot of German students miss because most of the example sentences they do in class also is actually try to use the other subjects as well and now if you want to read German short stories I can recommend you this website here german.net it's not sponsored it's just something which I found very useful it's a really good online and free resource you can choose your level and even get some comprehensive exercises for each text it's a really convenient and really good website is for free and it has texts for each and every level let's go to the second part schreiben writing and here as well very old school but very efficient writing a diary it doesn't have to be every single day but maybe twice or three times a week that would be already very very helpful and here important write it again with your pen and in a notebook don't write it on your computer first you can first write it in a notebook and afterwards you can type it also in your computer so you can keep it there and also double check it which is easier for you important don't put whole sentences into a translator this is absolutely not helpful try to just look up single vocabulary and try to use the vocabulary you know already keep it simple in the beginning it doesn't have to be a fancy text keep it as simple as possible once you progress once you get to intermediate level then you can try to make your sentences as long as possible but in the keep it as simple as possible at least everything has to be in german if you want to look up words i can recommend dick.cc it's also available as an app on your phone it's for free it's available offline english german dictionary i think it's quite works it works well if you want to go more into detail lingui.com is a good website where you can look up words and they also give you example sentences there if you need to correct your sentences use dipool.com this is a quite good english german or german english translator where you actually can put whole sentences in it and it will give you a good result number three listening for listening you have quite a big selection of resources start with movies and tv shows you know already and of course you like as well watch them in german with german subtitles and here again the same thing watch it actively meaning step by step so that's what i said for a week like a week goal could be watching a movie or two shows episodes or something because you really have to stop and think did you understand it maybe listen again hear again and write down words you don't know same thing as before write it down and put it in your flashcard system another very useful resource i found are podcasts just like a radio nowadays i found coffee break german very useful or else my students recommended this as well they have episodes in all different levels they have everything for each level free and paid and if you're interested in documentaries you can find very interesting short and longer format videos in german and with subtitles on the youtube channel of ndr doku they have over 900 videos on their channel and i'm pretty sure that you find something which you like it has to be something you like and you cannot just watch anything try to find something which you're interested in a topic you're interested in and here a small side tip as well if you watch these movies or these short videos go to settings and change the playback speed to 0.75 or start even like this you can understand way more and read it at the same time and of course there's also youtube channels there's tons of good youtube channels out there i just want to mention one which i think is one not only one of the biggest but also one of the best is easy german you probably know it already if not then you definitely have to check it out i'm gonna put a link also in description why because they do have lots of videos with real life situations so they go on the street and interview people and there you can actually hear the real german how it's spoken on the street how it's spoken in germany this is definitely more useful for people who live already in germany but also for people who are beginners or don't live there yet it's just to get a glimpse of the real german something which is usually not taught in textbooks and last but not least speaking probably the most important part for a lot of you guys but also very tricky we always get this question how do i become fluent in german and the answer is always the same it's practice practice practice i know you don't want to hear this but there is no other way you have to practice there is no magic pill or shortcut for this you do have to speak and you have to practice imagine when you learned to ride a bicycle or when you learned how to drive a car you can watch all the youtube movies in the world read all the books in the world on how to drive a car at the end you still can't drive what you have to do is you have to sit yourself in a car and drive these cars the more you drive the better driver you become that's the same thing for languages it's exactly the same thing you have to speak the more you speak the better and more fluent you will become i know i know lots of you feel embarrassed to speak or are just too shy i have been there when i came to taiwan i couldn't speak one single word of chinese so i took an intensive class learned some vocabulary and then i forced myself to use it in daily life whenever i went by groceries whenever i went to buy food i tried to use it as often as possible but you really have to force yourself it took me quite a while until i was able to speak chinese in front of people i know so first of course do it by yourself when nobody's listening and this already helps eventually you will get there and eventually at some point it will not be a problem anymore but you need to start the sooner the better now if you don't live in germany of course it's a little bit more difficult you don't have people to talk to maybe you don't have anybody to talk german to therefore there is another technique i watched a guy recently on a youtube video i also gonna link it down below and he learned several languages just by talking to himself that's another technique if this sounds too weird for you maybe you like singing try singing in the shower try to sing some german songs there is different options of course you can always also find a tandem partner on facebook for example there's tons of facebook groups where people like you are learning german and they all have the same problem they have not a tandem partner somebody to speak to go into these groups find somebody where you can speak to which has the same level and if you are taking classes then the teacher should give you lots of time in each and every class to speak if not tell your teacher hey teacher please we need some time to speak you definitely need some time to speak in the class where you speak only german talking about classes this brings me to my bonus tip how to get the most out of your german classes first thing is try to be as active and as motivated as possible because there's nothing worse for a teacher than just a bunch of students who are just sitting there and doing nothing the teacher will perform the best if you are also interested and show this to them so be active ask questions ask questions very important any kind of questions it doesn't matter as many as you want there is no stupid questions teachers love questions and third do the homework homework is important why it's kind of helping you to review because most students they don't review but it's important reviewing is one of the most important facts to learn a language it is very important and homework doing homework is kind of helping you to not forget to review something i suggest you to watch these two playlists you have a grammar playlist and a vocabulary playlist where you can continue to learn german hope you learned something i hope you use some of those techniques and methods bis bald auf wiedersehen und tschüss