German Update

Remember how back in February I scored 17 correct out of 30 on this Goethe Institute test-your-beginning-German test, and said that hey, at least I was doing better than random guessing?

Well. This is my result now in early September.

So this language-learning thing I’m doing has been going really well.
I can’t even blame my results on being tired this time, as this time around, I did the Goethe Institute practice test first, before going back to the (clearly easier) Deutsche Welle placement tests.

I did do better with the DW testing. First I took their A1 placement test, and I officially received a 70% on that – and yes, you might say: “but didn’t you get 79% last time?” and the answer is yeahno, er, I mean, jein, this time around, I was having technical trouble getting my answers to register within the test, and I am actually fully confident that if I had got all of my answers to register, I would have achieved the same score as previous, maybe even a tad better – and getting probably the same instead of going backwards felt like an achievement after my GI result. (I wonder if I can at least partially blame summer heat for this apparently-not-really-advancing-since-February-thing? No? Hmm.)

Despite/because of these recently re-written quiz results I somehow felt confident (or desperate) enough to go on and take the DW A2 placement test for the first time. A few days before retaking the two previous tests, I asked the Babbel app to reassess my level within the app, and they said I was in the second half of their A1 level.

And DW agrees I am not yet A2 by any metric.

These quizzes only test on text and audio comprehension.
What is are my main (easily testable) weaknesses at the moment?
Grammar is a problem.
I don’t know if you call it a grammar problem, but I find it very annoying – I don’t yet know how to properly connect my vocabulary words with the little connecting words you need in a sentence.
I thought I had a break-through in understanding when to use “auf” and when to use “von” in late August, but this is something I noted I partially failed at it during the tests. (And yes I have heard that sometimes “von” is “vom” in some tense? circumstance? but to hello with that detail right now.)
So this means I still don’t even know how to consistently correctly say the more-or-less equivalent of “from,” in German, guys.

What am I doing?

I’ve started writing a note to myself every evening in German, to practice vocabulary “free-hand” outside of the various apps I’m using.
It can take me twenty minutes to (atrociously) write a couple of sentences screen free, but it is practice! And I correct it the next day. I think this might help something or other eventually.

I have recently had an ah-ha moment and figured out the why of one of the problems I’ve been having spelling some German vocabulary words I do sort of know – it’s because my “automatic” I before E except after C does not work in German! In fact the “ie” or “ei” combination is something that is specifically known to trip up people learning German from English, because English-brain is programmed to see these two letter combos as basically the same with “only” a pretty minor spelling mistake in difference, but in German these combos are not the same, they are definitely different, they are actually helpfully different with pronunciation (and meaning) when you’re focused, but we English natives have to unlearn our tendency to “same” them before we can move on with them in German.

Anyway. I need to read more German.

I did pretty well on the audio-comprehension bits of the tests. This makes sense, as I have been listening to beginner-appropriate audio pretty consistently, and even throwing in some native-level content now and then.

I should probably get into this whole “read the transcript while listening” thing people keep telling me about. But then I wouldn’t be able to listen while doing other things…

I’ll continue to try and figure it all out. It’s tempting, but I don’t think I’m giving up yet.
I’m reminding myself one of the main reason for me doing this is to give my brain a workout, and this is still doing that.
Even if my brain does seem to be leaking back out whatever I attempt to stuff into it.

In other news, it’s raining! Hurray! Send more! Put those wild fires out!