I use the most basic vocabulary (like the elementary school one). I basically memorise all the words. That's the way I got started in English as well. It helps because all the basic words are necessary for general use.Charity F said:I was wondering... what has been/is the best method to learn/memorise/expand your vocabulary/idioms for German?
I watch the news, listen to music/magazine cds, read articles...
Is it just the good old "Look, cover, write, check" business for languages or is there a better way?
Yes..? Only with the pronouns though, and there's only an accusative/nominative difference.Peartie said:we have a case system today in english?
People with cases in their language find it quite natural, I think, and enjoy having it.see were never actually taught that
I think they are, because even the most uninformed native German speaker will know Akkusativ vs Dativ, etc.- i guess germans arent taught it either
It's really not that bad, just needs some tweaking.Borbor said:Feel free to correct my horrible German . Sorry for no umlauts and s set, it's so annoying to type those on the computer.
Viel Glueck dafuer! Hoffentlich wirst du sehr gute Noten bekommen. Mitte dieses Monat habe ich auch meine deutsche Pruefung und dafuer habe ich viel Stress.BlueGiraffe said:Ich weiss dass, wir Deutsch sprechen sollen, aber do you guys to Beginners, continuers or ext?
I do beginners und morgen, habe ich meine deutsche Prüfung!
Haha... but that's not what I said, at least not in the context of the thread. When I said 'subject', I meant an actual school subject, a course.
I'll explain.
My German teacher, informed me, that to 'love' an inanimate object is ridiculous.
The verb 'lieben' does not have the same connotations as 'love' does in English.
E.g. 'I love chocolate', would probably be best translated as 'ich esse gern Schockolade', because 'ich liebe Schockolade' means that you very very strongly like something.
After all even in English 'love' when talking about chocolate, does not mean the same thing as 'love' when talking about family.
EDIT:
Argh... I just remembered my above promise to only write in German from now on in.
It's just an English idiom, as the word 'love' is used as a hyperbole in this instance.
It depends if you want to be extremely formal. If you are new to the forum and are being polite, 'Sie' would be completely appropriate. I'm sure those who speak fluent German here would not mind either.That's true what your teacher said, but I spent a year in Germany last year and found out that people do actually say they 'love' things like chocolates or whatever even though it's not actually correct, it depends on the personality of the person and also what dialect they are speaking.
btw everyone I saw a few of you were writing 'Sie', you are all students so should be writing 'Du'.
I used to think like that too, but since I've been in Germany I realised that the way you are taught to use Sie and Du in school is not at all how you use it in Germany.It depends if you want to be extremely formal. If you are new to the forum and are being polite, 'Sie' would be completely appropriate. I'm sure those who speak fluent German here would not mind either.
I think that's half-correct. In this context, you'd definitely use the Du-form. If this were a German forum, and you used the Sie-form, people would just assume you're foreign or silly.Because everyone here is most likely a student, then it's Du straight away regardless if you're new to the website, and if this was a German website with a bunch of German users, they would think you are making a joke by saying Sie.
Yeh you're right,I think that's half-correct. In this context, you'd definitely use the Du-form. If this were a German forum, and you used the Sie-form, people would just assume you're foreign or silly.
In my opinion, the important thing is not to think about age or anything of the other speaker, but context.
Take for example what you said about students. If I spoke with you now on the forum, I'd use the Du-form. However, if I came into a store and you were working behind the counter (and we didn't know each other), we'd probably speak in the Sie-form.
So I think we could say that the usage of the Du-/Sie-form is context-specific, particularly location of the speakers. On the casual end of the scale is a context like being in a club - you'd obviously use Du there with other people. The other end of the scale is difference of status, someone serving someone, someone being older, someone being a professional, etc. Age is just a common difference in status, but not the only one.