Learning German

Personal log.

I like to write a blog in general, as it allows me to remember things which I would forget in the course of time. Probably I am not keeping the track of all things on this blog that would “qualify” in terms of importance, but at least something…

Today I am continuing my push for learning proper German. After 2 years in Austria it would be nice to speak it fluently. I am in a lucky situation that I can survive and socialize using my English around here (at least at the university and also in the city). Everybody at our institute has a decent knowledge of it, and my placement in the office for MSc and PhD students mostly from other countries adds to level of comfort even more. English rules our office! Well… Sometimes it is Amharic given the large number of Ethiopians… :-) 

Back to the German language… I have studied it for four year in school but not used it for quite some time. When I started to work in Vienna I started to learn again several times, but left off with it for different reasons. Well… convenience mostly… But this time I should push until the fluency at least to the level of my English.

The question is how you learn a language. I read a bit about this on the Net and found out various opinions and as a by-product of the search valuable resources as well (notably Deutsche Welle). These might bring you until some point where you understand some lines in the newspapers, catch a phrase or two in the talk. You can reach this point relatively easily. After that it all comes down to the performance of a muscle. The sitting one… As everything, the knowledge of a language does not come by itself. Comes with hours and days spent by learning. No shortcuts are possible here…

In a way I am still on the beginning of the journey. Wish me luck…