Sprichst du Deutsch?

Most of you know that my sister Quinn, and her family live in Germany and speak German (obviously). You may not know that I took 4 semesters of German at BYU and have been to Germany twice. Each time, I was amazed at how much my comprehension improved just by being immersed in the language and hearing it all the time. Upon returning home I vowed to spend more time studying and working on increasing my fluency. However, my stumbling block was always that I couldn't seem to get enough listening material, because it is listening to everyday language that really seems to help me. Enter, the IPOD touch. We received an Ipod touch free with our computer last year and I thought it was cool. I had a way to watch movies and listen to music. But just recently I have discovered some really cool applications and podcasts that I'm really excited about. I've started carrying my Ipod with me everywhere and while I'm driving or folding laundry or washing dishes I'll turn on a German Podcast and its like spending an hour or two in Germany everyday. Many people enjoy listening to books on tape or the audio scriptures. I'm a very visual person and I retain much more information when I read something so I don't really enjoy listening to those. However, language acquisition is an auditory activity (And while I do want to improve my ability to read and write German it is mostly the spoken language that I need to practice) so it is just the kind of practice I need. In addition, it is just the kind of mental distraction that is helping me not mind the mundane tasks of housekeeping. I find myself completely unaware that I am folding laundry or washing dishes because I'm so focused on trying to understand what I'm listening too.

Here are a few of my favorite Podcasts. The first is called "A Flavor of German" (unfortunately it doesn't look like they are making any new ones but I'm going to listen to the 10 that they have repeatedly until I've got them down) What I really like about this one is that it teaches the German idioms. For example I have learned that bis über beide Ohren verliebt means really in love. Its similar to our "head over heels in love" but it literally means "in love to over both ears". And in German, a person is yellow not green with envy and if someone is blue it means they are drunk not just feeling down. These are the kinds of phrases that I would literally understand but without the cultural context I would be confused as to the meaning.

Another one is Germanpod101. They have a ton of resources on their website (you have to pay for some) but I just subscribe to the free podcasts. I like the format of their lessons. First you listen to a short conversation, maybe 2 minutes long. Then you hear the same conversation at a slower pace. Then they slowly repeat the conversation line by line followed by the English translation and discussion of any significant new words or grammar and then you hear the entire conversation in German at normal speed. The text of the conversation also shows up on my ipod so after I've listened to it a few times I can read it as well. Very helpful.

There are also a lot of free online language courses with a lot of audio/visual learning aids like this free interactive course from Deutsche Welle.

Those are just a few of my favorites but I'm just excited because with all of the technology available now it is very easy to find online audio language materials to listen to.

Okay, this post is rambling and I doubt any of you are looking to learn German. I get excited about strange things, I know. (I've also found some cool online sources for learning Chinese that I'm having Salem work on but that's another story) So I'll stop now.

Tschuss!