Learn German with Herr Antrim

Now that you've been learning German for a while, you are starting to realize the vast amounts of vocabulary that you're going to need to learn in order to speak it fluently. So, how do you get the words to stick in your brain? How can you learn the 500 to 650 words required to be considered at the A1 level? Or even the 1,000 to 2,000 words you need for the A2? How will you ever reach 16,000 words that you'll need in order to get to C2? With the tips and tricks that I'm going to teach you in this video, you will be on your way in no time. Start by thinking how you learned as many words as you know in your native language. I bet the answer that you just said now is books. You didn't study flashcards, you didn't do listen and repeat exercises. You read a lot of words and you heard a lot of words in a variety of contexts, and you eventually just figured it out on your own. Reading is a great way for you to learn any language. Not just reading, however, but reading to learn, which is different and a lot of people don't know the difference. In January of last year, I went through my whole system for reading with the express purpose of learning new vocabulary. While I encourage you to watch that video, too, I'll give you the CliffsNotes version here. Never read just once. Read the first time through without stopping. Pick a start and end point before you even start reading. Just read through that passage that you just chose and see how much you can actually understand. On the second reading, write a list of words that you don't know. Look them up after you finish reading. Then re-read the passage a third time with the list next to you so that you can reference it while you read. On the fourth reading, don't use the list and see how much you have retained. This process forces your brain to internalize the information. It draws your attention to the words that you don't know so that you are concentrating on improving your vocabulary. The more you read, the more you will internalize the phrasing and general In the United States, 21% of adults are illiterate. 54% of adults have illiteracy below 6th grade level. 48.5% of adults didn't read a single book in the past year. And yet, the average native English speaker has a vocabulary between 20 and 35,000 words. The average 8-year-old knows 10,000 words. And the average 4-year-old knows 5,000 words. I took a super legit-looking online test while I was writing the script for this video, and it says that my vocabulary in English is just over 23,000 words, which puts me on the lower end of the average English speaker continuum. Because I was bored, I took a different one from a different website, and it said that I knew 33,000 words, which puts me on the higher end of the average. What this tells me is two things. First of all, these tests are not terribly reliable. And second of all, you don't need to read in order to know new words. Obviously, it will help if you can read some, but in addition to reading, you need to hear as much German as possible. And this could be from movies, TV shows, and YouTube videos. Again, focus on learning, not being entertained. Watch 10 minutes of a movie. Pause it often. Write notes along the way for phrases and vocabulary that you want to learn. Try to repeat what the actors are saying. Work on your pronunciation while you're trying to be as close to the intonation and pronunciation of the actors. Rewatch the segment over and over and over again until you internalize the vocabulary and phrasing. If you read like I read, and you watch like I watch, you will master German vocabulary in no time. But there's one more little issue that you need to contend with. Which words do you learn? Is there an ideal order? According to one website that I found, the levels for language learning break down as follows. You need to know 500 words to pass A1, 1,000 words for A2, 2,000 words for B1, 4,000 words for B2, 8,000 words for C1, and 16,000 words for C2. These numbers can fluctuate up to 20% up or down based on the words that you learn. This fluctuation is caused by learning the words that you don't need. I say all of this to bring you up to this one little tip. Learn useful words. Ignore the unimportant ones. Yeah, super advice, Smarty Pants. But how do you know which words are useful and which ones aren't? The answer is easy. The ones you need are the ones you need. Wow, you are just a wealth of knowledge. I sure am glad I'm watching this video. What I mean by this is that you should start by documenting the words that you need on a daily basis in your native language. Do it by category. Don't think of every word in that category. Just think of broad groups of words that you need to learn. Take yourself through a typical day. What do you do? With whom do you speak? About what do you speak? Where do you go? How do you go there? Follow this trail until you have a few categories of words to work with. Then, when you start learning vocabulary, make sure that you are checking off the categories in this list. Once you get to about B1 or even the later end of A2, however, you're going to have to go beyond your everyday vocabulary. The best resource for finding out exactly which words you need to know at the A and B levels come from the Goethe-Institut. They have a list that you can download for all of the first three levels. I have linked all of the Goethe-Institut resources in the description. Once you get to the B2 level, however, you're going to have to find another resource. Aspect Neu is a German textbook for English speakers. Their B1, B2, and C1 vocabulary lists are available for free as PDFs. I've linked those in the description as well. In addition to all of these lists, there's also a website called Vocabio that has a searchable database of German words sorted by level and frequency of use. This is great if you want to look up a word to see if it's even worth committing to memory or waiting until later in your learning. You can also see a frequency rating on duden.de if you're interested in that kind of thing. A list of words, however, is undoubtedly the most inefficient way for you to learn a language. I've already talked about reading and watching German content so that you can learn through context. Once you have seen the words in context a few times, however, it's a decent idea to start making some flashcards. I have several videos on this channel about how to make the best flashcards for language learning, but I want to focus on one thing that I don't mention in those videos. Context. I just said learning one word at a time is inefficient, so your flashcards should not be one word at a time. You can do everything from short phrases with prepositions, or even prepositions and verbs that need to go together, to full sentences that showcase several things at the same time. Ironically, I don't actually want you to memorize the full sentences, although it's fun to quote your favorite movies in German. Hast du jemals im Blasenmondlicht mit dem Teufel getanzt? This isn't terribly helpful of a sentence to memorize on its own. It isn't even a common phrase in English or in German. Most people are just confused by it. It contains several things that you can use in a variety of other contexts, however, and by learning them through this sentence, you can increase the number of words that you learn in one fell swoop. Jemals. It's kind of like ever, and it carries with it the connotation of doing something at least once. Mit dem Teufel reminds us that mit is a dative preposition with the word dem. You can also remember the word devil as well as the word for moon and light. The word Blas can also be used in a variety of other situations to mean pale. One sentence on one flashcard holds so much more information than just one word per flashcard. You don't have to use movie quotes to get this method to work for you. The Goethe-Institut vocabulary list I mentioned before already includes example sentences a lot of the time. I wouldn't bother putting the vocabulary words on flashcards, but the example sentences might be a good idea. You can also use my Deutschland podcast for the same kinds of things. I took the list of A1 vocabulary from the Goethe-Institut and I broke it into various categories. Then I made videos showcasing the words and example sentences to go with them in several episodes of the podcast. It is a listen and repeat series, however, so it isn't the most efficient way to learn the vocabulary, but it will get the job done. After 15 years of teaching German to American high school students and speaking German for over 20 years, I have learned a ton of tips and tricks to help you get the vocabulary to stick in your brain. The ideas that I've mentioned in this video are just a few of them. Maybe I'll do another video about more tips in the future. For now, write your favorite vocabulary memorization tips in the comments down below and check out the Deutschland podcast via the link in the description. Tschüss!