Corey over at Multilingual Living has thrown down the gauntlet! It’s time to refresh those second (or third or fourth – ha! I wish) languages! I’m on board and am already inspired by the posts I’ve read in the forum. What great ideas!
It can be a daunting thought to try to hone one’s language skills at this stage of the game. A professor at Middlebury College’s German Language School once described it as being like a Trichter – or a funnel: if you plug it up and pour a certain amount of liquid into it, it fills up quickly; but then if you add the same amount of liquid on top, the level of liquid rises much less. (Did I explain that clearly?) Or like a musician friend of mine once told me, she’ll spend the rest of her life learning the last 10% of her instrument. It can be very frustrating! But I’m finding it rather exciting to learn new vocabulary to use with my 15-month-old. Nothing like an incentive!
First, I have to figure out where to begin. Corey is right that you can’t go back to beginner textbooks, etc. I generally feel like my biggest weaknesses are noun gender and prepositions (idiomatic usage, in particular). For the former, perhaps I should follow some of the advice I give my students at the Saturday school: use colors for the different for the three genders. I also find that learning words in phrases helps (e.g. “nimm meine Hand” reminds me that it’s “die Hand“). This technique helps me with prepositions, too (e.g. “Ich denke an dich” means that “denken an” takes accusative). [Yes, I am a bit of a grammar geek!] I wonder, though, what kind of resources are out there for helping fluent speakers of a non-native language improve their skills?
In addition to reading children’s books with Aleksander (thanks, Anika, for bringing them back from Germany for me!!), I am also starting to learn more songs. It’s a great way to increase my vocabulary, especially in the area where I’m currently lacking: children’s vocab! I-tunes can be a great resource for finding whole albums of children’s songs. I also have a wonderful DVD of Eric Carle stories brought to life as 7-minute cartoons. Aleksander likes them, too!
Some of the suggestions from the Multilingual forum are also great. How about checking out a few podcasts? Netflix also has German DVDs. And somewhere in the house, I know I have a German novel or two I could read (in addition to the innumerable volumes of classic lit from my graduate days). I also love the idea of looking for parenting blogs in German!
This challenge also gives me a new focus for this blog. I haven’t been writing much, since I feel like I say the same old thing (Aleksander still isn’t talking, and I’m still trying to stay consistent… blah, blah, blah). So for now, I can keep track of what I’m doing to improve my own German and the resources I’m finding to help me along the way. Drück mir die Daumen!
