Just Introducing Myself
Hello there! I just thought I'd drop a quick hello. Shortly after Christmas I got it into my head to take a bicycling adventure tour through the Austrian Alps (Salzburg area) this September. While I know that a significant percentage of the population speaks English, I really want to be able to communicate at least a bit in German. Especially since I'll be flying into Munich the day before the tour starts and spend the night there before taking a train to Austria the next morning!
I figure that most people will probably quickly switch to English when they realize I'm American but even so I should engender a fair bit of goodwill just for trying. Plus I won't feel so nervous about being on my own for a day before joining the tour.
Anyway, I did a bunch of research and it seemed like Fluenz would be a really good way to learn. I've only done two lessons so far but am really impressed. In my early 20's I was a linguist for the Air Force, assigned to learn Vietnamese at the Defense Language Institute. That's a much more "Rosetta-like" experience than Fluenz. At this point, I feel like I'm learning at a faster rate than what I got at DLI. Sure, that was 6 hours of language study (plus homework) every day and a good 50 words per day. But the truth is that retention was a lot lower. So for the amount of time spent vs. the amount retained, Fluenz is so far winning hands down.
It's great to be here!
Status:
Open Jan 11, 2012 - 08:06 PM
German, German > Culture