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My German Level 6 Wishlist
After going through the Fluenz program multiple times (which happened after going through the less helpful Rosetta Stone program multiple times), there is still so much to learn about German! I have no idea if there will be a German level 6 (I would pre-order it immediately, if possible!), but there are some things I would just love to hear Nora explain! I've started reading books in German (children's chapter books and graphic novels, mostly) and I've noticed a few things that really slow me down. I have to have a couple online translators open on my laptop to really understand everything. Sometimes I can move quickly though a paragraph, but sometimes my progress slows to a crawl. But you have to crawl before you run, so I'm working hard at it. I know that learning German will be a life long project and I enjoy putting the work into it.
So here are a few things I'd love to see in a Level 6:
1. More on the imperfect past. Fluenz has a good introduction with waren, hatten, konnten, sollten, durften, mussten, hießen and es gab, but I'm running into the imperfect tense a lot. Sometimes the imperfect form is similar to the infinitive and it's easy to figure out, but other times it's irregular (zum Beispiel: aßen=ate).
2. I feel like we've only scratched the surface of reflexive verbs.
3. So far, there hasn't been much about the verb Werden and nothing on the verb Wollen.
4. Modal Particles! German is full of these things! I'm starting to understand their usage, but Fluenz didn't prepare me for them. There is an introduction here: http://germanforenglishspeakers.com/o... "Doch" just keeps coming up all the time and causes a lot of confusion, but other words like denn, ja, aber, mal and etwa can also be confusing modal particles. I don't think Fluenz has ever mentioned doch, which could probably have a couple lessons devoted to it! I know many of these modal particles would be tough to teach, as they often appear in idioms.
So those are some of my thoughts on what Fluenz is missing (although there is probably much more that I don't even know that I don't know!). I'm currenly working my way through Roald Dahl's "Charlie und die Schokoladenfabrik" and some TinTin (Sorry, Tim und Struppi) comics. I have some more comics by German publisher Splitter (http://www.splitter-verlag.eu/) on the way from Amazon.de and can't wait to get my hands on them. I've also been watching "Pastewka" and "Stromberg", both of which are very funny even if you have limited understanding of German!
Good luck to all! Stay positive, keep practicing and hope for a Fluenz level 6!
So here are a few things I'd love to see in a Level 6:
1. More on the imperfect past. Fluenz has a good introduction with waren, hatten, konnten, sollten, durften, mussten, hießen and es gab, but I'm running into the imperfect tense a lot. Sometimes the imperfect form is similar to the infinitive and it's easy to figure out, but other times it's irregular (zum Beispiel: aßen=ate).
2. I feel like we've only scratched the surface of reflexive verbs.
3. So far, there hasn't been much about the verb Werden and nothing on the verb Wollen.
4. Modal Particles! German is full of these things! I'm starting to understand their usage, but Fluenz didn't prepare me for them. There is an introduction here: http://germanforenglishspeakers.com/o... "Doch" just keeps coming up all the time and causes a lot of confusion, but other words like denn, ja, aber, mal and etwa can also be confusing modal particles. I don't think Fluenz has ever mentioned doch, which could probably have a couple lessons devoted to it! I know many of these modal particles would be tough to teach, as they often appear in idioms.
So those are some of my thoughts on what Fluenz is missing (although there is probably much more that I don't even know that I don't know!). I'm currenly working my way through Roald Dahl's "Charlie und die Schokoladenfabrik" and some TinTin (Sorry, Tim und Struppi) comics. I have some more comics by German publisher Splitter (http://www.splitter-verlag.eu/) on the way from Amazon.de and can't wait to get my hands on them. I've also been watching "Pastewka" and "Stromberg", both of which are very funny even if you have limited understanding of German!
Good luck to all! Stay positive, keep practicing and hope for a Fluenz level 6!