The Joys and Tribulations of Learning German and Spanish
I love challenges. I thrive on challenges. Recently I decided to take on a new challenge—learn German and Spanish.
The choice of these European languages stems from my keen interest in Europe. I know, I am from Africa, but I am also a European at heart. I have lived in Europe for more than 22 years.
I decided to learn German after my recent road trip to several stunning European countries this summer. These were France, Italy, Austria and Czech Republic.
Prior to the trip, I had been learning Italian. It was such a great pleasure to speak Italian in Dolce Acqua, a small village on the Italian Riviera. This language experience reminded me of how I have always loved learning languages.
Learning German and Spanish: The Joys
- I love using the reference books: German for Dummies and Spanish for Dummies. They are comprehensive guides to German and Spanish languages and culture. I cannot learn a language without knowing the people and the traditions that make up that language.
- Learning German and Spanish are bringing some new excitement in my life. I really enjoy discovering the small things and I am happy to be in the shoes of a curious language learner again.
- I feel invigorated in the morning when I wake up because I know that I am going to learn these languages! No vocabulary can explain the feeling I get when I succeed in pronouncing a German sentence or remember a Spanish expression!
- I also use News in Slow German and News in Slow Spanish in order to learn journalistic vocabulary passively and learn the pronunciation of new words.
- Learning two languages simultaneously is a joy because I get to compare the two languages and I tend to remember new vocabulary faster after doing the comparison.
Learning German and Spanish: The Tribulations
- I struggle to find the right time to study these languages. Perhaps, I could have started with German, which is the hardest language.
- Studying two languages at the same time is a joy, but it can also be a pain in the neck because I tend to mix up common words. Often, I do not know if a word that comes in my mind is German or Spanish. The knowledge of Italian only makes it worse.
- German is hard to learn. I have not yet learned to separate the sounds and relate them to the text. It will also take me a long time to master German sentence construction. As of now, I use Google Translate a lot in order to garner some meaning. However, I am confident that with time the rules of grammar will fall in place.
- I tend to mix up Spanish and Italian pronunciation but being able to listen to News in Slow Italian is also of great help.
Learning German and Spanish: Plans for the Future
- I would love to travel to Spain and Germany next year to practise my new language skills.
- I want to have three separate diaries in Italian, German and Spanish in order to write about my daily events and thoughts. This helped me a lot with French and English and I am sure it will not be a waste of time.
- Eventually, I would love to get certified in German and Polish (at least B2 level) so that I can really enjoy my achievements. These languages are really tough to learn and I would feel proud to get an official certificate that proves my language skills. I am aware that the real test is talking to people in real life, but I would feel happy all the same to get these B2 or C1 certificates. Hey, why not?
- I would love to find language partners who can help me improve my conversational skills. It would be a pleasure to talk to someone in German, Spanish, Polish or Italian. This would really bring a lot of joy to my language-learning experience.
- I am planning to build a language library with novels, dictionaries and reference books. I think that seeing and using these books will always bring a smile on my face.
I love learning languages! This is my true passion! What about you? How strong is your love for languages? Share your thoughts!
That’s all for today! I hope you enjoyed this post. Looking forward to reading your eventual comments/encouragements/tips, etc. I love hearing from our readers.
Thank you for reading this post and have a lovely weekend!
Further Exploration: Learning German and Spanish
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