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| just wondering if we should look at a different school - my hubby went to his first class last night and the teacher did not speak any english or provide any instructions in english - everything is only german. As he is brand new to German, it's a bit tough to follow so just wondering if that is the norm or maybe we look at other places? The school was recommended by our gemeinde but after one class he is already frustrated which isn't the best outcome  | |
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The problem is that a newbie has no 'bricks' to build with.
I did it like this: On Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, I took ten nouns from the evening newspaper, looked them up and made a list with two columns: German on one side, English on the other. I memorized them and kept going back to read them. If he does this, he'll have enough of a basis so that he can pick out words when people speak. Also, a very important thing in German is to get a good grasp of verb conjugation. Fortunately this is very consistent and therefore not too difficult to apply. There are some irregularities but don't worry about it; they will come with time.
Also, watch the evening news in high German. They will almost always show clips to accompany the newcaster's storyline, so it's easy to understand some things from a contextual point. It isn't easy and can be quite tiring, but the news makes it easier.
A co-worker also uses Youtube to watch film clips that were dubbed into German but originally English. The courses are tough if there is no previous knowledge but the most important thing is to build the basis asap.
Using these techniques (except Youtube which didn't exist back then), it took me about 18 months to speak passable conversational German, but I understood nearly everything in a year.