My third attempt at learning German. This time I didn't give up after a couple days and I really feel like I've leveled up my understanding and I've been honestly having fun with it.
So my initial plan was to learn (or rather recognize) at least 500 words through Anki and then try to decipher text and get the hang of the language. This is really hard, especially in German where you might recognize all of the words but the entire meaning is lost on you. Is this in the past, the future, is he giving it to her or her to him etc.
Anyway, I discovered a really great course on German with an interesting approach called the Thinking Method, which is actually just The Michel Thomas Method but free. The instructor sits down with one or two students and helps them construct bigger and more complex sentences. The way its done is really intuitive, as he starts out with the smallest building blocks and then gradually builds a sentence from it. So you start with "I want" then "I want this" then "I want this tomorrow" and so on, and each time he prompts you by saying "how would you say xyz" but before that he gives you all the blocks, so each step you're really just adding one more block. Eventually, you get a sense for the language and how words should be put together to construct meaning and only with like 50 words of vocab.
The difference between Language Transfer and the Michel Thomas Method is the instructor. You can find the recordings through torrent, so the paywall isn't an issue, but the difference in instructor is very noticeable. Michel Thomas is old and he's just too aggressive with the students, while the other guy has this conscious philosophy of not making the student panic or anxious because it just makes things go harder. Many times I had to just stop listening cuz MT kept making the guy repeat himself and interrupting him because he got the sound wrong and it was just cringe. These lessons are done through audio, but I've found the transcripts to be much faster and easier to follow, especially if you don't give a shit about speaking.
So yeah, I really recommend this website. Unfortunately, the German course in incomplete despite the title, but the 50 tracks are absolutely gold. After two days, it feels like I've leveled up my understanding a lot. I think it's a great foundation. I'll definitely go through it a couple more times and more thoroughly, along with MT's stuff since it seems like a logical continuation. In t
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