Warning - another entirely personal reflection on my language learning strengths and weaknesses. See yesterday's entry for the beginning of these thoughts. I had to save-and-post so we could do some computer tasks.
First of all, German class met every day, for an hour. It was taught using a textbook called, German A Structural Approach. Every section opened with pattern drills, and there were even quasi-musical diagrams to show how simple sentences (as representative of types) should be inflected. I think we must have practiced these drills a lot, because I can still remember some of the sentences, more than 20 years later.
The word order of sentences in German is very different than in English. The textbook explained the rules of it, but I think it was really the drills that internalized it for me. The text made up names for the parts of sentences and so I learned how to build sentences in syntactical chunks.
Bottom line: I read better in French - I have a much larger vocabulary - but I don't understand very well, and I'm pretty inarticulate. I understand German better, and I can generate basic sentences without reaching for verb endings or worrying about word order - much more "natural" in that way.
I think that for Polish (which I start tomorrow! So exciting!!) I will have to combine the aspects of learning French and German that have worked best for me in the past. I have to drill syntactical units until they come "naturally," without thinking. At the same time, I have to work on building vocab. This will be harder since there are fewer cognates, but I've noticed from looking at the BBC news in Polish online that there are more than I thought - the word "kataklizmu" for example - earthquake.
And last - I have to speak often and forcefully and clearly in class and to myself, even when I know I won't be completely correct. I can't wait to speak until I've formed the sentence correctly in my head, because that's not like native speaking. I just have to start so that I'm accustomed to "just saying it."
Posted by otto0114 at September 6, 2004 12:09 PM