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ISR 8: 07/12/2016

Description: Listening and pronunciation - Rammstein Lyrics.

More vocabulary at Mermise: http://www.memrise.com/course/1098512/german-1/garden/learn/

Similar to last task, I listened to a song named "Du Hast". The link is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3q8Od5qJio

Like the last one, I was able to identify the first few words which meant, "You have me" but then I had real difficulties catching words that were not the same. Even the video didn't really help as I was constantly guessing the gist of the song. Later, when I was looking for the lyrics and their English translation did I realise the fact that "hast" here has been used as hate and watching the video again started making sense as the guy does not want to be with the woman which is why she was unhappy at the end. Some articles even have been devoted having to explain the meaning of the song because of this play of words.

This time I did vocabulary related to food: das Gemüse, die Kartoffeln, der Reis etc.

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ISR 7: 05/12/2016

Description: Listening and pronunciation -  Rammstein Lyrics.

A classmate recommended doing this as one of the ISR exercises for both listening and pronunciation as well as vocabulary.

I listened to a song named Sonne, the link is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=StZcUAPRRac

I was able to identify that the song began with a countdown of numbers but then was lost for a bit until the numbers came again and with the video and the title of the song, I was able to link it to the Sun and how it is being commented on by the drillers. After this, I went through the song again several times with the German lyrics to work on the pronunciation and then looked up the English lyrics to get the gist and meaning of the song. I wrote down some vocabulary words as well.

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ISR 6: 05/12/2016

Description: Vocabulary and numbers.

I decided to go through some new words and revise numbers again. For numbers I watched this video given on the ISR Resource link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-TicQqzR1qU

It was a quick revision and I was able to recall all the numbers quickly. I had trouble with 11, 12 and 30 but they were quickly sorted.

To learn vocabulary I used: http://www.memrise.com/course/1098512/german-1/garden/learn/.

As I have mentioned previously, tests and quizzes really help me learn and the memrise has a fantastic user interface with both visual and audio learning. Mainly I learnt everyday words like glücklich, der Hunger, das Recht, der Durst etc.

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ISR 5: 04/12/2016

Description: Pronunciation of the umlauts and other German letters.

I have had difficulty with umlaut pronunciation and I decided to use a video that focuses on the pronunciation of the letters so I can get the hang of it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEpsLVKo5vg

The video was great fun but it wasn't taught by a professional teacher. This is what I learnt:

ä: open your mouth as wide as possible and say something after getting your tongue out.

ö: cross out b and n in "burn" and you should end up with a sound similar to ö. Also pretty similar to "duh". Open your mouth in an "O" shape and try to close it leaving as little gap as possible, then say the "ur" sound.

ü: High whistling but without the whistle and with the words.

I compared this with another video just to see how I was getting along:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fIhlM_OD6A

This turned out to be a good check and it also had words to pronounce with the umlauts. I still think I need more practise with this.

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ISR 4: 01/12/2016

Description: I was finding cases quite hard so I thought I had do some extra work on them. I read through this link first which tells you cases are important in German and compares them to the English Language.
https://gramnesty.com/category/grammar/cases-grammar/

Next I did some exercises on them:

Accusativ: http://www.deutschakademie.de/online-deutschkurs/english/choosethemaref.php?tid=16

Dativ: http://www.deutschakademie.de/online-deutschkurs/english/choosethemaref.php?tid=120

Really helped me understand the cases better.

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ISR 3: 12/11/2016

Description: Watched the third and the fourth episode of a German Television series "Deutschland 83" on a recommendation of a classmate and compared the pronunciations of the German words and the meanings of the sentences with a classmate.

The last ISR made us realise that this was very helpful so we tried this again. We followed the same process.

We watched the episodes twice: without subtitles first and with subtitles later.

This turned out to be a wonderful exercise as it helped me go practise pronunciation of the umlauts which I was having difficulties with. Also watching the episodes without subtitles and with subtitles helped me focus on the words and their meaning the first time round which is very good listening practise. Comparing notes with a classmate after watching the episode without subtitles helped us identify things which we missed.

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ISR 2: 11/11/2016

Description: Watched the first two episodes of a German Television series "Deutschland 83" on a recommendation of a classmate and compared the pronunciations of the German words and the meanings of the sentences with a classmate.

We watched the episodes twice: without subtitles first and with subtitles later.

This turned out to be a wonderful exercise as it helped me go practise pronunciation of the umlauts which I was having difficulties with. Also watching the episodes without subtitles and with subtitles helped me focus on the words and their meaning the first time round which is very good listening practise. I was able to pick up some words like "bitte" an "gerne" which were covered later in the class so it was even more interesting to know something I already knew existed. Comparing notes with a classmate after watching the episode without subtitles helped us identify things which we missed.

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ISR 1: 04/11/2016

Description: Revision of the first two weeks, vocabulary and conjugation. Did the formative tests and learnt the vocabulary through quizlet while also doing the tests. Also went through the alphabets.

Using the links below I went through some of the nationalities, vocabulary and greetings we covered in the first week. Also the alphabets.

https://quizlet.com/154490554/chapter-1-greetings-introductions-flash-cards/

https://quizlet.com/138591521/the-alphabet-german-flash-cards/

https://vle.shef.ac.uk/webapps/blackboard/content/listContent.jsp?content_id=_2356974_1&course_id=_54113_1&nolaunch_after_review=true&outcome_id=&outcome_definition_id=

Testing myself at the end is very useful for me as I thrive on competition and exams. This was also one of the reasons I chose quizlet and the formative test.