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Whenever I first start learning a language, I inevitably find myself frustrated by a lack of vocabulary. For better or worse, I'm quite expressive when I talk - only having a limited amount of words to work with can feel confining, but the sheer amount of terms to learn daunting.

To ease myself a bit more into the language, I found some quizlet sets online related to hobbies I enjoy and items of personal relevance. I made sure to focus heavily on memorizing the specific gender of each noun - It's been my experience with German that the gender must be taken and memorized brute force, as there's no overarching principles to distinguish masculine/feminine/neuter words from one another as in Spanish.

Though these terms only scratch the surface, I felt a bit empowered to have a solid wheelhouse of personal terms under my belt, genders and all. I feel that working with verbs and nouns that I can see myself using daily inspires me to practice more, as well as give opportunities to verbalize my German with others and to myself more frequently.

Physics (Major)
https://www.physi.uni-heidelberg.de/~glassel/gu/glossary.html
https://www.leifiphysik.de/kern-teilchenphysik

Music (main hobby)
https://study.com/academy/lesson/german-musical-terms.html
http://www.musictheory.org.uk/res-musical-terms/german-musical-terms.php

Medical terms (as a diabetic, being able to communicate how I'm feeling or if I'm ill was imperative while in Frankfurt)
https://quizlet.com/11730393/german-medical-terms-flash-cards/
https://www.fluentu.com/blog/german/german-medical-terms/

Common verbs (good to flesh out vocabulary)
https://www.cram.com/flashcards/501-deutsche-verben-german-verbs-2455880

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Though I picked up a basic understanding of German during my time there, my pronunciation went unchecked the entire time. My interactions in German were limited mainly to brief orders and exchanges with my lab group, so I was left to guess on how to pronounce the harder sounds and phrases not found in English.

I feel that I've already learned a good deal in class and have corrected some self-taught errors – the 'ch' sound in Ich, pronouncing vs, and understanding what an umlaut does to a vowel are the most notable improvements so far.

To reinforce the proper pronunciations and prepare for dealing with future vocabulary, I've been focusing foremost the alphabet. I like to do 1 full run-through a day both speaking the letters on my own:

https://www2.rocketlanguages.com/german/lessons/german-alphabet/

And then along with a youtube video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e6vquyjxImk

For a bit of fun and practice, I like to use this random German word generator to both learn new words and test my pronunciation, referencing audio guides to correct any errors:

https://www.getrandomthings.com/random-german-words.php

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I listen to quite a bit of music, and thought I would take the time to inject some German into my listening for the week. During my time in Frankfurt, I had the opportunity to see some local bands open at concerts, and developed an affinity for several such as 8Kids, Heisskalt, and a few others.

I put several of these artists' songs onto my listening playlist, and made an effort to pay attention and follow along with the German lyrics. One of my fears while speaking is losing track of a conversation due to the speed at which most Germans speak, so listening to the lyrics along with a wall of distorted guitar and vocal effects was good practice in focusing on and understanding the spoken language. I would then check my initial guesses against the lyrics on Genius.com to get an idea where I was struggling and pick up some vocab along the way.

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For better or worse, I tend to doodle while in class and whenever I have an idle moment. To focus this energy into a more productive form, I keep a small journal with personal notes and other miscellaneous writings. Recently, I've been working through http://germanforenglishspeakers.com/, a wonderful resource on German grammar and usage I've found to be especially helpful with getting a better grip on tricky topics.

For each lesson, I've taken to writing out the base notes and attaching little representative drawings – the attached photo is for the lesson over how to structure sentences, a recent in-class topic I wanted to make sure I had nailed down.

Though it may seem small, re-writing notes and having to think of a representative doodle has served as a stellar way to anchor concepts in my mind. Personally, it's much easier to recall a topic when I have a visual reference – these drawings provide an easier way to link an idea or concept to its usage, and have already bolstered my weekly revision sessions.

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I will be spending my Easter break in Berlin, where I will be taking a 3-week beginner level German course through the German Language Institute. In the spirit of bettering my grasp of German, I've attempted to complete most of my preparations in German where applicable.

With rigorous checking along the way (I have no interest in purchasing the wrong flight!), I've managed to put together a solid itinerary of events and arrangements for my time in Germany. Navigating familiar forms in the language hasn't been nearly as challenging as expected – knowing what's expected on most checkout forms means I have been able to use context clues to suss out the meaning of several new terms, especially when it comes to prepositions. I'm well familiar with conjugating ein/kaufen at this point! The picture below is of a standard checkout screen I've been navigating, specifically for concert tickets at a Berlin venue.

Though a minor challenge at best, this process has bolstered my confidence in my abilities a great deal. Learning the language in class is one thing, but being able to apply the skills I've picked up in practical situations feels great. I'm quite looking forward to my second trip to Germany – now that I have a bit of language under my belt, I foresee an entirely different experience than my first time around.

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While discussing my family in an in-class group exercise, I stumbled upon a question - how does one succinctly refer to mixed gender groups in German? The answer (that there is no such way – one must use the feminine /and/ masculine to be completely thorough and correct) surprised me to no end and led me to do some digging on the matter.

It appears this issue has become a contentious one in modern German-speaking countries, with academics calling for new structures to accommodate gender-neutral groups and discard current practices which favor lazily bundling mixed groups under the masculine (i.e., using Studenten instead of Studenten und Studentinnen). A recent study has even demonstrated the current setup preferences males (https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0163853X.2018.1541382), leading to the uneasy conclusion that the German language is currently biased on the basis of sex.

Multiple solutions have been proposed, including favoring or shifting to neutral das constructions as opposed to der or die. Another solution proposes simply using the feminine root as a catch-all for mixed groups instead of the masculine, or just creating a catch-all gender neutral construction such as de in Low German (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/24/germans-get-tongues-around-gender-neutral-language).

In any case, this change won't be easy – languages change slowly, and there's already been pushback from various German professions on what's seen as unnecessary changes to an already functional system (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/mar/08/german-academics-and-authors-call-for-end-to-gender-nonsense). The whole debacle raises an interesting question on how a culture or people define a language, and how cultural attitude shifts can result in tangible changes to communication systems on such a large scale.

Save for a brief refresher on differing gender constructions in nouns, this task wasn't as in-depth or review-based as my previous ones. However, the whole issue has piqued my interest and provided a new perspective on learning the language. Languages (at least in my opinion) are often perceived as largely static, unchanging building blocks of society, but are actually dynamic systems that can change rapidly in the space of a few years. As a learner just starting in on German, it's exciting to see such a change developing right alongside my instruction – the reminder that nobody ever truly 'masters' an ever-changing language is a helpful one, and being aware of potential changes is helpful in preparing for practical usage of the language in the future.

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In a similar vein to listening to German music, I've been rewatching the German television show 'Dark' on Netflix. I watched this series about a year ago and quite enjoyed it – a fittingly dark sci-fi/psychological thriller set in the fictional German town of Winden, the show's dialogue is spoken entirely in Deutsch, and fed into my initial curiosity in learning German at the time.

Though I opted for the English dub the first time around, I instead went with the German dialogue with English subtitles for my rewatch. Now that I know the show's plot and have a grasp of basic German, it's become sort of a logic puzzle to listen and decipher the dialogue before referring to the subtitles for guidance. Whenever an unfamiliar word or tricky phrase crops up, it's no problem to switch over to the German subtitles and research the new vocab word or construction.

So far, the rewatch has been slow-going; I'm doing my best to work through each new word or phrase, and not cheat myself by relying on my prior knowledge of the plot to get me through. Occasionally, I'll have to forego digging too far into an advanced topic (such as the conditional/future tense phrases), but for the most part I find this exercise to be beneficial to my overall learning. Connecting the spoken words to the actors on screen gives me a bit more help with pronunciation than listening to music does, and seeing where and when certain phrases are used in a conversational context has been helpful to move my learning beyond simple classroom exercises and phrases. It doesn't hurt that I quite like this show and feel there are a lot more subtleties to the dialogue when read in German – it's fun to pick up different translations here and there that I missed before, making this rewatch almost feel like a fresh go-round.

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I'm three days into my stay and immersive German course here in Berlin, and the sheer influx of new vocabulary has forced me to finally make a der/die/das chart to make sure I can keep track of all the new words I'm learning.

Whether assigned new vocabulary in my German course, seeing new and interesting words on advertisements or signs, or trying to order food, there are simply too many new terms to memorize each article thoroughly as I go. The chart's served me well, both in reviewing everything I'm picking up and giving me a motivation to seek out and learn as many words as possible. As a visual learner, seeing each article attached to the noun gives a mental foothold for later recognition. I'm kicking myself for not putting such a chart together earlier, as it's done wonders for my recognition of a noun's gender (an area where I've struggled with other languages before).

I've attached a partial screenshot of my chart below – the spreadsheet format has been helpful for ease of use (i.e., jotting a word down in my notes app and adding it from my laptop later), but I'm thinking of writing it out at regular intervals to reinforce my learning. I've also got a verb list going, but have yet to put the present tense conjugation tables together – a task for next week perhaps.

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As my time here in Berlin goes on, I find more and more of my basic thoughts sometimes come out in German. These aren't deeply profound or well-worded thoughts (mainly ones of the "Was/Wo ist das?") variety, but I still am surprised to catch myself simply thinking in another language.

Similarly, when I'm listening to music, I find myself putting together small phrases in German in an attempt to match the lyrics. This week, I chose to fully follow these inclinations and actually translate out a full song, if only to get rid of the annoying German fragments that would plague me after listening to a song. I've attached a photo of one of my efforts below, namely Thee Oh Sees 'Toe Cutter – Thumb Buster" from their 2013 release Floating Coffin. Not the most profound lyrics in the world, but simple enough to provide a good translation exercise (or so my subconscious seems to think).

I realize this is the inverse of the task I did in week III, but after an additional ~2 months of class and my intensive course here in Berlin, I feel like I'm working with a whole new perspective. The fact that I can now semi-confidently transpose English to German is empowering, and with a greater understanding of the dative case/prepositions as well as adjective declension,  I can feel my translation and speaking skills getting more fluid bit by bit. There's still a long way to go for sure, but my time here in Berlin (and the skills that have resulted) have forced me to internalize just how much progress I've made in a semester.

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Though my time here in Berlin is coming to an end, I still find myself picking up new skills and insights on a daily basis. There's a whole world of difference between learning German in a classroom environment and using it practically – perhaps best seen in my attempts to order coffee without using any English.

It's been a gradual process over these three weeks trying to perfect what doesn't even constitute an afterthought in English. I started out using "Ich möchte ein Kaltes Gebraü' in an attempt to directly translate my order in a polite manner. This mainly got me raised eyebrows and an immediate switch to English.

Switching the literal German translation back to just 'Cold Brew' got me a bit further after I worked on my pronunciation of the ö in möchte. It was only after my friend (2 years into learning German) visited me that I learned just how overly formal and polite this phrasing was. Instead of "I would like...", the common phrasing is "Ich nehme..." – literally, "I'll take!" This switch seemed to make conversation flow a bit easier, and soon I found myself completing whole orders without anyone involved switching to English. It's amazing to me how many little colloquialisms and figurative phrasings were contained in only a short exchange, and it's made me curious as to just how much more I would pick up if I continued to reside in German countries given my current level of intake.

If anything, immersion learning is humbling – with most Germans being at least bilingual, it can at times be disheartening to realize just how little I know and how far I have to go in mastering the language. However, the little wins (even as small as ordering a coffee) let me know that mastery is possible as long as I keep challenging myself. All the little stumbles, though a tad embarrassing, are what help me grow as a speaker, and as long as I'm learning I'm making progress towards fluency!