Harry Sawyer's Independant Study Report by https://padlet.com/hfrsawyer1/HarrySawyersPadlet A collection of my external German Learning en-us 2019-10-18 12:14:35 UTC 2025-11-27 23:25:07 UTC hello@padlet.com https://padlet.net/icons/png/1f1e9-1f1ea.png Duolingo: hfrsawyer1 https://padlet.com/hfrsawyer1/HarrySawyersPadlet/wish/399493831 Description: I used Duolingo to help with Adverbs, Negatives and Accusative pronouns.

How it went:
It was very enjoyable as the platform is a very rewarding and engaging site that encourages you to push yourself. I enjoyed the fact that after sessions I could go back over previous vocabulary for myself to find any weak points. Moving forward I will continue to push my Duolingo usage and have set myself the task of scoring 40 points everyday.]]> 2019-10-18 12:38:14 UTC https://padlet.com/hfrsawyer1/HarrySawyersPadlet/wish/399493831 Harry Potter in German hfrsawyer1 https://padlet.com/hfrsawyer1/HarrySawyersPadlet/wish/408574740 Description: This week I watched Harry Potter and the order of the Phoenix in German with english subtitles. Anytime a sentence didn't really make sense to me I would jot it down and study it.

How it went:
It was enjoyable as watching Harry Potter is always fun. However, I did find it harder than last weeks, as some of the sentence structures were far more complex than what I was used to. Also the movie invents a lot of words which is not the most useful. However I did think it helped me to hear a lot of conversations in German. I learned a fair few new words and am more confident with sentence structuring. ]]> 2019-11-08 11:18:34 UTC https://padlet.com/hfrsawyer1/HarrySawyersPadlet/wish/408574740 Had a conversation with a German friend. hfrsawyer1 https://padlet.com/hfrsawyer1/HarrySawyersPadlet/wish/408575988 Description: This week I met up with a german friend from engineering and had a 15 min conversation with him. He also taught me some engineering specific german words afterwards.

How it went :
It was quite hard as I haven't actually had a proper german conversation since my gcse exchange trip. However, it was nice to actually get some experience having a conversation. I found I was much better at speaking than I was at understanding him speak, as even though he was trying his best to use more basic german my vocabulary just wasn't that wide and needs improving, but this only comes with time. I was able to incorporate my new knowledge of relationships and furniture into the conversation though.
It was interesting learning a few words that relate to my course. A good one was vibration being Schwingung. ]]> 2019-11-08 11:23:02 UTC https://padlet.com/hfrsawyer1/HarrySawyersPadlet/wish/408575988 Read a chapter of the Martian in German hfrsawyer1 https://padlet.com/hfrsawyer1/HarrySawyersPadlet/wish/423419248 Description: I was mid way through reading "The Martian" and decided to read Chapter 14 in german as it's an easily accessible book online, and is written as a series of audio logs, so written in a very human way.

How it was:
I started it with just the german text and quickly realised it was far more useful and easier to get both the texts up for when I really couldn't understand the sentence. On the whole I was quite good at working out what it was trying to say but it was hard and I couldn't translate a lot of the text especially as it again uses a lot of engineering jargon. This did complement last weeks work fairly well. I learnt a fair few new words and I got better at translating. I perhaps should have chosen an easier book. ]]> 2019-12-12 17:40:40 UTC https://padlet.com/hfrsawyer1/HarrySawyersPadlet/wish/423419248 Coffee Break German hfrsawyer1 https://padlet.com/hfrsawyer1/HarrySawyersPadlet/wish/423419800 Description: This is a german language podcast that I used to listen to but fell out of use, so this weak I decided to pick it back up and listen to 5 episodes on ordering items and numbers

How it went:
I found this a very useful exercise as the host of the podcast doesn't know german and so is also learning it. This creates a good dynamic where you feel like you are learning it at a good speed, they also teach a variety of german skills from sentencing structuring to vocab. Also I like that it focusses on conversational german, as from Task 3 I felt I was struggling to understand my listening ability. As although it is fairly basic it is a very good starting point and is definitely something I will try to keep up.]]> 2019-12-12 17:41:21 UTC https://padlet.com/hfrsawyer1/HarrySawyersPadlet/wish/423419800 Peer Marked German Essay hfrsawyer1 https://padlet.com/hfrsawyer1/HarrySawyersPadlet/wish/423420873 Description: I could not think of a unique task to do as so decided to practice for the essential homeworks and wrote a short passage on an upcoming summer holiday. I then got my german mate to go through it with me.

How it went:
I am annoyed at my lack of ability to create interesting sentences due to my minimal german skills, but this was a useful exercise. I was very grateful for my friends input though, as he walked me through some the mistakes that I was making, mainly I kept accidentally using the wrong conjugation of verbs, or mucking up irregular verb conjugation, something I struggled with at school. I think this has hopefully helped me and put me in a good place for the essential homework. ]]> 2019-12-12 17:43:00 UTC https://padlet.com/hfrsawyer1/HarrySawyersPadlet/wish/423420873 Various youtube Videos on German Grammar hfrsawyer1 https://padlet.com/hfrsawyer1/HarrySawyersPadlet/wish/423421128 Description: This week I decided to see what videos I could find on youtube to help me. I focussed on german cases and found the channel "Learn German with Anja" a very useful and interesting channel, I liked her video "Understand the GERMAN CASES - Accusative, Dative, Nominative, Genitive".

How it went:
This was a fairly simplistic task, but as we had been learning about different cases in classes I felt this would be good supplementary information. It was just nice to get another perspective on these and hear more about other uses, and some of the cases that we haven't learnt yet.
]]> 2019-12-12 17:43:20 UTC https://padlet.com/hfrsawyer1/HarrySawyersPadlet/wish/423421128 Christmas German hfrsawyer1 https://padlet.com/hfrsawyer1/HarrySawyersPadlet/wish/423421370 Description: This week I was in the festive spirit so decided to try and learn Christmas words and phrases in german to expand my vocabulary and be ready for the Christmas period. (Sites include https://www.fluentu.com/blog/german/german-christmas-phrases/ and https://www.germanpod101.com/german-vocabulary-lists/holiday-greetings-and-wishes-for-the-holiday-season/)

How it went:
This was just a fun task to see a bit of german Christmas culture and have fun learning new Christmas themed vocabulary. It was also useful for sentence and question structuring as it showed examples of more complex but more genuine sentences, I liked Du machst Weihnachten festlicher - You make Christmas merrier and Was wünschst dir zu Weihnachten? - What do you want for Christmas?.]]> 2019-12-12 17:43:42 UTC https://padlet.com/hfrsawyer1/HarrySawyersPadlet/wish/423421370