https://padlet.com/mzielinski1/ISR Fall semester 2019 en-us 2019-02-22 13:49:35 UTC 2025-11-24 16:26:43 UTC hello@padlet.com https://imgglb.padletcdn.com/v13/image?t=g_auto&url=https%3A%2F%2Fpadlet.net%2Ficons%2Fpng%2F1f1e9-1f1ea.png mzielinski1 https://padlet.com/mzielinski1/ISR/wish/423177952 Continuing from last semester, I still listen to music in German. I use some of the same playlists. But I also have looked up "songs for German language learners," and used what was written on websites like https://www.fluentu.com/blog/educator-german/simple-german-songs-for-kids/ or https://www.fluentin3months.com/german-songs/
to get some more singular songs. For example this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhTJLxRRsAs
Which is a cover of a song in English. 
With some of the songs from these websites I would look up the lyrics and a translation, to get an understanding of what's being said. I still listen to music in German to mostly get better at hearing the words that are being said, as I don't have an extensive enough vocabulary to understand everything. I am picking up words here and there, but without the lyrics and a translation I don't know what's going on. With time I will get to a point where I can understand the lyrics, as was the case when I was learning English. But for now it's mostly about accent, and getting better at recognizing words.]]> 2019-12-12 10:31:07 UTC https://padlet.com/mzielinski1/ISR/wish/423177952 mzielinski1 https://padlet.com/mzielinski1/ISR/wish/423183197 I am a fan of Formula 1, and one of the retired drivers is from Germany. His name's Nico Rosberg and now he has a youtube channel about the sport. In fact he has two, one of them is in English, the other one in German. Eng:https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtLZ6qQgB-EwQy5HWIo3X-w
Ger:https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQLR0alN3qKWm_7zPDoqOZA
I have started to occasionally watch the German channel along the English one. For example, this video about the Japanese GP was released in both languages: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7oWBZKvvrbQ and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUaakPdgtQk&t=38s
I have to watch the videos in German with subtitles, and rewind a lot, because I don't understand something and have to look up the meaning. But it allows me to listen to more spoken German, and not sung as is the case with songs. Further allowing me to work on my hearing and the ability to discern words or phrases, while also building up my vocabulary. ]]> 2019-12-12 10:49:47 UTC https://padlet.com/mzielinski1/ISR/wish/423183197 mzielinski1 https://padlet.com/mzielinski1/ISR/wish/423188512 I have found myself having some issues with realizing when to use the dative case, and how what to do. I watched some videos on YouTube on this topic. The best ones I found are from the following playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL5QyCnFPRx0GxaFjdAVkx7K9TfEklY4sg
Videos with lessons 49-55 go over the dative case. At the time of writing this I have watched numbers 49 and 50. I will make my way through the rest as well in due time. Initially I thought I had grasped the concept of what is going on with this case, but later on it became kind of confusing. Using material from classes and these videos I am expanding my understanding. I think it's good to use more than one source when learning something, because there are different ways of explaining one concept, and one explanation may may be subjectively better than another, and by combining these we'll get a fuller understanding of a concept.
The channel that has published the above playlist goes through grammar lessons of different levels, i.e. A1, A2, B1 and B2 (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UClBrbJXNh2sFxOuvH4o5H9g/playlists)
I think it's a good resource for learning grammar or revision of picked concepts. I will definitely use it in the future for aspects other than dative. ]]> 2019-12-12 11:12:40 UTC https://padlet.com/mzielinski1/ISR/wish/423188512 mzielinski1 https://padlet.com/mzielinski1/ISR/wish/423191544 I decided to look up a list of German prepositions. I found this list: https://www.lingoda.com/en/content/german-prepositions/. It's helpful because it is sorted into groups based on which case is used with the prepositions. There is also a group there which can be used with either the accusative or the dative case. Good tip to remember which one is to be mindful that accusative refers to movement or direction, and dative refers to location or position. 
Learning prepositions is important because they can have a drastic influence over the sentence's meaning. Moreover, prepositions are one of those things that you will just have to memorise in order to know where and how to use them. The list I found I think is good because it has a list that's good in size. Not too extensive, but enough to get people started and to improve communication skills. ]]> 2019-12-12 11:24:36 UTC https://padlet.com/mzielinski1/ISR/wish/423191544 mzielinski1 https://padlet.com/mzielinski1/ISR/wish/423261039 One of the biggest issues I think I have at the moment is my vocabulary, or lack thereof. It's difficult to formulate sentences when you don't have the words to describe what you're thinking or seeing. I am slowly making my way through the vocabulary lists given to us as part of the course. But I have also looked up lists of words that are common, or useful. This is one such list: https://www.germanpod101.com/german-word-lists/ many of the words there I'm already familiar with, but it's nice to have a refresher anyways. Plus, with some of these common words I was unsure of whether they go with der, die or das, and the list has this specified. ]]> 2019-12-12 14:13:57 UTC https://padlet.com/mzielinski1/ISR/wish/423261039 mzielinski1 https://padlet.com/mzielinski1/ISR/wish/423268871 Like in English there are irregular verbs in German. I have found a list with these, which I uploaded with this post. These I will just have to memorise. I am unsure whether the list is full, I doubt it. There are probably more which I should be aware of, but this is a good start. Better take smaller steps than overwhelm yourself and give in under the pressure. The good thing about this list is that it also gives the participle which is used in the perfect tense which we are also covering. I haven't had much contact with the past tense in German before now, so that's good. I will be trying to use the list I have attached to learn the verbs. Maybe I should order them in what I think is the best way of learning them. Going by what I feel would be the most useful.]]> 2019-12-12 14:23:41 UTC https://padlet.com/mzielinski1/ISR/wish/423268871 mzielinski1 https://padlet.com/mzielinski1/ISR/wish/423278715 I have joined the archery club this year. One other new member is an Erasmus student from Germany. His name's Chris, and when he shows up for practice I will sometimes bother him with some of the questions we have learned in class. As weeks have passed I was able to add new bits to the conversation. Although if he went off I was unable to follow everything. Before I looked it up I asked him about vocabulary related to archery around the time we had to write our first essential homework.]]> 2019-12-12 14:35:23 UTC https://padlet.com/mzielinski1/ISR/wish/423278715 mzielinski1 https://padlet.com/mzielinski1/ISR/wish/423286964 In order to supplement what we are covering in class, I decided to go through the videos on this tense on the A2 playlist to which I posted a link previously. Videos 73-76 cover this, and are split into 1. regular verbs 2. verbs of movement 3. separable verbs 4. irregular verbs. These videos can be found within this playlist: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hB9AnBkBv2o&list=PL5QyCnFPRx0G34DRN9b5MDwsUQoxIbg6c. 
I think these videos were a nice supplement to theory covered within the course. Overall I think the pace is quite fast, so resources like this are helpful. One more thing related to the perfect tense which I am working on is remembering the rules for how to form the past participle. During classes I have noticed that sometimes I will make a mistake there. I think I will make a note of what happens to different types of verbs, and put it somewhere in my room that's well visible. Maybe creating a list of the verbs will be helpful as well. I have noticed that it's easy create lists and read them, but even then only limited amounts of vocab stick in mind. Maybe for next semester I should think of a way to use the words I try to learn in more creative ways, like writing down sentences and stories that have to include some chosen words.]]> 2019-12-12 14:45:18 UTC https://padlet.com/mzielinski1/ISR/wish/423286964