My Journey of Learning a New Foreign Language – German! PART 2

My Journey of Learning a New Foreign Language – German!

PART 2

WHY GERMAN?

Actually, I still had no idea which language I’m going to choose after giving up on French and having such a bad experience with the teacher… L

But I knew I might be going to take either German or Spanish. The reason I was considering Spanish just because there’s a huge population speaking Spanish, and the sound of this language is quite nice to me. That’s it!

But I actually didn’t have ANY Spanish speaking students!!

Now I do have some students who speak Spanish, but not many.

On the other hand, somehow I don’t know why, I’ve been receiving students from Germany, Austria and. Especially Germany!!

My German students are outgoing, nice, friendly, easygoing, and warmhearted!!! Some of my former German students even ended up being good friends with me, and we are now still in touch!! That was the moment I felt I have some resources of German, maybe…I can consider learning German…? Maybe……

The Moment I Decided to learn German….

As some of you might know that I had a trip to Europe for Christmas and New Year in December of 2016. It was my very first time stepping my foot in another continent and Germany is the very first country in Europe that I've visited in my life. Of course, I also visited Austria and Netherlands during this trip.

There was one night in Austria I remembered, my friend who is also a Taiwanese and I were at a Christmas market of Salzburg, having fun eating and drinking.  

While we were having fun, there were two locals looked at us trying to have a conversation with us out of curious I guess….

(I also put the pictures above so you can see what I'm saying is true..Haha..)

Here come the problem..

They don't speak any English!!!!! OMG!!!!

😱😱😱😱😱

 

Luckily, my friend can speak some German cause she used to do working holiday in Germany for one year. Then my friend helped me translate everything they said so we can all communicate. 🙈🙈

While we were having fun chatting, getting to know each other and drinking….🎉🎊

My friend turned to me and said: Katrina, I need a bathroom, but you can stay here and keep chatting with them.

I was like….”but how….?! I don't understand any German!!!!” 😱😱😱😱

So….My friend left me for the toilet and I was there smiling like a fool, listening to them trying to talk to me slowly in German wishing I could just magically understand what they said….Haha...I wish 😂😂

Oh man...It was the longest 20mins in my life!!! There was a little voice in my head after that day...

“I wish I could speak German, so I could talk to them. Plus, it would be soo cool if I could speak more than one foreign language!”

I have lots of German students, and also some of them that I still keep in touch with. Which means…

If I were to learn German, I have the most resources! Plus, learning German is useful to me since I have many German students.

And I like the sound of German despite the pronunciation is super difficult to me as a Chinese speaking native...😂😂

So, I made my decision, I want to learn German!!

By the time I made my decision to learn this language, I was not so sure how long it's going to last.

My attitude has been really relaxed; I don't want to give myself any pressure to learn German, because I know pressure is a killer!!! It kills all the fun of learning.

Although my attitude was relaxed, but I'm not lazy! I do have some expectations for myself on the study! And that's very important!!!

So here I am learning German.

I started in February 2017 but stumbled all the way studying by myself until now (September 2017).

Now I think I've found a way to learn German which I feel the most comfortable with.

I've made lots of mistakes along the journey. And I still keep making mistakes even I'm a professional language teacher!!

During those time of study, I find that the keys of studying a new language are

• Persistence
• Patience
• Passion for learning

Persistence makes you keep going no matter what and I believe my persistence comes from the passion for learning this languages, because I just simply love learning this languages! Patience makes you learn things step by step so you can have a strong foundation of learning a new language!

Okay!

Speaking of persistence and patience. I would like to talk about the mistakes I've made while learning German.

Perhaps, you might have the same experiences as well on your journey of learning Mandarin, and this is exactly I’m writing and sharing my experience of learning German! I want to suggest you all how to study Mandarin Chinese by my experiences of learning German and by my profession as a Mandarin teacher!

 ß My friend- Bess Guo

who also comes from Taiwan is the girl

I mentioned who can speak German.

And I’m behind her! ;)

Starting a Brand New Languages – Don’t Know Where to Start…..

___ to be continued_____

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My Journey of Learning a New Foreign Language – German! PART 1

My Journey of Learning a New Foreign Language 

– German!

PART 1

- Katrina Lee (SMART Mandarin Teacher Founder & Teacher )

Ni hao你好 / Hello / Guten Tag ! J

Today I’m writing this post to share my experience of learning a new foreign language, which is the second foreign language in my life – German.

Warning: This post is going to be very loooooooong, and I will write different posts to talk about this huge topic, so be prepared and be patient on reading my journey of learning the language！;)

Now let’s start!

Ok! So you mind be wondering, why do I want to learn the second foreign language since I know how to speak English already? Or why do I choose German among all the languages in the world?

Here are the answers!

Why do I decide to learn a new foreign language?

The answer is very simple!

I love speaking different languages; I’m always interested in learning many different new languages. I was actually growing up with 3-4 different languages in my early age. My mom speaks Taiwanese, Hakka and Mandarin. (Taiwanese and Hakka are the popular dialects in Taiwan) My dad speaks Mandarin and Cantonese. I picked up Taiwanese, Hakka, and Mandarin since I was young. But unfortunately, I didn’t pick up lots of Cantonese from my dad since he’s too busy..or lazy to teach me. L ( I really wanted to learn, but my dad just doesn’t want to teach me..so sad..)  

My First Foreign Language- English

At the age of 13, I started to learn English in middle school, so English is the 4^th language that I know in my life. I’ve been speaking, learning English on and off until now. And I can use this foreign language to communicate to people around the world. Now I’m using English most time in my life since I also use it at work.

Well….I know my English is not perfect, but I believe I’m good enough to handle most of things in life and work that I need. So I’m pretty satisfied with my English proficiency.  Haha…))) (btw, I’m still learning English from time to time. Just to make sure my English doesn’t get worse and also I like to learn)  

So now…I’m at the stage where I think I’m ready to learn a new foreign language, the 5^th language in my life! Yeah!!!!!!

Actually, I used to learn French and Cantonese. It was about 4 years ago that I decided to learn French, since it’s quite popular! And I thought it might be cool to learn some French.

I Tried to Learn French But I Failed….  :(

I hired a French tutor at the time, she’s a Taiwanese, she’s very nice as a person. BUT!!!! She’s a TERRIBLE French teacher!! L

She was teaching tooo fast in class, and she always wanted to 

play games in class!!

I LOVE practices in class but I HATE playing games in class!!!!

Especially when I told her, I have NOT totally remembered all the sounds of French, it’s not a good idea to play any games before I remember or I fully understand things she taught me. It’s better just do more practices to make sure I fully understand. But she didn’t listen to me, just do whatever she wanted.

The worst thing was…she told me : “You’re a good language yourself, so you should learn FASTER in languages than other people!”

Do NOT put any of your students in any stereotypes!!! 

She really made me feel pressure learning French, and made me feel stupid because I didn’t learn fast enough. L

You know the rest of my story…I gave up! I said 再見zàijiàn (goodbye) to this teacher. Then I stop learning French.  ( Tschüss....French……)

The idea of learning a new languages has never stopped in my head, I just didn’t know or haven’t really decided what’s my next language…..

WHY GERMAN LANGUAGE ?

-----------To Be Continued---------- 

SMART Mandarin 

Katrina Lee

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