Hey everyone! I'm going to be doing a 100-hour challenge of German language learning starting from scratch at an A0 level. These are the resources and the study plan I intend to use, it might be adjusted over time to meet my goals.
💡 Resources
Goethe institut A1 online content
Nico’s Weg A1 online content
Quizlet and Anki decks
Chatgpt for quizzes
Duolingo
Netflix language learning chrome extension
YouTube and Spotify
💡 Study Plan
Inspired by Zoe.languages video
💡 Revision
Keep a Duolingo streak to keep in the loop
Spaced repetition with Anki Flashcards
Daily 10 min review through chatgpt designed quizzes about grammar, vocabulary and skill practice.
Talk with a penpal at least once a week about an specific topic.
I think this challenge will be a good way to document progress, stay accountable, and share resources. If you're interested, you're welcome to join me.
I have a plan to spend every day of October engaging in my target language. Every single day. 1-2 hours a day would be ideal but I know days may vary. So even if it's a short video or 10 min on app still will be better than nothing. Hope this challenge help me to improve my German. Let's see if I can stay consistent. I will try to post update every other day.
Welcome to my master post! Most of these I’ve been collecting this month but others I’ve known for years. Hope you find something helpful. I miss master posts so I thought I’d make one of my own.
Videos:
Vlogs:
Akane’s Japanese Class
Midsummer Days
Daily Japanese with Naoko
Life of Elina
Writing:
Sho Kobe
Games:
Haruchi Create
せなくまチャネル
くるみ
Grammar:
Game Gengo: Grammar Series - JLPT Grammar with video game examples
日本語の森 - Japanese lessons for grammar in japanese
Websites:
DeepL.com - Really nice translator, cause google sucks.
JPDB.io - Japanese Learning Data Base, keeps track of the vocab and grammar you know and recommends media based upon your learnt knowledge.
Journaly.com - Practice writing and have others correct you.
HiNative - Similar to Journaly, write and/or ask questions and get responses for natives.
Amazon.co.jp - For cheap kindle books. Gives access to a wonderful library of japanese books. [Use VPN to purchase]
eMinato - Free japanese courses by Japan Foundation
9anime.gs - Watch Anime [Please use add blocker. Opera GX has one built in]
Tokoboto - Dictionary
Jisho - Dictionary
Epjapanesey.com - Easy Japanese mini comics
Learnnatively.com - Read books/manga etc by level
Langcorrect - Similar to Journaly
Tadoku.org - More Books
Easy to Understand Anime / Manga:
Nichijou 日常
Sanrio Boys サンリオ男子
Shirokuma Cafe しろくまカフェ
Doraemon ドラエモン
Books:
Kana Word Search
Kanji Word Search
Japanese Folktales for Language Learners - Comes with vocab and questions at the end of every story. Also has audio you can download to listen to the story.
Japanese Stories for Language Learners - Comes with vocab and questions at the end of every story. Also has audio you can download to listen to the story.
Are you learning a language and seeking more exciting ways to improve?
Studying grammar, expanding your vocabulary, and using learning apps all have their benefits, but there comes a point when one gets bored of learning a language in such an isolated context. Language learning should involve merging your personal interests with your language goals, all while interacting with natives and other students of the language.
I'm designing a Summer Language Challenge for those interested in meeting new people and improving their mastery and navigation of their target tongue while simultaneously engaging in topics and hobies that they enjoy. My basic idea is this:
Participants would post some form of content in which they describe (in their target language) some aspect of a topic, hobby, activity, etc. that interests them. Natives would then correct their mistakes, and we'd do the same for their posts.
Examples include:
giving a critical review of some form of media you recently saw/read (multilingual book club??)
giving a cooking tutorial on your favorite recipe
researching a topic that interests you and writing a short research paper about it (or just a paragraph)
watching conspiracy theory videos on Youtube and trying to summarize your favorite theory in your target language
Reply if you're interested or have ideas or want to help design the challenge!! It could be a super fun to learn new things while learning a language and making new connections :)
i hv a cool idea for an ask game where you put simple or complex sentences your choice into someone's askbox and they translate it from memory in one sentence trying to make use of all the langs they know/are learning without searching for vocab etc and you can just default to your native langs for words you can't translate
e.g. 💌 - i listen to music while i eat chocolate
answer: mwen écoute la música pendant que mwen manjé schokolade
langs used: patois (french creole) french spanish and german
In honor of the second email, (and the fact Herman put the wrong word for whale) I propose we circulate a post and add on each language’s word for whale. Reblog and add the word for a language you speak or are learning. There’s over 7,100 languages! Let’s see how many we can get!
Day 1 - What is the "birthday song" of your TL? (Part 1/2 - svenska)
30 day language blog challenge by @moltre-s
Det finns fler olika födelsedagssånger som används i Sverige, men sången som sjungs huvudsakligen när någon fyller år heter "Ja, må han leva". Här är sångens text:
Ja, må han leva!
Ja, må han leva!
Ja, må han leva uti hundrade år!
Javisst ska han leva!
Javisst ska han leva!
Javisst ska han leva uti hundrade år!
Naturligtvis kan man också byta ut ordet "han" mot rätt pronomen för personen som sången sjungs till - till exempel "Ja, må hon leva" eller "Ja, må du leva" - eller "Ja, må ni leva" om man sjunger låten till fler människor.
Det var intressant för mig att lära mig det här eftersom det finns en födelsedagssång med samma melodi på tyska (mitt modersmål). Oftast använder vi bara en tysk version av "Happy Birthday", men man kan också sjunga "Hoch soll er leben". Därför var melodin i den svenska låten förvånansvärt känd för mig.
Och här är en video för att ni kan höra födelsedagssångens melodi:
The hard part about journaling: forgetting to do it 😓 I decided I wanted to practice my german this evening, so i opened my drawer of resources and started looking through. Decided to take a look at my journal and see what was in there, turned to the bookmarked page to see I completely forgot about the “Ein Satz pro Tag” challenge i made for myself. I’ve missed most of March! Haven’t even made the header or numbers in pen! Funny thing is, the last time I wrote in it was March 8th and the sentence is “Heute schreibe ich “Ein Satz pro Tag” von 18.02 bis 08.03” because i forgot about it in February too!
Truth is journaling is still new to me and not a habit I have. it’s hard to keep up with. I do have a log I keep for every day, marking how I’ve interacted with German (studying, listening, reading, etc).
I made this challenge to get comfortable using more complex language, and to talk about my day. I am okay with not writing in it every day, but i Do want a sentence for each day. Whether I write that sentence the day of or a week later doesn’t matter to me. The “rules” I set for myself are simple:
One sentence for each day of the year
Sentences are entirely from my own head (no outside help)
No corrections the same day as writing. I’ll go through when I’ve learned more and correct them
No repeat sentences
Anyways, i’ll get the hang of this sometime. For now though, I have 2 weeks of sentences to think up 👍 (and if anyone has any tips for a forgetful neurodivergent brain…)
-> which languages can you speak besides your native language?
my native language is turkish, and i can speak english.
maybe two years has passed since i purchased it, but today i finally started studying the german a2 course i bought on udemy. then i started watching a youtube channel. i think i’ll keep watching both because it’s more fun! apparently german a2 level starts with modalverben, so today i studied them and wrote down some new words. and then, of course, i did my daily duolingo.
⭐️ Small conversation with a native speaker through Hellotalk
So, turns out that the Goethe Institut course includes predetermined flashcards. It was very useful and it saved me a lot of time. However I think I need to have an Anki deck eventually cause I need to get reminders for spaced repetition. Everything is going well so far, I’m in the first couple of lessons but I haven’t found it to be that difficult yet. But I’m aware that eventually more challenges are yet to come. Bis Morgen!
Now that it's almost December (yikes) I've been looking back over my language goals for the year and realizing that (much like all of my other goals) I have not accomplished anywhere near what I had hoped for.
Not to be discouraged, I've decided that for the last month of the year I want to do a very small challenge for myself to try and feel like I've accomplished something in 2023. I'm putting my focus in Korean at the moment since I'm trying to ride that beginner progress high for motivation.
For my 30 Days of Korean challenge, my goal is to engage with at least one of my learning resources every day. This includes my Youtube playlists, textbook chapters, and other course-based introductory material. On top of this I have an anki deck of flashcards (and of course my Duolingo streak) to do as a kind of bare minimum, although I won't count that towards the challenge. My Korean is basically at 0 right now besides 한글 and some very basic sentences. I don't foresee making huge strides in only one month, but it will be fun to see any improvements.
I'll be starting the challenge tomorrow (11/30) and going through the end of December. (I know that's more than 30 days, but I wanted some wiggle room in case I crash out for a day). I'll post daily updates for accountability, and it would be super cool if anyone wanted to join in with whatever language you are learning!
Even if you can't do 30 days, I hope you'll join me in using December as a time to start goals and make incremental progress instead of falling into despair at incomplete resolutions. Remember any progress is still progress, and whatever you can accomplish is worth doing even if it's not your best!
links to daily posts under the cut
Daily Posts
Day 1
Day 2
Day 3
Day 4
Day 5
Day 6
Day 7
Day 8
Day 9
Day 10
Day 11
Day 12
Day 13
Day 14
Day 15
Day 16
Day 17
Day 18
Day 19
Day 20
Day 21
Day 22
Day 23
Day 24
Day 25
Day 26
Day 27
Day 28
Day 29
Day 30