Today's class was great! We were finally doing some grammar drills so that's really really useful. Wechselpräpositionen was one of the topics. You have to take into account the cases (Akkusativ, Dativ) coupled with the gender of the nouns in the context and then tweak the sentence accordingly or you may end up saying something that has an otherwise completely different meaning.
On good days I think of learning German as a super exciting and challenging game. It is truly like a mind game each time and I can literally feel the strain in my eyes and the spinning gears in my brain as I tap away furiously on my iPhone (uh, dictionary app) and contemplate my answer/next move (wait so if it is a masculine noun then..oh wait let me read the next sentence to get the context first). You get the drift.
On bad days, mmm let's just not venture there.
One of the biggest takeaways from this whole experience is the following realization:
When you know a language/learnt it since young, it comes to you so naturally and it is therefore so easy to take things for granted.
When you are learning a language and trying to put across (at times) the simplest of ideas in that language, it can become so frustratingly challenging when the words evade you.
People who speak English as their first language may not even know all the different prepositions or tenses (Future, Simple Present, Present Perfect etc). These are the technical aspects of the language. Yet I wouldn't say that one is not proficient in English if he does know what "present perfect continuous tense" is because it is definitely possible to be able to express oneself perfectly even without the technical knowledge. Gosh I actually had to run a search on Google because I can only recall simple past and present tense ha ha ha don't judge.
My classmate from Moldova today (my first Moldovan friend! :D) told me something that still resonates within me.
I hope things get better, and I will genuinely feel the language as the days go by. I am definitely improving, and I am optimistic that things can only get better from now as long as I invest the effort to learn. (:
*waves imaginary pompoms in the air*
On good days I think of learning German as a super exciting and challenging game. It is truly like a mind game each time and I can literally feel the strain in my eyes and the spinning gears in my brain as I tap away furiously on my iPhone (uh, dictionary app) and contemplate my answer/next move (wait so if it is a masculine noun then..oh wait let me read the next sentence to get the context first). You get the drift.
On bad days, mmm let's just not venture there.
One of the biggest takeaways from this whole experience is the following realization:
When you know a language/learnt it since young, it comes to you so naturally and it is therefore so easy to take things for granted.
When you are learning a language and trying to put across (at times) the simplest of ideas in that language, it can become so frustratingly challenging when the words evade you.
People who speak English as their first language may not even know all the different prepositions or tenses (Future, Simple Present, Present Perfect etc). These are the technical aspects of the language. Yet I wouldn't say that one is not proficient in English if he does know what "present perfect continuous tense" is because it is definitely possible to be able to express oneself perfectly even without the technical knowledge. Gosh I actually had to run a search on Google because I can only recall simple past and present tense ha ha ha don't judge.
My classmate from Moldova today (my first Moldovan friend! :D) told me something that still resonates within me.
"Just speak. You have to feel the language."She can't be more right. In my case, I realized that when I am not so obsessed about getting the grammar right, I speak a whole lot better, i.e. more fluently. When I am nervous or worried then I tend to jumble things up. Confidence goes down the drain. Its so silly, but I can actually get nervous over certain seemingly insignificant things. Like, if there's a queue behind me, I will feel bad for "hogging the counter". (Haha sounds so weird I know)
I hope things get better, and I will genuinely feel the language as the days go by. I am definitely improving, and I am optimistic that things can only get better from now as long as I invest the effort to learn. (:
*waves imaginary pompoms in the air*
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