The German 3 month mission: Sit C2 exam

I said process, not progress. Id like to see exactly how you study, etc…. I suppose I learn better by seeing not reading.

Good job on reaching the 30 second goal in English!!! It was hard work for me to do it in Portuguese, but I've picked up a few tricks that I hope will help me in German!
Good luck with your German

Danke Jessica!!!

Very cool post. I like the fact you have a very concrete goal (passing the exam).
What i do now to expand my vocab, is i note down every word i don't know. Later i look up the translations and put them in a spreadsheet file.

You can review these spreadsheet files later (spaced repition) or export them so they can be used in a program like anki.

Yeah what took you so long? Haven't you seen the crazy Irish guy waving his arms around the interwebs for the last 10 months?
Glad you've found me! Hope you enjoy language hacking

Hi Benny, this sounds very ambitious, especially for a part-time project – I wish you luck though! I'm not sure if you're familiar with the Michel Thomas audio courses, but I'm a huge fan. They're MUCH different from “traditional” methods. The introduction course (which brings similar proficiency to many 1st-year German programs) only takes 8 hours to get through. There's also a “vocabulary builder” module and “advanced” module if you really like it.

http://www.amazon.com/Michel-Thomas-Method-Begi…

Benny,

A few years ago my wife was in an airport when someone sneezed, and my wife automatically said, “Gesundheit”. A woman with a very thick German accent approached & told her that Germans don't say 'Gesundheit' anymore, because it insinuates that you think the other person is unclean or unhealthy.
Now, I'd never heard this before & I haven't found any corroborating info on the web. Could you find out if this is true or not?

Aha! I thought so; it sounded just a little odd to me. Thanks for clearing up that linguistic curiosity for me!

I have no doubt that you will pull this off, just dress extra “euro” and you're in! Awesome blog, trying to learn some Vietnamese, not much but it's a start.

I am a German and I will never be mistaken for a Berliner. Your goal is completely unrealistic and it is also irrelevant to language learning. If you have the guts we can have a skype conversation in German sometime in June. I really like your enthusiasm but your “lose 10kg in a week” attitude is really off-putting,

Friedemann

[yawn] I've already answered you enough on Steve's blog Friedemann – unless you have something worthwhile to say please keep your pure opinion and worthless empty claims there I don't know how you see reducing my accent and sitting a difficult language examination, and encouraging a lot of others to try the same, as irrelevant to language learning, but please oh please, don't elaborate as I expect it to be something really dull.

Seriously, commenters on Steve's blog are like children on a schoolyard. “If you've got the guts”. Really?? How old are you? In the brief time I looked at comments there, I saw plenty of this childishness. What's next, calling me chicken?

I'm happy to have many in-person and Skype conversations in May or June with natives who'd like to have a mature discussion with me in German, and they can put them online for others to hear. But I'm too “yella” (Back to the future reference) to do it with you because you are BORING from what I've seen and you refuse to hear my arguments about efficient immersion. Any discussion with you would turn into nothing more than a one sided rant. Sorry but you'll have to hear my German conversation with someone else.

Thanks!! So far so good, we'll see how I make it in 3 months

I read this (http://thelinguist.blogs.com/how_to_learn_engli…). I just wanted to tell you that I believe in you and your achievements so far, so I would love to see the whole troupe to be refuted….Wish you success with all my hart…

Accent reduction is ok, but that is totally different from being mistaken for a Berliner by other Germans. Setting unrealistic goals is setting yourself (and other learners) up for disappointment. I like your enthusiasm as I said before, but you should be more honest as to what is achievable in three months. @ skype: I didn't say I want to record and post this, as a seasoned language learner I just want to find out if your you are really that good. Those who make bold claims invite scrutiny.

Friedemann

What's the point of being mistaken for a native for 30 seconds? I listened to your Spanish, you are VERY GOOD, but you don't sound like a native, and that is perfectly ok. You will always betray being a foreigner at some point. I am a seasoned and passionate language learner myself, I live abroad and have done so for many years. I speak six languages. I can only think of two or three cases where a foreigner had me thinking he/she was a native of a particular country and that was always after 10years+ of immersion. Me and some others at lingq have in fact checked out the German C2, I think I'd pass it but it is tough. Again my main criticism is that your goals are unrealistic, maybe not for you if you are extremely gifted, but for the average learner, including myself.

Thanks and good luck in Berlin, Friedemann

Thanks for the compliment, but I have never intentionally tried to eliminate my accent in Spanish, so using that language as an example that what I am attempting doesn't work is moot.

I agree that you will eventually betray being a foreigner, but why should it be 2 seconds into a conversation? It's important to note that this blog focuses on the social aspect of speaking a language, that is largely ignored by many courses and language learners. To me, blending in with locals and not having them feel uncomfortable is equally if not way more important than having the right conjugation.

A lot of people are genuinely interested in making it less obvious that they are a foreigner so that they can integrate and relate to locals better. Maybe it's impossible to achieve over hours of talking, but passing off as a local for the first 30 seconds of a conversation can dramatically change your experience and the way people treat you and this is something that is surely worth trying, discussing and experimenting on.

I don't doubt your language skills, but if you have never intentionally tried to eliminate your accent at the level of focus I'm proposing then it is something that would take years to “naturally” occur. I'm saying that if we look at it logically, there are ways to do it. My Portuguese post outlines precisely the nitty gritty details of how I did that with regards rhythm, vowel importance, musicality etc. No amount of input will ever give you these, you need feedback and lots of it.

Please don't pull the “extremely gifted” card either. That's a cop-out that others can't and shouldn't try and the purpose of my blog is not to brag about how great my achievements are. I constantly say that I am NOT talented with languages; I have an IT background and love the concept of hacking things for shortcuts, and feel that it definitely applies to languages. My advice is universal for everyone, especially those who feel like they should be categorised as “untalented” with languages as that's precisely how I felt 7 years ago.

Please stop saying “unrealistic” because nothing I'm proposing is impossible or even requires huge amounts of work, but it certainly requires large changes in perspective and conceptual acceptance of unconventional ideas.

Thanks for your comment.

I disagree with you, Friedemann. His goals are realistic. Being mistaken for a local is not a big deal. I've done it. And not on purpose. It sucked actually. Long story.

And sitting a C2 exam (he didn't say pass, but try his best) is also not imposibble, but probably scary, so it counts.

Most people who learn languages for fun are pretty smart. We can judge for ourselves what's bunk or not. But thanks for trying to protect us, I guess.

I think I have always tried to emulate the sound and melody of the target language and thereby reduce my German accent. But I think to have no accent at all or even a local accent is something that strikes one as odd unless your command of the language is like a native and most of us will never achieve that level. It sounds really odd to hear someone use odd phrases and words in a perfect bavarian accent.

In Germany there was a football manager from Eastern Europe who had lived a long time in Germany and he certainly had that very distinct accent of the Frankfurt area, but he still made a lot of mistakes typical for people from Eastern Europe and his Eastern accent was also still in there. Many people actually made fun of the way he spoke. I am a hobby musician and I have a good ear. Accent is something so subtle and so difficult to nail 100%. But if you do, your words and phrases better be 100% authentic too (including the authentic mistakes) otherwise the result is really odd.

In summary, accent reduction is ok, no accent in three months or three years for that matter is IMHO an unrealistic goal and undesireable if you are not near perfect in the target language,

Friedemann

You're doing the same thing you accuse Steve of: I was polite and civil yet you are personal and dismissive (yawn, geez, change the record…). Since the truce is up, here is one goal far more realistic than your current mission: lose 8 kg in three months.

Signing off,
Friedemann

Let us know if the Germans force English upon you, as I would like to verify if Germans will refuse to speak German to less than incredibly German speaking foreigners that I read so often on how-to-learn-any-language.com.

I wish you the best of luck. “Fluency” is a pretty high goal, but who knows… There is more to “appearing as a native” than the obvious “language” elements. For many people, even half a minute is difficult. Most (if not all) Germans I've ever met, couldn't fool a Martian even if they just said “Good morning”, due to accent, body language and more.

I'd be happy if I had just 1% of your extrovertness.

Go gcuire Dia an t-ádh ort!

Ramses, I really wish you would read my posts carefully before writing such silly comments.

Where did I ever say I “know in no way” I'm going to pass it? That's ridiculous. BECAUSE I have the DELE I know what's ahead of me in terms of the level required and I think it's worth a try. Please don't be such a downer telling me I'm going to fail it.

My current intention is to definitely do well in the oral section, and later on I will have a good look at the entire examination process and see if I can aim to pass overall or not, or if working hard on writing etc. is something that I am willing to do. I made the commitment to do this with the DELE in the end, so we'll see if I do it with this. This isn't something I will consider until later, but I'm sitting the exam no matter what because even now the oral result of a C2 exam is something I'm very interested in. I said clearly in this post that I still think passing overall is a realistic option.

Then what's this silly rant about fluency?? What does that have to do with the price of tea in China? The mission is about the 30 seconds. Fluency will come way before then, probably even this month, and once again I clearly said that in this post. Read this post for what fluency means to me and if you have some other definition of it then fine, but don't force it on me. This is not a fluent-in-3-month experiment. The fluency aspect will come very soon and accent reduction and body language / cultural adjustments will be the next step.

I thought you said you were going to avoid flaming? This comment shows little regard for the content of this post, going off on things I never talked about like “knowing” that I'm going to fail or defining 30 seconds as fluency. I thought you were beyond this immature excuse to stir the pot for no reason Ramses.

I “enjoyed” being a tourist in Thailand for 2 months but not achieving anything worthwhile in terms of getting to know the local culture made the experience emptier for me, compared to everything else over the last years of applying these missions. Doing this is how I enjoy my time in a country and having boring goals is not something I can do. If that's not the way you'd do it then fine, but don't tell me I'm wasting my money etc.

Please filter your comments before mindlessly sending. I still have hope for you to contribute positively to comments on this site some day.

My challenges depend on where I feel like living – I will be back in Asia and attempting fluency at some stage, but to be honest I feel more at home in Europe and South America so most of my missions will be here. Some polyglots learn languages to have an impressive number to show off, but I genuinely just want to have fun with the locals and culture clashes makes that a little trickier in the East. I will however be trying, and Chinese is definitely something I plan to learn.

Note that I already convinced Brazilians that I was a Carioca several times for 30 seconds back in December. There is a scientific method to go about analysing what really makes an accent, and when you study it purposefully, it's quite easy to 'fool' people. If you got lessons in British accents for example, I have no doubts you'd make it way past the 30 second mark, but if you are just going by TV references and such, you can't fool anyone.

It's not that impressive when you break it up and analyse what makes an accent

Ramses, you continue to send pointless negativity my way, this time I'll be frank: are you blind? I didn't delete your comment, it's right above this one. This post has lots of comments so you have to click the very very large button that says to view more.

I will delete your comments in future if you keep this up, you are this site's longest term flamer and I am getting sick of it. You have NOTHING positive to bring to the table, just pure opinion on what counts as useful advice. Your site is prettier than mine but has very little content in my opinion, but you don't see me there reminding you how I think you're wasting people's time because I have better things to do. Apparently you don't.

Stop commenting on my site. I haven't added you the black list but I will next time – I've given you plenty of chances but you are a flamer with nothing useful to say and can't even navigate a blog to see that your comment is there.