by Paul Noble
What is important is how the method works, which is like this…
Once you have gained a functional vocabulary and understanding of structures and tenses (from having used both this book and my audio course), I recommend that you then purchase an English language television series – a long one. It should ideally have something like 50 episodes or more (100 is even better). And it should be something that you have watched previously.
This might seem an odd way to learn German but it’s not. Trust me. It is in fact a very easy and enjoyable way to develop your ability in the language. Now listen well because I’m going to explain to you exactly how this method works.
Almost all major successful long-running English language TV series will be available with a German dub. Typically, the version you can buy locally will have the ability to switch the language to German, if not you can go to eBay or Amazon Germany and order the German dubbed version from there.
Now, what you’re going to do with the series you’ve chosen is to watch it in German, one episode at a time, whenever it’s convenient for you to do so. And, when you watch it, you’re not only going to watch it dubbed into German but you’re also going to put on the German subtitles. If you use the English subtitles, you will spend your whole time reading them and will learn nothing.
Now while you watch the German dub of the series you’ve chosen, I want you to keep a pen and notepad handy and, when you hear a word you’re not familiar with, I want you to write it down. Do this with the first twenty words you don’t recognise. Once you’ve written those twenty down, don’t bother writing any more for the rest of the episode. Instead, all I want you you to do is to put a tick beside each of those words every time you hear them during the rest of that same episode.
When the episode is finished, take a look at how many ticks each word has. Any word with more than three ticks by the side of it is something you need to learn. So, look it up in a dictionary and then write the English word beside it in your notepad. Once you have a translation for each, use the checklist technique utilised in this book to go through them until you can remember roughly what each word means. Then let yourself forget about them.
The following day, repeat this whole process again during the next episode. Something you’ll begin to notice very quickly, however, is that those words that came up a lot in the first episode will also come up a lot in the second. This is because, on the one hand, any words that came up a lot the first day are likely to be quite important words anyway and, on the other, because you’re watching a TV series, the same themes are typically repeated in different episodes. So, if you like Game of Thrones, you’re going to very quickly learn the words for things such as “castle”, “horse” and “wench”. If you like Friends then you’re going to very quickly learn the words for things like “coffee shop”, “girl friend” and “break up”.
And it’s precisely because these same themes and the same language come up again and again that watching a long series becomes much more valuable than simply watching something like German films, for example.Were you to watch German films instead, you would quickly find that each film would almost certainly have a different theme and therefore the vocabulary would not repeat itself so much.When you watch a TV series, however, because you’re looking up the most important vocabulary, and because it’s repeated in the series again and again and again, you really do end up remembering it. It becomes extremely familiar to you.
Now, you may say to this “okay, fair enough, but why does it have to be an English language series dubbed into German rather than simply a German one? And why should it be something I’ve seen before in English, why not something totally new?”Well, the reason for this is simple: you will learn far more, far more quickly doing it this way. And why?Well, because if you decide to watch a German TV series, instead of an English one, you will immediately encounter unfamiliar cultural issues – the way people live, where they do their shopping, what they cook – much of this will be different. This therefore means that, if you watch a German TV series, you will not only be trying to figure out what something means linguistically but also, very frequently, what something means culturally. It will simply present another set of barriers to understanding, which is why it’s best to begin with something familiar.
This leads us on to why it should be a series that you’ve already watched in English before. For the exact same reasons given a moment ago, you should try to choose a TV series you’ve watched before because you will already be familiar with the context of the story. This will make it far easier to grasp what is being said, to catch words, to get the jokes and to increase your understanding more rapidly. Often, you will find that you can actually guess what a particular word means because you are already familiar with the context and this will make it far easier to pick up that word in German.
So, once you’re finished with this book and my audio course (you will need to have done both to be ready to use this “Game of Thrones Method”), go and watch a TV series and keep a pen and notepad handy and use it in exactly the way I’ve describe above.
If you do this, both you and your German will soar!
Good Luck! – Viel Glück!
PRONUNCIATION GUIDE
A guide to pronunciation is provided under every word and sentence in this book. However, in case you’re still struggling with any of the trickier German words and sounds, I wanted to let you know about an additional resource that is also available to you.
Forvo
One wonderful resource that should help you with the pronunciation of more or less any German word is Forvo.
Forvo is a free service, which also requires no membership and no logins, where thousands of native speaker volunteers have recorded themselves saying various words from their languages.
So, if you’re not sure whether you’ve got the pronunciation of a word quite right and it’s worrying you, then simply go to forvo.com and type in that word. Frequently, you will find that the word has been recorded by several different people and so you can listen to multiple examples of the word until you feel confident that you know how to pronounce it.
So, if in doubt, go to forvo.com and have a listen!
Footnotes
Chapter 1: Can you come over tonight?
1 Under each set of German words, you’ll find pronunciation guidance. If there’s something that’s particularly tricky to pronounce, however, I’ll also add a little footnote like this one to give you some extra help. I’m going to do this now in fact, to help you with the “ch” at the end of “ich”. The “ch” on the end of “ich” is pronounced in a similar way to the letter “h” at the beginning of the English words “huge” and “human”. Try saying “huge” and then take the “uge” bit away. The kind of hissing “h” sound that you are left with is what the “ch” in “ich” should sound like; I’ve written it in the pronunciation guidance as a kind of “ikh” sound. With a bit of practice, you’ll get the hang of it!
2 This is similar to Elizabethan English, where we used to say “thou canst” – a bit outdated in English now of course, unless you’re currently reading Shakespeare – for example: “I do protest I never injured thee, But love thee better than thou canst devise.” (Romeo and Juliet, Act 3 Scene 1)
Chapter 2: I wouldn’t like to do it now because I’m very busy.
3 “Morgen” is an interesting word. When used on its own it means “tomorrow” but, when used together with another word, it means “morning”, such as in “heute Morgen” (this morning). Actually, English isn’t so different, since “tomorrow” in English was originally “to-morning”. Anyway, don’t think too much about any of this, just be aware that “tomorrow” is “morgen” but “heute Morgen” means “this morning”.
Chapter 4: I gave the money to the taxi driver.
4 “The key” in German is “der Schlüssel” but, of course, once it is being “given” or “sent” (as it is in the sentences you can build above) the “der” will become
“den”.
5Curiously, “the girl” in German is neuter rather than feminine (it’s das Mädchen) which is why “to the girl” in German is “dem Mädchen” rather than “der Mädchen”.
Chapter 7 (1): Do you think I’m oblivious to what’s going on around me? (part 1)
6 For example: “O shut the door! And when thou hast done so, come weep with me; past hope, past cure, past help!” (Romeo and Juliet, Act 4 Scene 1)
7 You’ll notice that in sentences which talk about “having lust” in German, a “zu” is added just before the end. So “do you feel like going?” is “hast du Lust zu gehen?” and “do you feel like drinking?” is “hast du Lust zu trinken?” Don’t worry too much if you forget to add the “zu”, as you’re still likely to be understood but, as you get more practiced with it, you’ll find it becomes natural to add this “zu” just before the end of these “lust-having” sentences!
Chapter 7 (2): Do you think I’m oblivious to what’s going on around me? (part 2)
8 “O think’st thou we shall ever meet again?” (Romeo and Juliet, Act 3 Scene 5)
9 “Ein” is pronounced like the “ine” in the English words “mine” or “pine”.
10 You may have noticed while reading this book that certain words that are not capitalised in English are written with a capital letter in German.
This is because, in English, we write the names of people and places with capital letters but in German they go further. Not only do they write the names of people and places in capitals but also the names of things. So, anything that you can give a name to – a table, a hat, a car, a pan – will have a capital letter in German.
This is certainly not something for you to worry about but I just wanted to let you know in case you were wondering why capitals are often present in the German translation even when they are not there in the equivalent English sentence. This is why…
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