Practical tips on writing in German to better learn the language
We write to get better at German because it gives our brain enough time to become comfortable with the new patterns of language we need to speak properly. Reading is also good, but writing is more active and therefore more useful. Doing grammar exercises is pointless without doing something with the information — like writing. Unstructured speaking is likely to be short and episodic and therefore if you are at a particular level, you will stay there. That’s why we write — in preparation for telling our stories i.e. speaking well.
Here are some tips:
Write a story about a trip that you have made where something went wrong. Preferably it will have a beginning, a middle and an end. First you set the scene, then you introduce some conflict and in the end the conflict is somehow resolved.
Write whatever you want to say. If English is your first language, or you’re fluent in English and prefer not to work in your native language, then do it in English first. Otherwise if your native language is not English and there is a good translation tool that supports your language, then write in your native language first. (In this piece when I say ‘English’, you substitute in the language you want to use instead…)
You are writing a first person narrative. Just say what happened. Avoid analysis, summary and feeling/emotional words. These are unnecessary. Where possible use the present tense. Break up long sentences. You don’t want long sentences. Two clauses (three maximum). Write in paragraphs. Aim to write a story that is no more than 1 page long. This shouldn’t take very long.
Having one eye to what’s coming next, write it with a view to you translating it. Be aware of being too ‘sophisticated’ or clever with your language. Also consider what is an idiom. An idiom is “a group of words established by usage as having a meaning not deducible from those of the individual words (e.g. over the moon, see the light )” That’s the definition. Idioms are obviously to be avoided.
After you’ve written your story, stop, put it down and come back to it the next day and read it again. You will undoubtedly want to edit it and simplify it. This is all to the good.
Now is a good time to open a Google document and copy your text in there. Now I recommend dividing up the story sentence by sentence. Under each sentence, you write your translation. (You could do it paragraph by paragraph, assuming your paragraphs are short.) Make sure you know how to write the umlaut characters!
There are, naturally, words you don’t know and you’ll have to look them up. Use DeepL. If it’s a noun you need, always write ‘the’ so the translator gives you the gender of the noun. Don’t copy in entire sentences and translate like that. That is a total waste of your time — you won’t learn anything.
If you suspect the translation may not be the right one in the circumstance you mean it, click on the translation and a list of alternatives come up. Otherwise, if you are still unsure, use an online dictionary. (I prefer Reverso.)
As you type in Google docs, it will underline words in red that it doesn’t recognise in either language. That’s very useful. So the advice is, ‘don’t use the translator until you have to’. First just use it for nouns and verbs. Try and put the sentences together yourself.
Put your German in deepL and translate to English. If it’s not perfect then select the problem words and a drop down list appears. Perhaps the perfect translation is there. But it might still ‘flatter to deceive’ i.e. it tries to predict what you want to say. To get more confidence do this: copy the ENG translation and put this into a second deepL window to convert into DE. Then compare your original DE with the second window. If what you write is the same or very similar (e.g. only pronouns differ), you get a high degree of confidence.
Continue until you’ve done the whole story. Then it’s time to get it checked.
- You can use an online service like Fiverr
- You can ask a friend (but they probably won’t thank you)
Either way you now need to look carefully to see the mistakes you are making. This is the most important and useful part. It’s also the hardest one to do! It’s not like school. It’s not that you’re done with it and that’s that. No — you do it to learn from the experience and to understand the mistakes you are making and to hopefully stop making them. (i.e. always be making new mistakes!)
Dictionary: reverso.com
Verb conjugation: reverso.com
Translator: https://www.deepl.com/translator
Find out more at: languagegym.net
Author: Dr P. J. Merrick
