Do you have B1 but can’t speak any German?
Considering italki, language exchange, Workaway, and Scenario Learning
If you’ve already done lessons up to B1 but don’t have the confidence to speak then what do you do? More grammar? Ummm, no.
If you are speaking German and people are answering you in English — there is a problem. Very bad for your confidence. My experience is that if you say a complete sentence and get this right, people will say “…aber dein Deutsch ist sehr gut”
Here’s the question — do you really understand der, das, die, den, dem and how to use it? Germans really listen out for this. You can’t skip over it. You might think it is unlearnable — but it’s not.
Do you actually know what the B1 standard is? It’s decided by the book publisher! The school tells you what book to buy, you buy it and you learn what’s in that book. BUT — The levels themselves are ALL about speaking, listening and understanding. If the course isn’t giving you the CONFIDENCE you need to speak then it’s not much use.
Another problem is being shy or being a perfectionist. The more of a perfectionist, the less you’re going to speak because you are GOING to make mistakes. (And mistakes are ‘bad’ — in our minds anyway).
You could do private lessons online and there are lots of digital nomads where you can find a German national to talk to you for, what is sometimes, a very low price. This is hit and miss. You can be overwhelmed by the choice. Still there are some very good people out there.
You should go with one that offers a cheap ‘trial’ lesson. If in the trial lesson you learn something and it’s fun, then keep doing it. The question might be ‘how much do you learn for every hour invested? The ‘teacher’ might be a real teacher or a talented amateur. It doesn’t really matter if you spend the time speaking in German. If you’re speaking in English (or some other language) — don’t do it.
Your grammar needs to be good enough that when you get a grammar correction, you know what you did wrong. It is a waste if the private tutor has to teach you the grammar. If you keep making the same errors it’s dis-heartening for everybody. I’m talking about somebody answering your question about it’s wrong with ‘It’s dative’ when you don’t have a firm grip of what the implications of that are.
Language Exchange (Austausch)
Talking to other learners for free. Advantage is it’s free. Disadvantage is that you can’t easily correct each others’ mistakes.
It depends on what you want and what you can offer. You need to get over the problem of making small talk with a stranger that you have normally when you meet someone new. i.e. it can be boring.
If you decide to do it, you should insist on some fundamental ground rules about how it’s going to be structured. You can get some ideas on how to do that here.
Workaway — total immersion
This just works. If you can take a couple of weeks off to do a Workaway, you should do it. It is pretty sure fire. Even better, do one where they have small children and you have to talk to them, play with them, look after them. This is amazing, because kids don’t judge you — they have lots of patience and the average 4 year old can speak the language really well. Even three, or two year olds are fun to talk to. Listen, it’s free (but joining the website costs 39€) and you get food and accommodation. What is not to like about this? I mean, you have to get over the whole meeting new people thing and sitting around the dinner table, completely in German, but take the pain and you get the language. If you want to prepare for the experience, you can do our Scenario Learning — which drills you on Playing with Kids, Working in the Garden, and Helping Around the Kitchen.
Languagepool offers two programs — Hammer the Grammar and Scenario Learning.
Hammer the Grammar — uses patterns to explain German grammar fast in English. Scenario Learning is a program to get you thinking in German. Both prepare you for an immersion experience in an all German speaking environment.
