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March 29, 2024, 12:36:43 pm

Author Topic: German Resources  (Read 2572 times)  Share 

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clarke54321

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German Resources
« on: July 02, 2015, 10:25:24 pm »
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Hi Everyone,

Can anyone recommend some useful resources to improve my German skills (eg. good german news channels, etc.)

Thanks  :)
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patphez

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Re: German Resources
« Reply #1 on: July 03, 2015, 10:46:07 am »
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SBS has at least one program a week of German news and I think they have a radio segment everyday at about 7-7.30. They also have all of their German radio segments available as podcasts online which you can listen to online or download I think. Otherwise, Deutsche Welle have a huge amount of very good podcasts for learning German. There are also the slow German podcasts.
That's about all that I know of.
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clarke54321

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Re: German Resources
« Reply #2 on: July 03, 2015, 12:29:30 pm »
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SBS has at least one program a week of German news and I think they have a radio segment everyday at about 7-7.30. They also have all of their German radio segments available as podcasts online which you can listen to online or download I think. Otherwise, Deutsche Welle have a huge amount of very good podcasts for learning German. There are also the slow German podcasts.
That's about all that I know of.


Thank you! That's very helpful  :)
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babushka818

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Re: German Resources
« Reply #3 on: July 03, 2015, 01:04:59 pm »
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SO SORRY MATE, this was actually just meant to be about the German news on SBS, but I got a little carried away.. Hope the reading is worth it! :)


Hey I'm pretty sure there's German news on every day on SBS One at 10.30-11.00am and I think also at 1.30pm on SBS Two  :)
I have tried it but it is spoken very fast and I have trouble keeping up with it, but it really helps to practice sentence structure, pronunciation and general speaking tips :)
I find it helpful to keep abreast of basic English news, just because some of the news articles on the German news are similar in terms of international or major events, so it helps with translating some of those articles if you already know a bit about what's going on, and it is a lot easier to follow.
Generally though, for me at least, being at early stages in German does make it a little hard to follow news and radio shows that are exclusively in German and directed at native German speakers, but its a great outlet for getting some solid and accurate exposure to the language!
As patphez mentioned also, there are several sites online where you can download podcasts and listen to.

Some other great ideas that I find particularly helpful include watching some German TV shows. I remember back in year 7/8 for end of term classes and other relaxing German lessons, our teachers used to put on episodes of Inspector Rex, a popular show about a man and his dog, Rex, who solve crimes, spoken in German and we watched it with subtitles which is always good, but I'm not sure if you can find such episodes on youtube or so on, unless you'd like to consider investing in some DVDs.
There are some other TV serials that you might want to consider looking into, even a Google or YouTube search could give you some free options, some of our teachers this year gave us some comprehension activities on a show called Türkisch Für Anfänger, a TV series on a girl whose mother remarries and has to deal with teenage-ry problems in combining their families, and I think that might be on YouTube, at least some episodes.
I also think that TV shows such as the aforementioned are really good options, because its generally quite easy to follow the events of TV shows and movies in another language compared to the news because they are situations that we can interpret without needing to understand the language in its entirety. Subtitles that come with TV shows and movies are also incredibly good for learning and help with contextual vocabulary.

I haven't tried this personally, but if there are any popular English movies (TV shows might be too hard to source) such as Harry Potter or the Hunger Games or something, it might be a nice idea to try finding some movies dubbed in German, that could really help with your learning and its definitely fun if you choose movies you enjoy watching! I might look into doing that actually, I'm a die hard Harry Potter fan!

My final idea, that  could be hard to implement depending on who you know, is to get what some people call a 'penpal'. I know it can be pretty hard to just randomly find one of these but I don't know your situation so I'll throw this out there anyway! The best way to practice your German is by getting exposure to it and practicing. What better way to do that than have a native or fairly competent buddy that you can talk to and get feedback from?
At my school, we have a German exchange program with Melba College, where students host several students from Germany for a month in July and then go over to Germany and stay with them in November. This forms a great bond between two students who can learn a lot about language, culture and each other. I won't be going but a classmate of mine will, so I will also take my opportunities to talk to her when I can, and definitely keep some contact details of her so we can just chat in German every now and then for some practice.
Another option that I personally have open to me, is that last year at my mother's office, she had a German girl who had come to stay in Australia for a year to improve her English. I had an opportunity to meet her and exchange contact details before she left in February and its great to have that, because she lives in Germany, has family my age, we can Skype and email.. the exposure is really great. I'm not saying just go out and find a random German person, but ask around, it might be possible that you know someone who you could start something with!

That situation was simply fortunate for me, but even if you don't have anyone like that, maybe search around the internet for some possible penpal programs to Germany, I know there are lots of people in Germany who look for opportunities to help their English so have a look around if it interests you :)

Anyway that's all I've got for now, but best of luck!  :D
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