I’ve been learning languages for some time now. In the past, I have had many not-so-successful attempts at learning French, Japanese and Mandarin. This time, I want to learn German.
I have always found it difficult to acquire a sufficiently large vocabulary to be functional in a language. For instance, I know most of the French grammar - at least in a passive sense - and I have read a handful of full-length French books in the original language. However, without a constant access to a dictionary, I’m useless in French. I’ve tried to power through numerous apps and Anki decks in an effort to boost my vocabulary, but I find it hard to make the words stick.
This is an especially important problem for German because many German words are too long and sound very foreign. But for some reason, I like German. With other languages, I wanted to learn them in order to do something - read books, or watch movies and series in the original. But with German, even though I do want to consume German content, the more I learn the language, the more I love it for its own sake.
When I was learning English, books like Word Power Made Easy by Norman Lewis immensely helped improve my vocabulary. Instead of dry lists, Lewis used etymology to make the words stick. Unfortunately, I haven’t found a similar book for German. This is a shame because I think German etymology is fascinating and would work great as a mnemonic device for learning vocabulary.
I want to do something similar for German. My intention is to have fun while learning new vocabulary, because that’s the only way I’ll stick with it. Once in a while I’ll write about interesting words I encounter on my language journey.
