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About Me
- Laura
- I learnt German at school and hated it - no one wanted to explain the structures to me. Back then I thought that there couldn't be any structures in German, otherwise people would explain how they work to me to save me a lot of time and effort. So I gave up German. Fortunately, I ended up doing my gap year in Germany, learning German in classes for foreigners, and then studying German at university. And finally, people wanted to teach me grammar. I was lucky, I get grammar, it stuck in my head, and I graduated with a first class degree with distinction in the spoken and written language. Since then, I've worked as a translation checker and a financial analyst with a focus on German-speaking regions, and I'm now a financial translator. I also had a brief go at teacher training, but quit, partly because 30 11-year-olds in a room really give me stage fright, but partly because teaching theory dictated that teachers focus on speaking and avoid teaching the interesting bit: the grammar. So now, I'm making German GrammarPod, to try and pass on the love and understanding of grammar, but without the bit where I need to stand up in front of 30 11-year-olds to deliver it.
11 comments:
Hello,
I recently compiled a list of the Top 50 podcasts for learning a foreign language, and I just
wanted to let you know that you made the list! It is published online at
http://www.onlinedegrees.org/top-50-podcasts-for-learning-a-foreign-language/.
Thanks so much, and if you think your audience would find useful
information in the list or on the site, please feel free to share the
link. The blog is just starting up, so we always appreciate a link
back as we're trying to increase readership.
Thanks again, and have a great day!
Maria
p.s. I've also included a small .jpg if you'd like to use it to note the award. Thanks again!
Hello,
Thanks for sharing this link - but unfortunately it seems to be not working? Does anybody here at germangrammarpod.blogspot.com have a mirror or another source?
Thanks,
William
Hi William,
If you mean my link to the podcast, it's working for me, so I'm not sure what I can do to help. My computer opened up Quicktime when I opened it, so I think you do need to have some sort of media player installed. You can also access the podcast by clicking the orange button on the top left labelled "Subscribe to my Feed" and subscribing via iTunes or some other feed aggregator.
Laura,
I don't know if it is possible but rules or guidelines on plurals of German nouns would be really good.
I've just been listening to your podcast on Adjectival Endings.
May I make some observations?
Firstly, your delivery and presentation style is truly excellent. You should consider taking this kind of presentation up professionally!
Secondly, the scripting and structure is of a really high standard too. The personal observations and anecdotes make the material both interesting and memorable.
On the debit side, the podcast is too long, I think.
Your podcasts run well over the length of the average BBC Radio 4 documentary (which has the advantage of having a panoply of voices and aural textures to sustain interest).
If I may suggest, perhaps you might consider breaking these podcasts down into shorter units (containing step-by-step revision of preceding units and, naturally, those useful examples which you include)?
Shorter podcasts have the advantage of aiding navigation. As you know, repetition in language learning is important - and shorter units would facilitate repetition of the examples.
Your delivery/presentation style is as good as anything on Radio 4. You are WELL ahead of most of your peers in the language learning blog/podcast field. Please consider my
suggestion about length. It might be useful to reflect on BBC Radio 4 models in this respect.
Best wishes!
Hi Laura,
I've been following your insightful and extremely helpful blog for a couple of years now and I just wanted to let you know that you've made my German learning just that much easier.
I really like the way you explain things and compare the grammar with English, as well as giving good examples.
I dip in and out of my German language learning studies, depending on how time poor I am, but along with other websites (namely DeutschWelle.de) your clear and concise blogs on the different grammar of German is always the first place I go back to for revision or fine tuning.
Unlike the previous post, I find the length of your blogs just perfect!
My particular point of interest for a future focus is how to use the words "doch, mal, schon, eben....I can't remember the proper name for them, but they soften or change the overall sentence nuance. They're hard to get right!
I look forward to more and once again, excellent work and many thanks Laura.
Catherine.
Laura,
Just thought I'd point out that you've been accepting some spam comments at face value. The "this link isn't working, is there a mirror" and "do you have twitter or facebook" comments are generated by computers, not people. I'm not sure what they are actually trying to do when they don't give you anything with a link in it. Maybe testing an algorithm or looking for targets. Maybe trying to make it look like a previous spam comment is part of a legitimate conversation...
When you get comments that aren't actually and specifically useful or relevant to the post, you should think twice about posting them - especially if they seem to have irrelevant links in them (which may be in the code around something like a full-stop). They're usually using your blog to "Google scam" - by having links in a number of blogs they help webpages appear higher in the list on Google searches.
Dear Laura,
Thank you for your great podcasts!
I'm a German (and French, and History) teacher in Lancashire and for our most linguistically ambitious pupils, these are just the ticket.
Since our access to downloading MP3s in school is restricted, I've been trying to download them from home. The vast majority have worked fine, but three podcasts are refusing to work with either iTunes or the direct links from your blog. These are Ralative Pronouns 2 & 3, and The Conditional 2.
Are you able to check these and perhaps to re-post?
With thanks,
Damien Morley,
Stonyhurst College
Hi Damien,
I've now re-done the links to those podcasts, so they should now work again - definitely through this blog and probably through iTunes as well (although it may take iTunes a while to catch up with the new links).
I'm really pleased a teacher is recommending German GrammarPod. Part of the reason I make the podcasts is because I wish I'd had something like this when I was at school.
Hi Laura
your podcast is an absolute gem. It's such a shame that I didn't have this resource when I was learning German at high school. In my 3rd year of high school my teacher (hello Ms Stein) ditched the grammar book and said "forget kids this is too hard even for me". Needless to say I never really excelled because without the grammar I just applied English grammar rules and that only gets you so far.
When I was 30 I decided to have another crack at learning German and have been listening to your podcast for 3 years now and find it a valuable resource.
Thanks
Melissa
Adjectives in German need an ending on them when they appear in front of a noun. Which ending they take depends on which gender the noun is, which case it's in in your sentence and which determiner, if any, you've used in the noun phrase. This podcast tells you how to work out which ending you should be using (and what to do if working it out is too hard for you).
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