Learning German is daunting, says Smith, who almost gave up. He concludes that there’s No Free Lunch despite the advent of loads of free language learning Apps – the best teacher will probably be yourself,especially if you know how best you learn. There are some great thoughts here on teaching and learning styles/ and learner autonomy too.
Quite by accident, I started to learn German while with many Germans on an eclipse trip in 2010 to Patagonia, Argentina. They were nice, and two women became–and still are–good friends. I promised them if they came over for the 2012 annular eclipse in Arizona, I’d learn a little German. They didn’t come, but I started learning German–at 61.
I started with Rosetta Stone (RS). I saw the ads, I talked to a person in Sea-Tac, where I tried a few words, and I thought this would help. I was so motivated, that after I finished Part 1, I decided to repeat it. In 3 months, I went through all 5 parts. That is motivation. RS has good voice recognition software, and that is its strong point. One will be able to say words reasonably well enough they might be understandable. For a short trip to Hungary, RS would be…
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