It's been a while. But although I haven't posted here, I can pass on that my knowledge of German seems to be growing apace. I have recently clocked a 100 day streak on Duolingo, and am currently working on translating a manual from a game I bought in when I was last in Germany.
So why am I not writing in German? Well I'm still at the point where my comprehension is far superior to my construction. I guess the only way to get better is to practice, but I'm nowhere near the point that I want to inflict my attempts on the public.
Anyway, both those paragraphs have nothing to do with the title of this post, onwards then... As part of my learning I've been scanning through Youtube a lot, both trying to find materials that are trying to teach German, but also in an attempt to simulate immersion. I have a nice collection now that I thought it would be helpful to share. If you can know of any others, please let me know via the comments.
1) Andrea Thionville
This is a really cute little channel that has some narrated slide shows and some songs that work as a brilliant stepping-stone into listening to German. I'm sure I'm about 20 years older than the target audience, but listen to 'Die Affen fressen Bananen' and you'll see why I'm hooked.
2) Easy Languages
This channel is not exclusive to German, and instead has a wide range of languages. The key playlist for German learners is the 'Learn German from the streets' one. In these videos, German natives are accosted on the streets to give small interviews about their hobbies, jobs and dreams. All the conversations are subtitled in both German and English, which make them nice and easy to follow.
3) Get Germanized
There isn't that much spoken German in these videos, with a large number being about German culture spoken in English by a native German. Despite this, there are some real gems in there for those focused on language learning, while the whole channel is great for those that just want to know more about Germany, without necessarily being fluent in the language. It is due to this channel that I know the words Kackvogel and Treppenwitz, both of which I plan to use at least semi-regularly regardless of the tongue I'm speaking in.
4) Learn German with Herr Antrim
To finish for today, have a look at Herr Antrim's slightly different approach to German learning using cuddly toys in a manner reminiscent of Adam and Joe (bonus points if you remember that TV show). I haven't watched too many of these yet, but what I've seen doesn't take itself too seriously while still getting across the key points. As a bonus, it seems to all be in the target language, which makes it a nice way of getting used to listening to German, even if you already know the rules being discussed.
So that's all for today. If you have any other ideas please let me know in the comments below. If I get round to doing a follow-up, I'll make sure it gets cross-linked with this so all the channels can be found.
Thanks for reading. Bis Bald!
