How to Learn German Easily And Cheaply
When faced with a problem there are generally two ways to deal with it (well three actually, if you combine both approaches). You can throw a lot of money at the problem and, while this is no guarantee that you will be successful, for most people it can save a lot of time. The alternative is to cut back on the budget and dedicate more time to the problem. This too will be successful in most cases but can lead to frustration as you search for the best method to solve the problem. This can be applied to learning any language, including German.
Both cases can be represented as follows.
A person buys a return ticket to Germany or Austria or another German speaking country and does an intensive course and lives in the country for a few months. This will cost a bit of money but you can expect to have a pretty good grasp of the German language at the end of the sojourn.
The other scenario is that you get a course - be it a traditional book type course with a few audio tracks thrown in or even a latest bells and whistles software course that has a voice recognition/analysis program and all sorts of other features that aid you in learning German. Whatever you decide to get it will no doubt be cheaper than doing a full blown immersion course in Germany. And although each course may work to varying degrees the chances are that if you stick with the course you will reach a decent level of conversational German.
It will probably take you a lot longer than the first scenario but this is really to be expected as you will no doubt be studying part time as opposed to full time if you were to immerse yourself in the language.
So how do you learn German quickly and cheaply ? How do you get the best of both worlds - save money and time ? That is the question on everyone's lips. And the simple answer is to live as if you were in Germany or some other German speaking country. In other words bring the immersion method to you.
You may live in the back of beyond and rarely see a person, let alone a German speaking person so how can you immerse yourself in German if this is the case.
This is where books, TV, radio, internet, and DVDs can come in handy. Immerse yourself in the language by listening to German music, watch German movies or TV programs. Leverage the power of the internet to learn German. Go to all the video sharing websites like youtube to find German language videos. You can find all sorts of stuff like interviews, music and documentaries. Some are even subtitled with English.
You could also try interacting with other people - German people or other people trying to learn German - through the internet. This would be a whole lot cheaper than going to Germany. A popular method, thanks to the internet and voice over internet protocol (VOIP) services is to have personal tuition by a professional, native speaking German teacher. This can be more expensive than buying a course but it could also be more effective. You could also find free podcasts or courses on many authority websites. Many libraries have full courses that you can borrow but they can be a bit frustrating as the lending period will run out before you finish the course.
Give yourself as much time listening, learning and speaking German as possible. Devote a whole day or a weekend to this task. weekends are best because you have less commitments and more free time.
