SmarterGerman

Don’t learn German - Fall in love with it

I started teaching because I was young and needed the money. My professional education as a civil servant promised fame and riches, yet I already felt there must be more to life than money and attention so I started using a skill that was almost born with: the ability to speak German. That mental single-cell organism grew and grew and from need a virtue arose. Yet, it wasn’t the language alone that fascinated me, it was the other one’s struggles and joy that drew me in so deeply that I dedicated already nearly two decades to the question of how to make language learning a rewarding and deeply satisfying experience.

Get rid of all the ballast. At first I stripped everything away that was redundant especially in the beginning. The load on my students’ shoulders lightened. Then I created a highly efficient learning structure for the remaining information and finally added quality control the learner could perform herself.

Increased speed is a collateral benefit. While this approach put to its max led to ridiculously speedy results (We reached B1 in 14 days twice), I realized that speed is rather a collateral benefit when working smarter. A language is pretty much like a five course menu which you want to enjoy bit by bit and feel the sensations fill your whole body. Nobody boasts himself with the achievement to have eaten all five courses in less than 5 minutes. Well, if one feels like that, no objection here, but I wouldn’t subscribe to such an approach anymore.

No force needed. Like with excellent food, my approach is filled with love, experience and a secret ingredient, that makes all the difference. No one sane has to be forced to eat delicious food but with German so many learners still struggle with their motivation. How can that be? isn’t is a gift to be able to learn a new language? An exiting journey to the depth of one’s experience and self-awareness that one can come out of only greater and more experienced than one was before.

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