Suggestions for language immersion in Germany

[dnkw]

Originally Posted by Threestep2

I do not understand what you mean by immersion. Old folks are not going to be sitting at the train station with a sign "immersion here". People are the same everywhere. Unless you are introduced somehow it is hit or miss.

You’re right, but at least if I’m successful in starting up conversations, they don’t detect my English accent and switch to English.

Last year I stayed in an Airb&b in Schleswig-Holstein. The host happened to be someone who had moved there from the former DDR. She apologized for not speaking English but I was thrilled. We spent hours chatting during my stay and it’s been my favorite memory of the trip.

I’ve been looking through Airb&b listings, targeting ones that are written in German, and which have some shared space so you actually get to meet the host. Maybe I’ll get lucky again.

[Ginsaw]

Originally Posted by dnkw

but at least if I’m successful in starting up conversations, they don’t detect my English accent and switch to English.

I am envious. I wish I was that far along in the German speaking. It sounds really like you have about got it already and would need probably just put a bit of polish on the skills.

If you can't find an appropriate course, maybe some self-help? I've worked on it by reading everything on the net I can in German and listening to all I can find. German radio and TV. Newspapers. I surf the German hotels, restaurants (specially enjoy the menus), resorts, travel videos, historic sites and especially YouTube music videos with a bit of sing along. Reading the comments helps. You get where you can spot their typos and recognize a non High German dialect. And always adding to a personal dictionary of sorts words I didn't already know. And if you want to quantify your skill level, DW has an interactive test you can take to get an "official" rating at whatever skill level. They even listen to your pronunciation and tell you what they think. They said mine was "good" for whatever that was worth. There's also a website for people to ask German grammar related questions (I can't recall its name just now). Found it by googling German verb declensions. And I listen to Bundestag speeches (by politicians I favor) to get used to hearing German spoken by educated, articulate people who do it correctly.

Sentence structure (where to put things) has been challenging and interesting. Getting that down was a real mile marker in the process. But personally, I find the hardest parts to be the correct endings. You know, depending on genders and cases. I find those easy to understand but terribly hard to remember on short notice. I sort of developed my own solution. I figure the correct ending will usually be whatever "sounds" or "flows" best and a lot of the time it actually turns out that way. Almost as if that was the original intention. Which would make sense.

Anyway, it helps sometimes telling myself, if tens of millions of Germans can do this, so can I. But, you're doing pretty well it seems.

Glück auf!

[dnkw]

Originally Posted by Ginsaw

But personally, I find the hardest parts to be the correct endings. You know, depending on genders and cases. I find those easy to understand but terribly hard to remember on short notice.

I feel your pain; I’m sure I get a healthy percentage of endings wrong. It’s such a difficult language to learn as an adult!