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Lesson Transcript

Hey, everybody! What’s up? I’m Henrik. Welcome to a brand new episode of GermanPod101.com with me, for you. Today, we’re gonna talk about What are Your Top 10 Language Learning Goals for the Year.
The year is still new, someone's already in, but still, enough time to reach all the goals that you have. So what could those be? We'll see in a second. Let’s go!
1. Ich werde die "Survival Phrases series" auf GermanPod101.com beenden, indem ich mir zwei Lektionen am Tag anhöre. "I'll finish Survival Phrases series on GermanPod101.com by listening to two lesson a day."
Survival with German language requires some survival lessons, I guess. Go through the survival lessons and take care, you follow all the steps I'm going through with you today, and then we make sure that you all be on track with all your goals in learning German.
2. Ich werde ein deutsches Buch zuende lesen, indem ich 10 Seiten am Tag lese. "I'll finish reading one German book by reading 10 pages a day."
I know we have some great German philosophers, like Gödel, maybe you should not start with this kind of stuff, it's a bit heavy, even German speakers struggle to understand all that stuff. Take something easy and then reading is fun, and I think reading German is a great way to master the German language, so go ahead and 10 pages a day, make sure.
3. Ich werde meinen Deutschtest bestehen. "I'll pass my German test."
You know, whatever test it is, like, there's all these A1, A2, B1, B2, or if it's test stuff... there's the Goethe Institute. All those are great, if you plan on studying in German, then you have to reach a specific level and passing a test, I think that's usually either the Goethe Institute or C1, and there's test stuff, DSH. So if you plan on studying in Germany, you should make sure that you pass some of those tests, so a bit higher than the B2 level. And now listening to this lesson here is the first way to get there.
4. Ich werde einen deutschen Film komplett verstehen, indem ich ihn jeden Tag gucke. "I'll fully understand one German movie by watching it every day."
I'm not so sure if that's the best way to do it, might get quite boring after the third, fourth, or fifth time. But I don't know, if you like binge watching all over the same movie, and then it might be a good idea to just switch over to German at one point. So if you already know all the phrases by heart in your mother tongue, that could be a way. I like Bad Boys, that's a good movie, won't watch it every day though. Okay, I think we'll find better ways to make you learn German without you having to watch the same movie every day all over again.
Okay, let's try, what’s the next one?
5. Ich werde vor meinen deutschen Freunden auf Deutsch eine 3 Minuten lange Vorstellungsrede halten. "I'll give a 3 minute introductory speech in German to my German friends."
Yeah, first thing to do here is find some German friends. If you live somewhere else, I don't know, but l know there are Germans everywhere, so just go out, shout out some of the stuff that you already learnt with me, and then whoever speaks German will be like, Oh, I understood that! So you can find some German friends this way, then give them your three-minute introductory speech and then they already know who you are, and so... yeah, maybe they are friends afterwards, maybe not, but at least you've mastered one of the steps to which your German goals for the year.
6. Ich werde 5 deutsche Lieder auswendig lernen. "I'll memorize 5 German songs."
That's hard, even I don't remember... memorize five German songs. I I know, maybe, 99 Luftballons, it's a good one, easy to remember, to start with that. I don't know... more English on there, the better songs. Unless you really like German music, then we've some cool rock bands yes, Die Roten Rosen, you should listen to that stuff, good stuff. Or the other same ten direction. If you managed to memorize five German songs, please leave a note and sing them, I wanna know.
7. Ich werde 350 Wörter durch Karteikarten auf GermanPod101.com zuende auswendig lernen. "I'll finish memorizing 350 words with Flashcards on GermanPod101.com."
That's a pretty long one, okay, so one more time really slow.
Ich werde 350 Wörter durch Karteikarten auf GermanPod101.com (right here!) zuende auswendig lernen.
Yeah, flashcards a very good way, make the fiddle flashcard, write down the words. After writing down 350 words, you probably already know most of them, so that’s the way to go. The horse agrees! I used to learn with flashcards also, but... flashcards definitely is a good way to go for.
8. Ich werde 10 Postkarten auf Deutsch an meine deutschen Freunde schreiben. "I'll write 10 postcards in German to my German friends."
Yeah, again, first, find some German friends that you can send the postcards to. If you haven't been successful in the mall shouting around and giving you a three-minute introductory speech, and you haven't found any German friends yet, just write ten German postcards to a grandma. Grandmas love postcards, just... I don't know, add some little pictures of yourself and they'll be totally fine. I don't know, grandmas are full of surprise, maybe they even speak German! But yeah, you see, it's worth finding some German friends so that you can give the 3-minute introductory speech, you can send ten German postcards... German friends are very useful. People say it's hard to find German friends, that's not true, we're everywhere, we’re nice people.
9. Ich werde lernen, wie man über vergangene, gegenwärtige und zukünftige Ereignisse spricht. "I'll learn how to talk about past, present and future events."
I think it's worth, also, to get a German grammar book, that way you can also do your 10 pages in German a day and study German past and present forms. Because my lessons are very good to learn some new vocab and to get a little bit of the feeling of language, and get some cultural insights, but I'm not really going into details too much with grammar. So my opinion to really study grammar and a book is the best way to go because you can really like sit down, think. It's also a bit, like, you can use your flashcards and write down the different forms of a verb in the past and in the future.
Future is there! Past is there! Present, right here!
Vergangenheit, Zukunft, Gegenwart. That’s the three ways to go, so… I don’t know... dreamers, memorizers, and here we are, Gegenwart.
10. Ich werde 150 Wörter meistern, indem ich 5 Wörter pro Tag auswendig lerne. "I'll master 150 words by memorizing 5 words a day."
That's a good goal, new words, learning new vocab. Five new word is good, like, it's not too much in the beginning; after couple of days, it gets more... like after seven, for example, after a week you would be with 35 words. So 35 words are good, you can make a lot of sentences, maybe not so much sense, but a lot of sentences with 35 words. But yeah, not kidding, I mean, having the goal of every day having five new words, that's pretty good. So you always kind of really broaden your horizon and, of course, from time to time, you'll forget some, but therefore you have your flashcards to repeat. And yes, also, it gives you a chance to really get a step, a little step forward day by day. So 5 words every day.
That's it for today. I hope you liked the lesson, I hope you get yourself a plan now, what you have to do to keep on track with your German for the end of the year. We are in April now here, you see the weather sometimes blue, sometimes gray. Getting closer to summer but still in the beginning of the year, you still got all the opportunities to learn German this year, so follow the steps I told you. And then I’ll see you next time. Bye-bye!

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