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Show HN: Learn German with Short Stories

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Re: Show HN: Learn German with Short Stories

#91

I recently started using LingQ for this. It's effortful rather than easy, which makes it a bit harder to develop into a habit, but the technique seems very effective, and the platform works well both when importing content and when studying it. Maybe you're targeting people who are more casual learners, and aren't willing to do stuff that feels hard?

Wasn't aware of LingQ, thanks for sharing it. Perhaps you are right about the targeting. Casual learners... but also busy people that would benefit from the format. We'll see.

Re: Show HN: Learn German with Short Stories

#92
post #84

I like the google translate powered click-to-translate, truly the best kind of low-effort functionality. You can get even more bang for buck if you add a dropdown at the top to select the target language - you will now support learners from every country in the world in 3h of work tops =)

Yea hopefully I can add a few more languages soon!

Re: Show HN: Learn German with Short Stories

#93

I think this is a really cool idea and would be something I would use. Is there some way to translate short phrases like "drehte sich um" all together rather than word by word?

+1 One could display a small context menu with a "Translate" button whenever the user selects text. (Similarly to the "Share this on Twitter/Facebook/… menu on Medium".)

yea that would work :)

Re: Show HN: Learn German with Short Stories

#94

I learned to read German by working through "German for Reading" by Karl Sandberg. It's a great book. Work through it a couple times until the grammar is second nature, use the Anki deck "4000 German words by frequency" to increase your vocabulary, and start reading children's books (Emil und die Detektive, Max und Moritz, u.s.w) then move onto slightly harder books like Kafka's Die Verwandlung and Zweig's Schachnove…

Thanks for sharing those resources! I'll have a look

Re: Show HN: Learn German with Short Stories

#96
post #91

I recently started using LingQ for this. It's effortful rather than easy, which makes it a bit harder to develop into a habit, but the technique seems very effective, and the platform works well both when importing content and when studying it. Maybe you're targeting people who are more casual learners, and aren't willing to do stuff that feels hard?

Wasn't aware of LingQ, thanks for sharing it. Perhaps you are right about the targeting. Casual learners... but also busy people that would benefit from the format. We'll see.

"but also busy people that would benefit from the format"

IMO busy people need tools that give the most learning per time spent, not tools that feel easy at the expense of pace of learning.

These tools tend to require effort (e.g. LingQ, Readlang, Language Transfer) rather than ones that feel easy (e.g. Duolingo).

Re: Show HN: Learn German with Short Stories

#97
post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My sarcasm detector is failing me. Mid 19th century Germany (around the time the Struwwelpeter was written, that would have been the Deutscher Bund, when nationalism was seen as progressive) is culturally, sociologically more different from late 20th century Germany then late 20th century Germany from late 20th century USA methinks.

German parenting is very different from American parenting. Struwwelpeter is an extreme, but it does capture the essence of the tough love approach, emphasis on following rules (or suffer the consequences) etc Certain elements of German culture did not just develop in the last 150-200 years :)

Extreme? I read it when I was 6 or 7, and was amused by it. I have a number of books that are inappropriate for children, but Struwwelpeter isn't one of them.

Re: Show HN: Learn German with Short Stories

#98
post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

can you recommend any German shows? thanks!!

Dark was terrific. Time travels and parallel worlds. Deutschland '83 (in particular) but also '86 and '89 were quite decent - about a young German becoming a Stasi superagent of sorts. Oh, and while you're at it, get Das Boot if you haven't already, also available as a TV miniseries. As for movies, you could do a lot worse than picking up a few Wim Wenders movies - say, Der Himmel über Berlin or Alice in den Städten.…

Nice ones! I also enjoyed some of those. Would also add to the list: biohackers, We Children from Bahnhof Zoo, barbaren, and maybe dogs of berlin.

Re: Show HN: Learn German with Short Stories

#99

I have found ChatGPT a great tool for that sort of task (I study French). A typical book meant for students trying to improve their reading skills usually starts from a certain level which is fairly high for me currently. By using an LLM you can tailor-make a story i.e. define your level (“Give me a short story in French, for someone with very limited vocabulary” or “for a seven-year old”) and then adjust accordingly…

Great ideas! Will see how it works :) I particularly like the idea about "only using X tense"
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