German Sesame Street (Sesamstrasse)
  • DawnH March 26
    Hi fellow learners! I thought you might be interested in German Sesame Street.
    http://www.sesamstrasse.de/home/index.html

    Click on the tab at the top that is pink and looks like a play button. Once you're in there, click different places to get a list of videos to watch. 

    I know it is normally for children, but I think it is helpful when learning a language as it's not too complex. For example, I watched a video about the library. Some words I'd learned already from the Living Language book, others I wrote down to look up and add to my vocabulary. Plus, you get practice listening to native speakers.
  • Christopher March 28
    That's a cool share! Thanks, Dawn!
  • wmunshower March 28

    I'm not ashamed to say that I watch Sesamestraße, especially since I have the grammatical prowess of a young child.  :-)

    Every little bit helps! 

    Tschüss!  Will

  • Christopher March 28
    There's nothing shameful about it! Learning a new language puts us, in a lot of ways, in the shoes (sneakers?) of a child. We can't express ourselves the way we're used to, we can only understand if we're spoken to slowly and clearly, and we say lots of cute things like "I goed to the store" or "I didn't saw him yesterday."

    I say go with it. I have a whole collection of children's books in other languages - Dutch, Icelandic, French, Arabic... I tell the person at the register that it's a gift for my niece or nephew, but I've never had any intention of giving them away, ha ha!

    Here's one of my favorites. You'll recognize it from the cover art!

  • DawnH March 28
    Thanks Will & Christopher.  I have one more thing to share.  I use this site a lot when I am studying. http://www.pons.eu/  It's a free online dictionary for many languages. I just select the German one. You can also save the words you look up to a list and play games with that list. Use the grey circle with a plus sign in it to save it to your list.

    I find it useful to look up the plural of a word to add to the custom flashcards I make online elsewhere. I read it was good to learn the plural at the same time you are learning the singular. 

    Will, you might really like this little book I have-- It's called "English Grammar for Students of German" published by The Olivia Hill Press. It has been a great supplementary learning tool to my Living Language book!!! You can peek inside on amazon. I don't know about you, but I didn't remember much more than what a noun and verb were from school in regards to grammar terms ... so that causes things like "dative case" to make my head hurt!

    p.s. I like your book Christopher! Where do you find all your foreign language books?
  • Christopher March 29
    I got that one in Reykjavik! Whenever I'm in a new country I make it a point to get to a bookstore. You can of course get books from just about anywhere online now, but I still like browsing in an actual bookstore. (And naturally I head to the language section to make sure they're carrying Living Language!)
  • wmunshower March 29

    Dawn,

    Yup...I've used PONS before.  They make an app for the iPhone and iPad.  I suppose there is also an Android version.  I know that there's not a Windows Phone app, because that is what I traded my iPhone 4 for. :-)

    I still use it on occasions on my iPad.  The flash cards are very useful.

    I'll have to look for "English Grammar for Students of German."  I have about 50 German college textbooks in e-Book format.  In college, I had very little patience for grammar, since I majored in Computer Science.  I only took the bare minimum of courses, and received good grades, just to keep my GPA high.

    In studying foreign languages (especially German,) I have found that you end up learning more about proper grammatical form in English.  An added bonus, I suppose.

    Another helpful situation is that my 10 year old son just started learning German.  I have found that teaching keeps you on your toes, and at times, you pick up on something that you may have missed.

    Besten Wünsche...Will

     

Add a Comment