How To Get Back To A Language - First Steps REVIVING MY GERMAN! | Polyglot Language Learning Tips

When your language skills get rusty it can be daunting to just take those first steps, or to even know what those first steps should be. Today, we first take a look at how my German skills are right now, make a few observations, and then you get to see me making a fresh, new version of my language activity tracking sheet as we construct an action plan for reviving my German skills and taking them all the way to advanced!
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How To Make My Language Activity Tracking Sheets
• How To Make A Language...

[@macLoscope]

I like the idea of the tracking sheet, I feel like this was the piece I was lacking in my organisation for learning languages. It is beautiful and makes you want to work with it!

[@M_SC]

you are quite an adorable nerd

[@RobinMacPhersonFilms]

D’aww thanks Esther 🤓❤️

[@theswedishpolyglot]

I also have an activity sheet (tracking new/review flashcards, hours of listening, words looked up while reading etc.) building up to a certain quantity. Also want to get back into my German in the future, but in the trenches with Japanese for the last year and a half :P

[@lapissound]

I love seeing the consistent growth your channel is experiencing and I'd be lying if I said it wasn't giving me a lot of inspiration for my own videos. If you ever want to collab on either a language practicing video or a more "in conversation" kind of topic, I'd be 100% game :) keep creating gold man

[@cailwi9]

Super video! wie Du sicherlich weisst, startest Du auf einem recht hohen Niveau, Deine Ausprache ist prima, und man kann Dich sehr gut verstehen. Hier sind einige Ausdruecke, die Du vielleicht gut brauchen kannst. - meine Trackingsheets anschauen... auf deutsch denke ich, dass 'Arbeitsliste' oder 'Schrittliste' moeglich waeren, aber es ist total ok, den englischen Begriff beizubehalten. - froh mein Deutsch verbessern zu koennen ok, this next one is difficult, because you have an indirect object ( helfen uns) and right next to it the reflexive pronoun (uns), and the latter is a mile away from the rest of the sentence, so in spite of choosing perfectly suitable words for what you wanted to say, the sentence ends up difficult to understand. This is a situation where, even as a native speaker, I would just stop my sentence and start over again, rephrasing things. So this could happen to anybody, not just a foreign speaker. Here is how your corrected sentence would turn out, using your words: - die Trackingsheets helfen uns uns an all das, was wir in der Vergangenheit gemacht haben, zurueck zu erinnern. Yikes! Obviously, that is difficult to understand and so I would probably separate this into two sentences, just to make it a bit easier for the listener. i.e. - In der Vergangenheit haben wir Trackingsheets benutzt, um festzuhalten, was wir gelesen oder durchgearbeitet haben. Jetzt nutzen wir diese Aufzeichnungen, um das Material zu wiederholen, und uns an das bereits Gelernte zurueck zu erinnern. Obviously, there could be many ways to break this down, this was just one example. Side note: I am totally unsure at the moment, whether zurueck zu erinnern is to be separated or written in one long word, so much for being a native speaker. After 25 years in the US, you start forgetting things in your native language too, like spelling or punctuation rules and things like that. Also, the Germans have tinkered around with their spelling so much, that in certain areas, I am just not sure anymore. Apparently, my German is getting rusty. Anyhow, here are two final phrases. Hope all this helps. All the best with your German studies! - wir werden viel Spass haben - Dinge sagen oder ausdruecken -

[@Skinup4431]

Du kannst sehr gut Deutsch. Besser als ich. Ich erinnere mich das du in Hamburg leben hatten. Ich wohne in Hamburg gerade. In Hamburg man braucht nur "moin" und "tschüss". Entschuldigung für mein schlechtes Deutsch aber viel Glück mit dein Lernen. Also if anyone has tips for improving writing before journaly is finished let me know. :) P.s. I finished my first activity sheet for Japanese as you suggested about a month back, great tip it has really put me on a good path.

[@sylviaze]

Die easy German KZbin folgen sind so cool. Ich schaue die immer wenn ich mich entspannen will und erschöpft bin vom spanisch lernen 😁

[@tayeedmacpherson8692]

Love your enthusiasm, good luck 😉

[@o_felipe_reis]

Hi there! Good points! Very well done! Professor X here. Stay safe!

[@AfroLinguo]

I remember the first book I read in German. It was really overwhelming. I didn't understand a lot of details, but I understood what happened as a whole. Good luck to you with the German book. Great Video.

[@whatalifeconkarla4592]

wow, I'm your fan now!!!

[@knw-seeker6836]

Dude it´s totally ok. As others said before the hardest thing is the grammar, even for people who are German struggle with it sometimes. Personally born and raised in Germany and having foreign roots, i´m glad that i grew up with German and didn´t have to learn it later on.

[@irenemcnamara9699]

Sagem-to say. Steven-to speak. So glad you are returning to German. I am returning to German too. I am weak on vocabulary too, but German is such an interesting language. Just think of your progress in 3-4 months. I am excited to hear about your novel. You are a treasure! LIKE!

[@RhianeHacker]

Dude when you pulled out the coffee table I was like 'Oh OK!' Such a cool table! Anyway, got distracted there. Really enjoyed the video, I'm finding this issue now getting back into my french as I got lazy with it. My question is actually that. How do you battle with the lazy side because we all end up having those moments where you definitely want to learn and get better but from some reason we get lazy with our process getting towards achieving those goals.

[@aprilp7744]

Haha, your German is about the same level as mine, but I knew the words you forgot. You are definitely very comfortable with German! You'll revive it in no time

[@RealtalkLanguages]

Hey Robin, thanks for this content. What do the codes Y and S mean under the Easy German video numbers?

[@icaitox]

Hey Robin, besides "Atomic Habits", which book would you say have helped you to manage your time? You are definitely a champion there.... Update: well, I am not talking just about that, more like the books that you consider you MUST read.

[@dreamingoffluency1519]

Hi Robin, great video! You made some great points about language atrophy that I share on my own language journey with Arabic (and Malay). Once you conquer speaking, it's not so hard to forget. However the the vocab is what goes, and then after that the more complex parts of the grammar. When I speak Arabic I also find myself forgetting to match gender and case, and I just focus on getting the words out there. I love how your study plans are structured in a way that your future self can come back look at it, make sense of it, and pretty much pick it up from the same spot you left off. Thanks! :D

[@AfroLinguo]

It happens to me with Mandarin as well. I had a class with my tutor on Sunday, and I haven't had a class for more than one month and I definitely forgot some vocabulary and complex grammar.

[@dreamingoffluency1519]

@@AfroLinguo Right? it takes us a lot longer to get to the point where we dont forget the more complex elements of the language. Good luck with your mandarin studies!

[@sylviaze]

Ich finde dein deutsch sehr charmant 🙂

[@jaglarmigsvenska9402]

Also, was soll ich sagen? I myself don't use "tracking sheets" or anything like that. It reminds me administrative stuff I don't like in general. I just take a book, watch a video, listen to the radio on the Internet... Do you really need any app, Robin, for which you have to pay? I think your level in German is good enough so that you can use the many good and useful resources on the Internet and even here on KZbin. Anyway, that's what I'm doing and I'm very happy with that. Mach's gut und weiterhin viel Erfolg mit deinem Deutsch!

[@gabrielbarbosa6984]

Amazing Rob! I'm a brazilian which is also trying to revive the german language. Ich stimme mit dir zu, es ist sehr schwer die Wörter mit der, die und das zu erinnern!

[@AfroLinguo]

Ich denke, wenn man regelmäßig Deutsch hört, dann weißt man instinctive, welche Artikeln richtig sind. Das Hören zu üben ist dann sehr wichtig.

[@biricikkiz7]

Ich glaube, das wird viel Spaß machen. Und ich weiß nicht, was ich noch sagen soll. Und ein Grund ist, dass wenn man eine Sprache vergisst, diese Tracking Sheets helfen, uns an alles zu erinnern, was wir in der Vergangenheit gemacht haben, ...;-)

[@paulwalther5237]

I've been officially studying Korean but I think it would be a lot of fun to reactivate my German since you're doing it on your channel. I haven't really done German since my 20's but I didn't truly *stop* until I was 34 and decided to learn Japanese. My brain had such a hard time accepting Japanese and kept leaning to German that I acted as though I had never studied German in my life and cut it out of my life completely to focus on Japanese. That was 9 years ago. I don't know if you've felt like your other foreign languages were getting in the way of learning new languages but I really felt like that. I am a bit afraid to revive German because I think it's so much more deeply rooted in my brain than Japanese or Korean and like a woken beast will literally devour them. But it's past time I did this.

[@minx9945]

I'm doing this, but with Japanese! :D

[@jmanhellhoundkiller]

German grammar is a pain: I’ve been learning it for 3 years and I think I’m a lower B2 and sometimes I need to stop mid sentence to make sure I’m putting tempering to put the conjugated verb at the end of the Weil clause😅

[@AfroLinguo]

It used to happen to me back in the day as well. I used to find German grammar really hard too, but after practicing a lot and doing a lot of writing, I got a hang of it. Just hang in there.

[@neesiecieslak7869]

I would like access to google drive please

[@sc1903937]

I'm in a similar situation with my German. I've abandoned it for over 3 years now, and now trying to get back to it. How do you study with the Easy German episodes? Do you just watch it and try to understand the general idea? Or do you take vocabularies and sentences from there to actively study them? (sorry if it's already mentioned in another video)

[@paulwalther5237]

I liked your pronunciation and the grammar seemed pretty ok (but I'm not a real German speaker and I'm sure your standards are higher). Your German is better than my Spanish was when I tried to speak to a Spanish speaker in Tokyo a few years back. I forgot the word for "I". I couldn't even begin my sentence.

[@awesomesepp3670]

Der Tisch ist cool. Wo bekommt man den?

[@signmeupruss]

Hi Robin, Do you have videos dealing with writing in one's target language?

[@RobinMacPhersonFilms]

I actually have a whole blog post that I wrote over at journaly.io all about why I feel SOOOO passionately about writing in one's target language!! Here is the link for that, and in the future I will be making lots of videos about this right after Journaly is launched! p.s. today's video will be an update on Journaly going into testing the phase! www.journaly.io/blog/post/introducing-journaly

[@signmeupruss]

@@RobinMacPhersonFilms Thank you so much. I really want to develop my writing skills in German, and while I do write a bit every day, I think some inspiration might help me take it up a notch. Have a great day from the US's Third Coast, Michigan.

[@aysecetinkaya6711]

Great video, I love how you used the tracker. Can you send me direct link. This is not opening

[@RobinMacPhersonFilms]

Hi Ayse!! I’m so glad you liked the video and my tracker 😄 I just gave you access to the google drive!

[@aysecetinkaya6711]

@@RobinMacPhersonFilms thanks again 🤗

[@jeremyanonymous6071]

Dein Deutsch ist ziemlich gut würde ich sagen, in meiner Meinung wirst du nach ein Paar Monaten ohne Probleme auf Deutsch sprechen. PS: Das ersten Mal wenn ich auf Deutsch schreibe.

[@IowaLanguages]

May I please access the Google drive?

[@RobinMacPhersonFilms]

Hi Tricia! Thanks for all of your wonderful lovely comments 😄 If you go to the link in the video description that will take you to the google drive where you can “request permission” and I can grant it to you! 😄 Let me know if you have any problems and I’ll make sure we get you set up!

[@RobinMacPhersonFilms]

You now have access @Tricia 🙂

[@IowaLanguages]

Robin MacPherson ❤️ Teşekkür ederim.

[@expresspanish5648]

nonsense.