Herzlich Willkommen zurück!

This is Part 3 in the series on how to set ONE realistic goal for 2018. You can find Part 1 here and Part 2 here.

If you haven't read parts one and two yet, I highly recommend you do. In fact, let's just be German about it and say "Das müssen Sie zuerst machen!"

This post is dedicated to all the perfectionists out there, all the recovering perfectionists, and those of us who get hung up on one small thing. A lot of people who are perfectionists are interested in learning German and discover that the tendency towards perfectionism goes well with learning German. German can be exacting. German can be incredibly precise and a lot of German is very rigid.

If you're a perfectionist and you're pounding your head against the wall when it comes to German, or perhaps you don't understand perfectionism and have a hard time dealing with how "perfect" German has to be, this post is for you.

Los geht's!

Herzlich Willkommen zurück!

Welcome to Part 2 of 3 in "How to Royally Screw Up Your German Learning in 2018!"

If you missed yesterday's post, here's the link. And be sure to Subscribe to Das Blog on the right so you automatically receive tomorrow's blog post with the free, bonus worksheet!

*

Part 2 of 3

Screw it all up Plan #2:

LEARN 5,000 NEW VOCABULARY WORDS

[*Nicole chuckles.*]

[*Nicole chuckles some more.*]

You have a great sense of humor. (-:

OK, 5,000 new words divided by 365 days/year is 13.69 NEW words per day. That’s a new word learned every 1.14 hours—round the clock.

Viel Glück.

And How to Use One Realistic Goal

(Really, Just One)

Part 1 of 3

Frohes neues Jahr zusammen!

I hope you’re all ready for a new year of German learning, because it is going to be a blast here in 2018! Keep in mind that my 5 year anniversary is coming up in July, so keep an eye out for some fun times ahead (and a give-away!).

Today's post is Part 1 of 3 and there's even a bonus worksheet on day 3! They'll be going out today and the next two days, so be sure to check your email for these bite-size posts. (And Subscribe to Das Blog on the right to get the emails if you don't yet!)

What I won’t be doing now in the new year is writing a post like:

“How to make 2018 your best German learning year yet!”

(*Nicole gags.*)

“How to go from Beginner to Advanced Speaker in 1 year.”

(*Nicole chuckles.*)

Because that would be dumm wie Brot. Nobody needs clichéd maxims about learning a foreign language—that’s why you’re here and not on some other German learning website. Those kinds of posts are totally unrealistic! Let's be realistisch and by that I mean let's be German about what we're doing here.

Consider this true story:

A guy who was an absolute beginner once asked if he could get to level B1 in a year, with a 1-hour lesson and 4-5 hours of study time each week. He was married, with a kid, working a full-time job, and he and his wife owned their own house.

Das geht einfach nicht. So I was honest with him and told him it was unlikely he would learn that much German in a year. To go from an absolute beginner to an intermediate-level speaker, an independent user? Highly unlikely.

Yeah, yeah, I know what you’re thinking, “Nicole, you became fluent in German in 6 months! That must be possible!”

Under the right circumstances, and a freakish knack for languages, SURE! I wasn’t working very much, I had access to German media 24 hours a day, and ample opportunities to shoot the breeze with the Bäckerverkäuferin at my local baker. Plus I definitely have a predisposition for languages. Not everybody has this, and boy do some people have a greater predisposition than I do--some people speak 13 languages?! Geesh!

Are those your circumstances? Ich denke eher nicht.

So stop comparing yourself to other people and set yourself some realistic goals. Figure out what a realistic goal for you is.

These are 3 ways to totally screw up your German learning in 2018, each followed by two suggestions, one a realistic goal for the year and the other a stretch goal that you could reach with the right planning and dedicated execution.

Assertiveness, old German ladies, and "gut."

Do you hail from the middle of the country? Nothing kicks the Midwest out of you like German, as Laura F. wrote in response to last week's post:

Growing up in the Midwest, one of the principles I absorbed was that it is terrible to hurt other people's feelings. In my early adulthood, I was really too agreeable for my own good. In Germany, living in their culture and using their language, I learned to be more assertive. It was in German that I first told people things like, "No, I'm not going to give you money," or "Leave me alone."

These are incredibly valuable lessons, especially for women who were not taught to make a fuss when they need to make a fuss. It's like those boundaries are simply clearer and they come through the German culture.

I once witnessed a woman put a very rude man in his place and she did it just like a German--calmly, rationally, specifically, and completely. He was so rude he even said "du" to her, even though they were strangers to one another, and she looked him straight in the eye and said:

"Mich dürfen Sie siezen." (You must say "Sie" to me.)

It was epic. You can learn a lot from watching this kind of interaction!

This applies to many situations, like people smoking in train stations where they aren't allowed to smoke. A passenger will actually say "Hey, you're not allowed to smoke here." And usually the smoker will move. In the US, you'd probably get the finger, a swear word, or worse. Can you imagine that smoker actually moving? To the designated smoking area? It's incredible.

Directness can change your dealing with a lot of other people. Laura's discovery of being direct was obviously helpful for her in everyday situations, but, it turns out, it helped her at work, too.

For some people, German truly changes their lives. I know it did for me--I had never actually learned to speak a foreign language before and it opened up a whole new world of experiences, literature, travel, media, music, and more. Learning to put that verb alllll the way at the end of the sentence helped me think in larger, more encompassing thoughts, which changed how I planned what I wanted to say.

A lot of my clients have had life-altering changes by learning German and I want to share a few of them with you. I also want to hear how German has changed your life (or how you want to or will change your life by learning German!), so be sure to submit your story below!

So, los geht's! Here's Part 1 in the series. (Find them all under the tag "German Changed My Life.")

Understand your German partner/spouse/friend so much better.

1. Have fewer fights with your German spouse.

Long-term relationships are hard. A Long-term relationship with someone who has a very different understanding of the world can be even more challenging, especially if you are married to one and you are not familiar with cornerstones of German culture, one of them being routines.

Routines can be very helpful for structuring your week, helping you ensure you get things done, and giving you a sense of normalcy, no matter what is going on in your week. But what if you don’t have many routines? And your spouse keeps saying, “No, I don’t want to go do XYZ on Saturday, I want to stay home for breakfast and then I want to run errands.”

How would you react?

One of my clients did not understand why her (German) husband wanted to do the same thing every Saturday. She asked me, “What is his deal?! He eats the same thing for breakfast every Saturday, then he reads the paper, and then he runs the same errands every week. Is this just him or is this a German thing?”

If you are looking for a job in Germany (or Switzerland or Austria), this interview is for you. I sat down with Gerd Meissner, expert on job seekers looking to land a job in Germany to get the scoop on what you can do to better your chances for employment abroad.

About Gerd and the Germany-USA Career Center:

The Germany-USA Career Center is the leading specialized resource for career coaching ("Germany-USA Career Adviser"), resume writing, recruiting and search services for job seekers and companies in business between the U.S. and Germany. It was founded in 1997 - initially as an invitation-only mailing list for managers and executives in this niche - by technology business journalist Gerd Meissner, co-founder of Spiegel Online and author of SAP - Inside the Secret Software Power, published by McGraw-Hill.

1. What are the three most important aspects of a job search for someone who wants work in Germany/Austria/Switzerland?

First, you need a plan with a timeline. Second, get your resume and cover letter ready and start building or improving your German language skills. Third, if you're currently employed, treat your search like a full part-time second job. If you're currently between jobs, make this your full-time job. Seriously.