Liebe Leute!

This is the text of a free eBook, the first of four, all designed to help you with your German!

Over the past several months I've been writing out techniques that have helped clients and myself learn (more) German and it's turned into four eBooks, one about each of the four language skills:

1. speaking
2. listening
3. writing
4. reading

These are the four skills that every quality book or German learning material will exercise, and the four skills you need to be able to communicate in German. This is what needs to be exercised in every lesson, every class, and should be the focus of your German practice each week.

I hope you find them helpful, motivating, and encouraging! Es hat viel Spaß gemacht, sie zu schreiben! If you're on the newsletter list already, you received all four these in an email yesterday (Nov. 14).

The ENTIRE text of "5 Top Tips to Help You Speak German More Easily" is here and if you'd like to get the PDF version, plus the other 3 free eBooks, there is a sign-up at the bottom. And there may be a bonus tip for you somewhere in those eBooks, too!

So, meine geehrte Damen und Herren, without further ado:

5 Top Tips to Help You Speak German More Easily

Erfolg hat drei Buchstaben: t u n ![1]

~Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

[1] lit. Success has three letters: do!

To be successful at speaking German, you need to speak, and trying to speak without any form or specific goal makes it more difficult. It’s important to give yourself a specific task or framework for speaking, otherwise you might flounder.

After all, can you imagine trying to cook a new meal without knowing what the ingredients are? Surely not!

Would you ever set out on a road trip without looking at a map first? Probably not. (Although that could result in some fun adventures!)

These tips serve as a road map for you. How to get from A – where you are now to B – speaking German more easily. Try each of them out and see how they work for you. And see what you discover along the way!

Tip #1: Read everything in your book aloud.

When you’re learning German with a textbook specifically for learning German as a Foreign Language, you’ll be learning in a step-by-step manner with a core set of vocabulary so you are continually adding to your knowledge in a process that makes sense. Each section or chapter is like a portion of German.

Suchen Sie einen neuen Job?

Brauchen Sie neue Kunden?

Wollen Sie jemandem helfen, eine ganz neue Karriere anzufangen?

Dann brauchen Sie Vitamin "B".

"B" für Beziehung

Everybody knows you need vitamins, preferrably from fruits and vegetables, or from vitamin tablets. There are real B vitamins in Germany, like Vitamin B12, however they also have this special vitamin known as "Beziehung"...relationship.

This gets at the heart of all networking and elbow-rubbing and shmoozing that goes on all over the world every day--in every culture. In English we call it everything from hobnobbing or mingling to straight-up networking.

Take your vitamins

Use your network wisely to acquire a new job, to find new German resources, to help someone else find a new job, to create new business contacts--everything you can imagine!

On the internet there are a lot of introductory level lessons and free tips for going to Germany and these tips go beyond that. These are solid tips for the business mindset when doing business with Germans. Los geht's!

1. Forget "how are you". Really.

Germans only ask this question if they a) really want to know how you're doing or b) are speaking English and they know this is a part of a typical greeting. So when you're speaking German in a business setting, skip it.

Concentrate instead on greeting everyone genuinely. Be sure to make eye contact with everyone, shake hands, and be your usual, awesome self.

2. Provide or accept beverages...with this one sneaky tip.

If you're hosting the meeting, have cold and hot beverages readily available. If you're going the caffeinated route, offer strong coffee and be sure to have half & half/milk, and sugar available.

If you're attending the meeting and are being hosted, graciously accept any beverage that your host offers--and make it the same as your host's beverage. This is so sneaky, however it is a typical business signal that you're happy to be on the same page with them.

I have a confession to make:  my first German teacher was so bad, I blocked him from my memory.

For years now I've been working on this website, cultivating each page and making everything as genuine and transparent as possible. And then it hit me:  I have indeed had another German teacher (a professor, actually), from whom I learned exactly 3 words of German in 2 semesters at college:

ein Glas Limonade

Yep, das war alles.

So it's no wonder I'd blocked it all out. It was just that bad.

I wanted to demonstrate to you, dear reader, what fantastic skills I learned from my teachers, from the teacher at Eloquia and at the Goethe-Institut, and how those skills carried me for years after! Each lesson was beneficial, the learning and memorizational techniques demanding and helpful, helping me store everything in my long-term memory as soon as possible. These teachers were absolute pros!

This particular professor was the exact opposite.

Meet Herr S.

Herr S. was in his 50s when I joined his class. People said he wasn't an awesome teacher, but that you did learn in his class. I hadn't had a foreign language class for a couple of years and since I'd made some German friends, I was really interested in learning German. The possibilities of European travel and bilingualism began to blossom in my mind and I was thrilled.

When you are a teacher, it's very important to set up a series of expectations for your students:  what the rules of the classroom are, what happens if students don't follow the rules, how to achieve a high grade, how to earn yourself a low grade, how to get help when you need it. Setting expectations is important to people have a good idea of what's appropriate, which translates, to me (pardon the pun), to the culture of the classroom.

Here's an example of a negative classroom culture

In fourth grade we had a wonderful teacher who left on maternity leave, so we had a long-term sub whom I'll call Mrs. Ratchet. Mrs. Ratchet was a substitute teacher who subbed often and we all knew she wasn't always fair.

One morning I walked into the classroom and my name was on the board. (This was a bad thing, a punishment for misbehavior.) My name hadn't been on the board when I left the day before, so I was shocked. I asked Mrs. Ratchet why my name was on the board. "You know what you did!" she tossed at me as she turned away. I had no idea and neither did my friends.

To this day I remember her being so unfair, her treating me so disrespectfully, and whenever I think of it, I remember the yucky feeling I had that day. And how I wanted our regular teacher back from maternity leave because she had clear expectations. Mrs. Ratchet had changed the rules in the middle of the game!

This is an example of the kind of teacher-student hierarchy that Mrs. Ratchet practiced:

In German there are a few words that express something so specific, so perfect, that we really need them in English. Like Gemütlichkeit! We don't have a word or a specific concept just like that to describe feeling "comfortable, happy, and content" in English, and we also don't have the slang use of Schmerzensgeld that the Germans have--and sometimes we really need it.

The dictionary definition of Schmerzensgeld is "money for pain and suffering." As in the legal term, if you are wrongfully injured and receive a settlement, you may receive money not only to pay your medical bills, but also for your pain & suffering. This is an official, legal term, that you will find in newspapers and in legal paperwork.

The slang definition, however, is perfect to describe situations when you: