Comments on:

By: Mark

Mark — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 20:57:38 +0000

I listen to Schlaflos as well and it brings back memories of when I was in college living with a German family in Marburg, who had a student from some other part of Germany staying with them – when I listed to Annik, it reminded me of him – he spoke “unheimlich schnell”, or so it seemed to me at the time. I think Annik speaks pretty fast actually, but she’s right that some young Germans will sound that fast – over time, I get better and better and getting the drift, even if not every word. In the end, consider yourself lucky – she could be speaking Schwäbisch! LOL

Mark

By: anka

anka — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 19:56:48 +0000

by which I mean, how it sounds

By: anka

anka — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 19:56:14 +0000

same here, even if schlaflos is just to get the hang of the language

By: Josh

Josh — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 11:47:11 +0000

Hey Annik! No need for you to say sorry. Like I said, it’s your podcast, and you should be “allowed” to speak at your normal pace. I just wanted to point out that you seemed to talk a little faster than most – which I ended up being wrong about anyway!

Thanks also for the info; at least I now know that I need to be able to understand you to understand the majority of Germans.

And, lastly, I plan on continuing listening to both Slow German and Schlaflos.

By: Annik Rubens

Annik Rubens — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 11:43:06 +0000

Hey there! I’m just writing to shout out a loud and slow “SORRY” for frustrating you guys out there! My podcast is mainly for Germans and thus I don’t try to slow down. My talking speed is quite normal for Germans, or let’s say for young Germans. But don’t worry: As soon as anybody notices that you are not a native speaker, they’ll slow down! Hope you keep on listening to “Slow German” (slowgerman.com, though…

By: Josh

Josh — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 14:56:30 +0000

Jessica: Yeah, I’m going to keep plugging away at Schlaflos in Münche, perhaps with pen and paper in hand to jot down words that I simply don’t know.

The Spanish teacher sounds like fun, but I must say – I would have hated having to sing along with music, and I would’ve downright refused to dance. I’m too shy for that!

The getting to hear songs from all of those countries sounds pretty cool.

By: Jessica Sztaimberg

Jessica Sztaimberg — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 14:12:37 +0000

Hi Josh!

Thanks for the welcome!

Yah, it didn’t help me at first that my cousin actually grew up in Malaga, so his accent took a little time to understand!

I think it just takes a lot of listening over and over again, and after awhile it sounds normal…

I do miss that teacher back in Spain… he made us really concentrate in class (even though he was very hyper) his classes were SO much fun, and he taught us a great deal of Spanish in a short period of time! Since I was there around Christmas, he even showed us a holiday song and dance that we had to perform in class. We got to sing along with the music on a cd, and then we were asked to each sing a song from our own country (only if we wanted). It was great because the students in my class were from: Germany, Japan, Brazil, Turkey, France, and America, so we got to hear a lot of songs in different languages.
Happy language learning!

By: Josh

Josh — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 02:46:35 +0000

Hi Jessica! Funny story about your cousin. Regarding your Spanish teacher, as well as your question: I’ve not been listening to SiM regularly for very long. I’ve listened to it a fair bit, but it’s been rather here and there in nature. So maybe I do just need to get used to how she speaks. By the way, welcome to LG.

Rmss: Thanks for the input. Your experiences point me to what others have said: keep listening!

Lucas Luky: Hi! Yeah, the dictionary from Chemnitz is pretty nice. I found the layout to be a bit weird at first, but once I got used to it, I like it fairly well. Thanks for the comment!

By: lucas luky

lucas luky — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 19:28:21 +0000

i’ve seen your post about online dictionaries and today I’ve found BEOLINGUS

http://dict.tu-chemnitz.de

it seems to be good and some words has audio example done by natives.

i’ve used to use LEO Dictionary… if you’ve discovered a better one, please let me know!

thanks

By: Rmss

Rmss — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 00:20:06 +0000

I don’t think she speaks too fast, I often hear people on the radio speaking faster. I have no problems at all understanding her, but that’s maybe because I grew up in the Netherlands where German is still quite common and the language is quite close to Dutch.

But maybe, when she makes her sentences too long, it does seem to be a bit unclear what she says.