This technical approach is how I tried and failed to learn German. In the end what worked was exposure/absorption and getting a feel for what sounds right - the same way I learnt my native language.
I agree that you it would be very hard to know a language approaching it from a completely technical standpoint...
In sharing this link I'm not advocating a total technical approach!
As for exposure/absorption you are completely right, I have attempted to create a mini Germany head space.
What I'm doing and recommend to whoever interested:
- I switched my Phone's language to Deutsch. When searching the web I end up with results in German that I try to comprehend if I have time: looking up the word on the translator (and less often on an online german dictionary - which i should be doing more)
-I started listening to songs in German (I came to like the first albums by Tocotronic)
-I have joined a discord server titled "German Learning And Discussion" (should anyone want to search for it) , if I have time at night I join a call with a couple of natives and learners.
-I check Duolingo's stories and exercises now and then, although not my favourite methodology.
When I played this for the first time, it took me a while to figure out why their lips weren't agreeing with what they were saying. By default Netflix played the English dub for me instead of German audio with English subtitles.
The subject matter of Dark is good enough that I would watch it anyway, but if it's originally in German? Huge bonus. I have been watching it on German audio with "description" in German (so there's a narrator talking about things people are doing, describing their facial expressions, etc) and English subtitles. I wish there were more content like this available in the States.
The memes and comments there actually helped me a lot with learning expressions, idioms, and “shorthand” that modern German speakers use. Little everyday nuances I would have missed from just reading books.
Hmm, actually a lot of the memes there are parodies of the English ones you find on Reddit. Just saying that a lot of them are almost nonsensical to someone not familiar with Reddit's English language meme culture.
That's probably a bad idea, r/de delights in literal translations of English expressions and memes. Many comments are completely incomprehensible to outsiders. It's a parody on the English-speaking parts of reddit and not a good place to learn German. Not unless you can distinguish when they're butchering the language for fun from when it's actual colloquial German.
