To improve your listening skills, you need to get a lot more of what’s called “extensive” German listening practice. That’s listening to follow the main message or story. 

But it’s also hugely beneficial to do “intensive” German listening practice.

That’s when you focus on understanding a short burst of spoken German, word for word.

But how?

In this post let’s look at how you can use dictation to practise understanding spoken German better. I’ll show all the steps in my laser listening technique and you’ll see how and why it’s so effective. 

The secret weapon of intensive German listening practice

In an intensive “laser listening” session, you don’t just listen intently to a recording of German. You also write down what you hear. 

Back in the age of chalk dust, a teacher would sit at the front of the class and read out a text as the pupils dutifully wrote down. The “listen and transcribe method” – laser listening – is simply an updated version of “dictation”, adapted for self-study.

It’s a surprisingly beneficial old school technique.

Dictation isn’t just good for listening. Used as part of a focussed study routine, laser listening is a great way to introduce new vocabulary and grammar for the first time (and I’ve pulled together a full list of six benefits towards the bottom of this post). 

Simple?  If you follow the clear steps that I set out in this post, yes.  

You’ll have mastered the method in no time. 

Easy? Not as easy as it sounds! 

To get started you need a short German audio clip, thirty seconds to a couple of minutes doesn’t sound much, but you’re about to see why it really is great for the task. You also need a word-for-word written transcript (in German) of the audio. 

Conversations are the most natural kind of speech and the kind you’re most likely to want to understand, so go for a recorded dialogue, if you can.  

We’ll look at the end a bit more at the materials you can use, but let’s first dive straight in and break this amazing method down into clear steps. 

Stage One: listen, no, really listen! 

First, hit play and try to understand as much as you can just by listening. 

No peeking at the transcript!    

Listen as many times as you need. 

Pause and rewind as often as you like.  

Keep going, five or ten times if necessary, until you feel that you’ve “caught” as much as you possibly can of the meaning. 

Stage Two: from ear to paper 

Second, write down what you hear. It’s much better to do this with a pen or pencil than keyboard and screen. The physical act of writing really helps you to concentrate on the words and phrases.  

This is not a speed writing exercise, so use the pause button as you go. 

Don’t be afraid to rewind bits and listen yet again.

There are bits you aren’t sure about? 

If you think you hear distinct German words that you know but they don’t fit in the context, write down what you hear anyway.  

If all you can hear seems to be gobbledygook, write that down regardless. 

Trying to capture as much as you can on paper will really force you to think….and to use that rewind button to listen even harder.  

Only leave a gap as a very last resort.  

Stage Three: aha, I knew that all along

You now have a written version of the audio in your own fair hand, complete with gaps (and gobbledygook).  Stages Three and Four of this intensive German listening practice are the “comprehension checking” stages. 

At Stage Three, it’s time to compare the “official” written version with what you wrote down.

Underline the mistakes you made and compare across to the correct German in the “official” transcript.   

Once you can see the actual German in black and white, you’ll probably realise that there are some parts that you “know” on paper but couldn’t actually hear when you listened through, due to your untrained ear.  

Consider why that was.

Was the problem that you couldn’t distinguish sounds at the level of an individual word? You knew the word, but you didn’t know how to pronounce it? 

Was the issue less about the sound of an individual word in isolation and more a matter of how individual words are strung together into phrases? In real, flowing “connected speech”, the way individual words are pronounced can change markedly and sounds are simplified or even dropped altogether. 

For example “Hast du ihn gesehen?” might be pronounced on the fly more like “Has n g’se’n?”.  “Könnten Sie mal?” could sound more like “Könnse mal?”.

See? 

At this stage, you’re already reaping benefits from laser listening. 

You’re reinforcing vocabulary and grammar you already know as you see another example of how it’s used in real conversation… 

….and of what it sounds like in context.  

You’re fine-tuning your ear to how connected speech works.  

But what about the bits you can’t understand, even when you see them written in black and white?

Stage Four: aha, I didn’t know that!  

It’s time for the next stage of “comprehension checking”.

This time turn to the words and phrases that you’ve underlined in the “official” transcript that you simply don’t understand, even when you see them in the official transcript. 

This is when an English translation of the official German transcript comes in very handy indeed. 

Comparing across the versions in the two languages is much quicker than checking up on vocab and patterns in a dictionary or grammar book. It’s more effective too because you’re seeing the words in context in both languages.     

Now, why didn’t you understand even the written German version? 

Was the problem a new word….

….or familiar word used with a new meaning that you didn’t know before?  

Maybe you understood each word in the phrase but the overall meaning still didn’t make sense? 

Is the problem that a familiar word is part of an idiomatic turn of phrase, an expression you just didn’t know?  

Or is it something to do with grammar, for example the use of a case, an unfamiliar verb tense or mood or the use of a connecting word (conjunction) to link two ideas together in a longer phrase?

Try and get clear. If you’re still flummoxed, bring the problem to your German teacher next time you meet up. 

Stage Five: listening again

You started with sound, you went deep into the relationship between spoken and written German and into the meaning of what you heard (or failed to hear).  

To wrap up your German “intensive listening” practice session, pull back and listen again. 

That will reinforce the sound and meaning of the German from your new position of increased awareness and deeper understanding. 

Follow along with the “official” transcript for the last but one listen through.

Then, to finish, listen to the whole thing again without looking at the text.  

Returning to the same material at intervals is a great way to reinforce your memory and so you could listen again to the audio after a few days, first without the transcript, then with. 

It’s great if you want to do the dictation again at a few days later. But it does take time. For a quicker, light touch “revision” version of the exercise, just hit pause at places where you’ve got stuck again and write down what you think that particularly cloudy word or phrase could be. You’ll quite probably remember even as you write. If not, check the transcript. 

Two extra techniques for an added focus on improving your German pronunciation

Five-step laser listening is already a very full exercise but if you want to take your session further, here are two optional, additional steps. 

At Stage Five, after you’ve listened to the whole clip again, you could record yourself performing from your corrected transcript. 

If you’re feeling quite confident, read out the whole dialogue in one take. Rely on your auditory memory (and the corrections on your transcript) to try to get the connected speech, accent and intonation right.  Really imagine yourself into the part and speak with a bit of dramatic flair.

If you’re less confident, you can take it phrase by phrase, maybe playing the audio on your tablet or laptop, hitting pause and recording your own voice on your phone. 

Either way, once you’re finished, ask your teacher or an exchange partner to point out any recurring weak points in your German speaking performance. 

The other way you can return to the same clip to reinforce your memory and to practise the sound production aspect of pronunciation is to read along from the transcript in unison with the audio. That’s an exercise known as shadowing. Curious? Check out my post Shadowing for language learning explained.  

Six reasons why dictation helps your German listening skills and more 

If you’ve read this far, you’ll have started to see that this simple method is about more than getting great German listening practice. Let’s draw together all the benefits:

1. Boosts your attention level and keeps you focussed

It’s very difficult to listen intently without your attention wandering. If you try dictation, you’ll find that the need to write down what you hear will help you to keep focussed.  

2. Reinforces your existing vocab and grammar

Listening and transcribing exercises are a great way to strengthen your grasp on German vocabulary and grammar that you already know, embedded in real examples of the kind of conversational spoken language you’re going to need.  

3. Increases awareness of how individual words sound in “connected speech”

Where you had difficulty hearing words you already knew “on paper”, this “laser listening” method really drives home how individual words are pronounced in connected speech. 

4. Helps learn new vocab and grammar in an interactive, memory-melding way

Listening and transcribing is also a great way to introduce yourself to new German vocab and grammar. That’s because when you check the English version of your text, or hit the dictionary, you’re already motivated to find an answer to a real question.  That aha moment of discovery will be that much more satisfying. 

If you discover new words and phrases in this active way, you’re more likely to notice them next time they crop up in your in your more relaxed “extensive” exposure, when you’re listening or reading simply to follow the outlines of the plot.  

Of course, you may have to hear or see what you’ve discovered in your laser listening session several times more before it sticks, but you’ve planted a seed quite firmly.  

5. Writing and spelling practice thrown in “for free”

Using laser listening dictation isn’t just beneficial for pronunciation, for learning vocab and grammar and for honing your listening skills. It also improves your reading and writing.

For many of us, writing is an often-neglected skill. For starters, listening AND transcribing, erm, gets you actually writing. More than that, as you correct your transcript, you probably flushed out the odd spelling mistake.  

6. Strengthens the auditory-visual link and improves your reading skills

The benefits for reading are that you become more aware of the relationship between written German and how it’s supposed to sound. You’ll “hear” more realistic German in your head next time you do some reading or next time you try some writing.  

At which level are dictation exercises useful? 

Dictation comes into its own as a way to improve your German listening skills when you’re an upper beginner or at lower intermediate or above. You’ve already got a basis of vocab and grammar to work with. 

It’s also good to “put sound central” when you’re just starting to learn the language. As a beginning German learner, you need to nail your pronunciation from the beginning, so that bad habits don’t set in. 

What type of audio should I use for dictation and where can I find it?

Ok! You want to give dictation a go to improve your German pronunciation and listening skills? 

What type of audio is best for this sort of super-active German listening practice?  

Look for high-quality recordings of natives engaged in back-and-forth conversation.  

That’s natural speech of the type you’re likely to need.  

Course materials aimed at learners of your level have lots of advantages, provided they’re dialogue based. 

First, the course audio will be relatively standard speech, probably slowed down a little in the early levels.  Limited grammar and vocab to give you a fighting chance of learning in context.  

Second, good courses – whether a textbook or an online format, will come with a transcript and parallel translation. 

For beginners or false beginners (A1, A2 on the Common European Framework of Reference for Language), I love Bite Size German. Creator Kris Broholm has produced one hundred very short conversations (about 30 seconds each) between a man and a woman native speakers at rather slower than native speed. You get a German transcript and two English translations (idiomatic and literal, word-for-word)

If you’re moving into intermediate (B1) with your German, check out my ten “Weekly German Workouts”.  Each week begins with a “laser listening exercise”: a two to four minute dialogue in lively German at native speed. The next day you get a German transcript and a parallel translation in English. Then come vocab and grammar explanations and exercises, as part of the wider “Weekly Workout” routine.    

How to find authentic content for German dictation/listening-transcribing 

It’s good as a learner to dive into “authentic” audio content (aimed at native speakers) as soon as you can. 

Doing dictation with “native level” audio is a good way to smooth your transition between understanding audio material simplified for learners and German in the wild. 

You could use a recording of a news bulletin or the voiceover from a documentary, but these aren’t dialogues. 

Audio books versions of dialogue-packed novels have the advantage that you should be able to get your hands on a copy of the written text and quite possibly a translation in English (or the English original if that’s how the work started its life).  

Most “natural” of all, though, would be a radio or podcast discussion or radio play, a TV soap opera or film. 

Some podcasts are produced with downloadable transcripts and you may be able to find the scripts of your favourite shows or films online  

If you’re having trouble finding a transcript but have the audio file, you could run it through a transcribing app.  The technology’s getting better from year to year but, the problem is, it’ll still need correcting. Your German probably won’t be at the level for you to do that yourself and, even if it is, the surprise effect would then have gone when you come to do your laser listening exercise. 

Instead, you could pay somebody to produce a transcript for you. Search for willing help on a site like Freelancer or Upwork. You could have an English translation done as well for the comprehension checking stage.

If producing your own materials in this way sounds like too much hassle, you could simply do my “Stage One” (the listening) and “Stage Two” (transcribing) with the audio and then go through it in a one-to-one session with your teacher. Ask the teacher to correct your work and help you fill in the gaps.  

The time factor: how long should I spend on a German listening skills exercise and how often?

You’ll find that this type of German listening practice is much more intensive work than you’d think.  It could easily take you half an hour to complete a dictation exercise on a two or three minute clip. If your clip is longer, take it in stages. 

As the method is so intensive, it’s suited for getting deliberate listening practice during the focussed study sessions of thirty minutes a day that I strongly recommend if you want to accelerate your road to German fluency.   

If you make listening-transcribing part of your study routine for a few weeks, you’ll start to see results.  

Then, get right back into the rough and tumble of real, live German conversations and back to lots of the more relaxed “extensive” listening practice with all sorts of German audio.

It’s once again time not to worry so much about understanding everything, even as you notice that you’re already understanding more! 

How laser listening dictation has helped my German – Dr P’s students speak

Here’s what some of my “Weekly German Workout” students have to say about how listening-transcribing “laser listening” method has helped them: 

Trying dictation was the best thing to come out of the course for me. It really helped me to listen intently rather than just being happy with the gist.

Jan Ainsley (Sept-Nov 2020 Weekly German Workouts participant)

The first time it took me ages to do the dictation and correct all the sentences, I was such an accomplishment to see what I got.

Beth W (April-June 2020 Weekly German Workouts participant)

Dictations are definitely the way to make you listen carefully.

Lilian Poberezny (July-Sept 2020 “Weekly German Workouts” participant)

I thought the dictation would be a doddle. It was much more difficult. It was amazing the number of times I found new phrases that would then turn up in a podcast. Without the push and prompt it would have sailed over my head. It’s the reinforcement.

Grahame Boocock (Feb-April 2020 “Weekly German Workouts” participant)

Ready to get some super-intensive German listening practice? Give laser listening a good try and see for yourself! 

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The post German listening practice on steroids (neglected technique) appeared first on How to get fluent, with Dr Popkins.

To learn German more quickly, take responsibility for your own progress.

No teacher can beam the language into your head.

Group classes (“school style”) are very inefficient if you rely on them on their own, though they can give your learning a welcome social dimension and help with motivation.

One-to-one classes or language exchanges can be an invaluable tool but full time one-to-one learning is expensive.

For most people, the two real engines for rapid progress in German are effective self-study and lots of practice in their own time.  

And let’s be clear from the get go: nobody ever got fluent in German just by using an app. Some apps are better than others, many are “gamified” to, erm, keep you on the app. What are they good for? As a supplement or for some extra down-time engagement (if you don’t feel like doing something more effective instead).

Learn with your specific German goals in mind

Follow the advice in this post and you can get yourself ready to use your German in the sorts of basic everyday contexts that we all need or in highly specialised contexts that are personal to you.

This post is addressed to you if you’re a beginner, a false beginner or rusty.

That said, much of what you’ll read will also help intermediate learners who are ready to move swiftly to the next level.

You might want to be able to connect with in-laws or grandchildren or use the language to get things done and make wonderful memories when you’re travelling. You might already be into aspects of German culture and want to experience it from within.  You may want to forge new business contacts by giving a presentation in the language or bond less formally with potential customers afterwards.  

You’re clear on what you want your German for?

You’re sure you REALLY want it?

And you want it, like, yesterday?  

Ok, let’s look at what you need to do to learn German fast.  

Master pronunciation fundamentals

Time may be short, but don’t be tempted to neglect the key elements of the German soundscape. If you haven’t tuned your ear in properly, your listening skills will suffer even if you know the words or grammar “on paper”. 

You’ll sound dire, too.  

Focus on sounds that are different from English. Understand that getting the rhythm and intonation of phrases right can be even more important than the pronunciation of individual sounds and words. 

You don’t need to polish so much that you could pass for a native. but if you pay attention to the right things and you can “sound” better than you are. 

That matters because you need to win the confidence of the fluent German speaker you want to talk to. 

If you fail at key aspects of accent, talking with you can be a real strain for them.

There’s a risk they’ll just switch to English…or avoid you altogether. 

Get the main sentence patterns 

If you want to learn German fast, don’t get distracted by abstract German grammar for its own sake.

Don’t get bogged down in tables showing German verb and case endings. 

Instead, think of grammar as the most important repeatable German sentence patterns. Focus relentlessly on these patterns. 

Grasp rules of thumb that explain what’s going on and that you can apply on the wing (like the ones for the German case endings). Learn the highest frequency exceptions. 

Later, when you’ve developed more of a feel for what sounds right, you can work some more on “grammar” to help you fill in the gaps, refine your expression and explain surprises. 

Learn the most frequent German vocab

Raw wordpower matters but did you know that just 250 words or so make up about 50% of everyday German? 

Build up to six or seven hundred “essential words” and you’re very much in business. 

Reach 1000 words, you can understand 80% of an everyday German text and say a lot of what you want, even if you have to explain things in a roundabout way.  

Your “first thousand” should include the 650 most common words (the top 50 German verbs are of course, important among them).

Add three types of fluency booster vocabulary 

Add to those 650 or so most common words another three classes of words and phrases (think of them as special fluency weapons in your drive to learn German quickly): 

Filler and conversational connector words such as “aber”, “schon”, “doch”, “ja” “meiner Meinung nach” (in my opinion), “oder?” (is it not so). They pepper natural speech and can really help move a conversation forward. 

“Tool kit phrases” that help you keep up and learn as you go, without switching to English: “Wie sagt man x auf Deutsch”, “Könnten Sie bitte etwas langsamer sprechen?” and so on. 

Your own personal “islands of fluency”, that’s to say, bespoke words and phrases that may not be so common but which relate to your personal need for German: talking about your profession, hobbies, goals and so on. 

Learn how to get German into your memory (and out again)

Ok, Dr P, but how do I actually remember the key grammar patterns and essential vocab well enough to use them in real life? 

Not by accident! Not in your sleep! Not with one magic method! 

First, you need to get words into your memory (“encoding”). 

To help you remember, understand how German words are formed: look out for similarities with English, understand how German makes bigger words out of smaller parts by gluing smaller words into bigger ones (compounding) or adding prefixes and suffixes.  

Use memory association techniques to remember individual words. 

Learn “chunks”, that’s short phrases for every situation that native speakers of any language deploy without thinking.  

Second, you need to make sure you don’t forget what you’ve just learned. 

It’s been shown that reviewing material as soon as the day after you first tried to learn it and then at increasing intervals is the way to make it stick. The method is called the spacing effect.      

Paper flashcards or a flashcard app with the English on one side and the German on the other are great for this. If flashcards aren’t your thing, you can double down on lots of reading and listening practice with your course materials and other sources that interest you.   

Make your learning more effortful for maximum efficiency

Work creatively with your new vocab, chunks and grammar patterns you want to focus on. 

Make up your own short dialogues with your words and phrases and practice with a conversation partner. Do the questions and other exercises that come with your course make your own. Dictation and translation back and forth can be powerful activities to get you working intensively with new examples of German that you’ve just come across. 

Test yourself to turn vocab and grammar review from just repetition into more effective recall.

Working with flashcards or translation from English into German makes for more effortful interaction, great for consolidating memories! 

Go back to your dictation, translation and or other exercises at intervals.  

In short, don’t be passive, be interactive with your German texts and audio.

Make your learning effortful. 

If you’re tired after focused study, that’s a good sign. No pain, less gain!

Yes! Deliberate practice like this is hard.

You may well finish a session feeling more frustrated than when you began or even that you’re going backwards. 

Master your mind, stick at it and trust the process.  

Get a good beginner’s German course

With new sounds, grammar patterns and vocab to master, you could easily waste a lot of time gathering scattered materials for yourself. You can end up overwhelmed and not knowing where to start. 

If you want to learn German fast, do yourself a favour and begin with a well designed course that introduces the high-frequency German that ALL beginners need in a step-by-step way. 

Working through the course unit by unit, week by week is a great way to pace your learning. 

You can also refer back to your course materials if you hit questions when you’re out using your language “in the wild”. 

Make sure the course is dialogue based, has audio with transcript and parallel translations into English. 

Go for courses that have some explicit grammar explanation but made accessible and with a light touch. If you like exercises, make sure your course also supplies self-correct answers. 

You’re looking for a course that doesn’t just teach the key pronunciation, grammar and vocab that we saw are so important but one that you can use for the effortful practice that we’ve just been looking at. 

Get lots of enjoyable reading and listening practice

Focussed study with the aid of a good course will accelerate your progress in German remarkably, but it’s not enough on its own.  

If you want to learn German fast, you also need a lot of exposure to the language: listen, read.  

Once you’ve got some basics through your course – or earlier if you feel the urge – get started earlier with more relaxed “extensive” listening and reading. 

Here the aim is to get enough to follow main thread of conversation or a story. 

Extensive listening and reading are great helping you remember what you’ve already seen. 

Plus: if the material isn’t too difficult for you, you’ll be able to “acquire” more German as well in a natural context, sub- or semi-consciously, without deliberate effort.  

So, find books to read aimed at learners at your level.

Try podcasts for learners in the language, ideally with transcripts. 

Some successful learners love diving into authentic content (i.e. made for natives) asap too.

To make reading native-level material easier, choose short articles on factual topics, read stories that you already know in English or use a parallel text with German on the right and an English translation on the left

As for listening, you may find it easier to watch the German (original or dubbed) films or series that you already know in their English versions.

As you start watching authentic German films, TV shows and YouTube vides, don’t be shy of switching on the subtitles to help (but, beyond the very earliest stages, use the German ones). 

The golden rule for “extensive” reading and listening practice is this: find things you find interesting and would want to listen to or watch in English anyway.  That way, it’s going to be so much easier to clock up hours and hours of enjoyable practice.  

What about speaking? 

Whether you should speak from the very beginning depends on your personality. 

If you’re the gregarious type who loves talking, learn the absolute basics and then throw yourself into using the language. Otherwise, there’s a risk your motivation will flag and you’ll give up. 

If you’re not so social, it’s also not a problem.  For you, conscious vocabulary and pattern building, reading or listening are going to be much more efficient activities in the early stages.  When you start to speak, you’ll have a larger vocab and more experience of what sounds right and better listening skills. All these will help you activate your speaking more rapidly than somebody who focusses on speaking from the very beginning.

Most of us want to speak as well, though, and you can’t get good at speaking without speaking a lot. 

Don’t put off speaking too long, just because you don’t “feel ready”. You don’t want to pass up on opportunities to make new friends in your language.

More than that, if you want to learn German quickly, don’t be a perfectionist. 

Don’t fixate on mistakes. Nobody cares. Instead, focus on your message and on the other person.

Prepare and practice short, relevant “scripts” on conversation topics that you’re going to need. 

Guess intelligently, pick up non-verbal clues to meaning, use those filler and conversational connector words to sound more authentic and win some time. Ask questions for the same reason and to check you’ve understood.  

If you already know Germans with whom you can practise, great.

That said, will they always have time to help you as you strive to move forward at pace? Will they have the knowledge of the language to explain why things are said a certain way?  Do they know how to give feedback constructively?

Don’t pay for a teacher to explain things you can get much more cost and time effectively from a good course.

No, where a teacher can really help is to explain things you’re stuck on and to ensure that you get consistent deliberate practice speaking. A good teacher will be able to give you reasoned feedback on your speaking and writing.  

Try out different teachers over Skype or Zoom on a platform like italki.com. When you’ve “clicked” with one or two, book a series of sessions in advance to make sure they really do happen.

The platform I use for this is italki.com. I’m such a fan, I’ve had over six hundred lessons (for several languages).

Want to learn German fast? Let’s recap   

• Get real! It takes hundreds of hours to get really fluent, but if you’re clear on what you need your German for and you use smart methods, you can make rapid progress.
• Don’t skimp on sound. Get key aspects of pronunciation right and you’ll win friends and influence people (well, they won’t run away or switch to English, at least
• You don’t need all the grammar, just the main sentence patterns.
• You must learn the highest frequency vocab. The first 650 words, plus “toolkit phrases”, conversational fillers and connectors and the bespoke vocab that matters for your, personal needs.
• Apply “brain savvy” methods to remember patterns and vocab. Effortful intensive, deliberate practice will speed things up.
• Use a course to present you with just what you need, to avoid wasting time, confusion and overwhelm.
• Read and listen for pleasure as much as you can. You don’t have to “speak from day one” but to get good at speaking, you need to start and practise, practise, practise. One-to-ones with a teacher or exchange partner are great for this.

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The post How to learn German fast appeared first on How to get fluent, with Dr Popkins.