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pathetic piss kitten @kitten@elizabeth.cat
1y
I want to start going to the language school in September/October

I basically seem to have three options:
-going in person two days a week near home
-going one day in person away from home with extra homework (I could combine it with going to the office that day which is closer)
-doing everything online (exams in person)
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erincandescent ⎔ @erincandescent@erincandescent.net
1y
@kitten I did 3 evenings a week for the last 4 months (and will resume in ~September). It was a lot but was good!

My personal non-scientific opinion is

* 1 day a week is just not enough to properly embed things in your head,
* In person is just way better than any online class can be
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pathetic piss kitten @kitten@elizabeth.cat
1y
@erincandescent yeah... but I'm not sure if I'll have enough time for two in-person days...

this would go until June btw (and then I'd matriculate for the next level)
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erincandescent ⎔ @erincandescent@erincandescent.net
1y
@kitten CEFR level or?

2 evenings a week x 9 months for one CEFR level seems very excesssive (maybe except for B2 and above where it does indeed get quite chonky)
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pathetic piss kitten @kitten@elizabeth.cat
1y
@erincandescent yes, CEFR level. either A1 or A2 depending on how much I'm able to achieve on my own by September
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erincandescent ⎔ @erincandescent@erincandescent.net
1y
@kitten Hmm.

I've been doing things at Goethe, so 6 months for A2 or B1 at 2 evenings a week feels not unreasonable, but for A1 it seems quite extreme.

(Me and my coursemates felt that 72h for A1 was intense but not in a bad way; 72h for A2.1 at least felt a bit excessive and like you could probably squeeze the entirety of A2 into about 2/3rds of the time they spend on it, but YMMV)
(screenshot from https://www.goethe.de/ins/de/de/kur/ang/dak.html)
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sam neobot_mask_cat @sam@gts.bodged.systems
1y
@erincandescent @kitten i have been contemplating Proper(tm) language courses but always feel like it would mostly be wasted time as Dutch and German are like 30% mutually intelligible and i just can‘t imagine sitting in a classroom being taught things I have known since $forever

(trust me i tried that for a large chunk of my life)
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pathetic piss kitten @kitten@elizabeth.cat
1y
@sam @erincandescent in my case my main interest is on just being forced to follow a constant schedule
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erincandescent ⎔ @erincandescent@erincandescent.net
1y
@kitten @sam yeah thats half of my motivation. I personally lean towards more regular contact time because I know what I'm like w.r.t doing homework
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erincandescent ⎔ @erincandescent@erincandescent.net
1y
@sam @kitten Theres certainly an interesting question there if you already speak a Germanic language closer to German than English and I don't know what the answer is.

For German at least A1/2 are very heavy on grammar, I hear B1/2 is much heavier on vocabulary, and I think we spent more time talking with each other than listening to the teacher
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sam neobot_mask_cat @sam@gts.bodged.systems
1y
@kitten @erincandescent i mean my grammar is slightly cooked (dativ is notoriously difficult as a native dutch speaker) so if it’s focused on that it may be more helpful than i initially thought, hm
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erincandescent ⎔ @erincandescent@erincandescent.net
1y
@sam @kitten A1 is basically they throw all of the core grammar at you (the Nominativ/Akkusativ/Dativ cases, Präsens vs Perfekt) and then A2 is where they throw the rest of the grammar at you plus make you go over them again and again so they bed into your brain so you can handle composing all of them together in a single sentence without losing your trian of thought

I mean, German is a grammar heavy language...
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pathetic piss kitten @kitten@elizabeth.cat
1y
@erincandescent hmmm, tbh from my perception I agree with that. but unfortunately it seems to be "the standard" around here, for some reason? not sure

it's the same for all languages
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pathetic piss kitten @kitten@elizabeth.cat
1y
@erincandescent yip, 130h/level for any language
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erincandescent ⎔ @erincandescent@erincandescent.net
1y
@kitten weird, even Goethe Madrid seems to work like that, how bizzare

I sort of get compressing it a bit for courses taught in Germany because you'll get some exposure etc outside of class, but 130h for A1 seems excessive (and boooring!)
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