Motivation Monday: How positive emotions help you learn German
If you keep reading through new vocabulary without thinking about what you want to learn and what for, you are wasting your time! Activate your imagination, your associative thinking and your concentration. You can make a rhyme out of the new material, let it run through your head, e.g. by making up stories about the day's events or retelling the information from the news. In doing so, you use new vocabulary and remember the grammar in context without really trying. Here are some fun and creative ways to learn new vocabulary quickly and without boredom!
Movies, series, tv shows
Video material in the original language is a great motivator and can be set up nicely between reading and grammar lessons. You can always keep an eye out for new releases and new seasons of TV series. It is no secret
that the translation is not always correct and the meaning of some words and expressions is lost. For example, the title of "What Dreams May Come" sounds like "Hinter dem Horizont" (Beyond The Horizon) in the German version. From this you also learn how useful it can be to figure out the use of words and expressions in a specific context, instead of always translating individual words into your mother tongue! Also, watching the videos is one of the best ways to practice listening comprehension. If you have trouble understanding everything at first, use the subtitles. It's also a good idea to watch films you already know and use German subtitles to learn more exciting words and phrases and to see how to spell them! You can also use TV series and films to get used to different accents and intonations.
Latest news
Watch the news in German or read a couple of entertaining publications a day - you can significantly increase your vocabulary, practice your listening comprehension, deepen your general knowledge and stay up to date! For example, there is an excellent site by "Deutsche Welle" - "Slowly Spoken News" - where current news are spoken slowly and thus more comprehensible for German learners: https://learngerman.dw.com/de/langsam-gesprochene-nachrichten/s-60040332.
Vivid impressions
What are the things we remember best? Holidays, happy moments, important events, anything that can evoke strong, positive emotions in you. This can also make learning vivid. You don't even have to learn German at a festive dinner, sometimes you don't have to change the environment, but yourself! Make learning vocabulary an enjoyable pastime for you. Change your attitude from "How boring is the repetition" to "Yay, I remembered some new words". It is best to imagine a situation where this knowledge would be beneficial to you and help you in a difficult situation. In this way, a strong connection is made in your mind between the learning and the positive feelings.
