Talk:German/Level III

Remake
'''This needs a total remake, it is not even funny. It is very silly and useless to have A WHOLE different sub-section, with all the lessons of level 2, and the only thing which is different is a small, little advance page for each lesson. It needs different, and harder lessons. Isn't that the whole reason for a different sub-section page? We need all the complex grammer and difficult words of German in this level, or put the easier parts of complex German grammer and vocabulary of it here, and make a Level 4 and put the more difficult parts of complex German grammer and vocabulary in there. Derbeth even said we had to do something. And it is time. We need to get a plan together. Yes or No?''' -- German Men92 0:45, 17 Feb 2006 (UTC)
 * Okay, I started the remake, now we need to get planning for level 3 & 4, level 5 is a big review level, and it's have a lot cultureal thing, and the history of the german language. -- German Men92 14:24, 18 Feb 2006 (UTC)

Starting discussion
Under the table of contents, I've listed both what each lesson covers and what should or could be covered. We can then modify the pages to meet these lesson goals. I think it is important to not have very complex grammar rules in a lesson before other rules supporting those are introduced - Marsh 17:17, 3 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Thanks Thomas. %^) Just what is needed: the corect terms/words for these things like Advanced Lessons! My having to use a dictionary is a handicap -- Marsh 20:02, 3 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Hi, Marsh. The more I look at the German-book, the more I feel uncomfortable with the complexity of the grammer you introduce in the early lessons. I would definitely prefere to begin with very easy things in the first lessons (like the different konjugation forms of easy verbs.), but nothing about reflexive verbs, declinations and differnt grammatical times. I know, that is a quite fundamental thing that affects the complete structure of the course, but for me, it seems worth to think about changing its complete structure. --- Hansm 11:57, 5 Jan 2004 (UTC)
 * I'll will work on what you suggest when Wikipedia settles down. Right now I keep getting booted out. I have been following a highschool German textbook, but my stories may be a bit more complex (the stories in the textbook are god awful) - Marsh 19:14, 5 Jan 2004 (UTC)

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Let me give a proposal for a first lesson:

Markus ist Student. Er studiert Biologie. Er begegnet Katrin auf der Straße. Sie studiert Mathematik.
 * Markus: Hallo, Katrin! Wohin gehst du?
 * Katrin: Ich gehe einkaufen. Der Kühlschrank ist fast leer. Ich brauche Wurst und Käse. Und du? Wohin gehst du?
 * Markus: An die Uni. Ich habe viel Arbeit.
 * Katrin: Gut! Dann bis bald. Tschüß.
 * Markus: Tschüß, Katrin.

Now, what's the goal?
 * Only simple verbs, i.e. regular conjugations (at least in Präsenz).
 * Only Nominativs. Well, actualy, there are other cases, too. But incidently, they are the same as their nominativs, so you need not to explain it for now :-)
 * Heinrich and Karl are rather old fashioned names. Markus and Katrin are more usual and give a parity in genders.
 * The question "Wie geht es dir?" is unusal as a greeting in German. So, it's not such a good example for a typical German small-talk.

What could you explain?
 * Pronouns in Nominativ (ich, du, er, sie)
 * Simple Conjugations in 1st, 2nd and 3rd person singular.
 * How to build questions.


 * I disagree. "Wie geht's?" is common small-talk, but you'd usually first greet. It'd be more common than telling the other person what your fridge is lacking. Also "(Ich gehe) An die Uni. Ich habe viel Arbeit" sounds very very odd. In German (or at least in colloquial German of most regions of Germany I know of) you'd rather say "Zur Uni" and "Ich habe viel zu tun". I don't know about Austrian and Swiss German, tho -- although I'd guess most foreigners first want to learn the Germany-German variant when intending to learn German (as this is also usually the one taught in schools). -- W:Ashmodai


 * I'll work those changes in. I agree, what is always needed here are native speakers assessing the conversational material for "modern" appropriateness. I do not have that ability. I was last in Germany around 1953 and then as a child not speaking German! - marsh 19:16, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

Proposal for a 2nd lesson:

Markus ist in der Universität. Er trinkt dort einen Kaffee und isst ein Brötchen. Danach geht er in die Bibliothek. Er sucht ein Buch über Biochemie. Er holt das Buch aus dem Regal und setzt sich an einen Tisch. Nach einer Stunde geht er in den Hof und raucht eine Zigarette. Danach geht er an den Tisch zurück. Er denkt: "Wenigstens eine Stunde..." und stellt das Buch wieder in das Regal. Heute ist nicht sein Tag.

What could you explain?
 * Genders
 * Articles: der, die das, ein, eine, ein.
 * Nominativ, Dativ and Akkusativ. (We could live without Genitiv for a while)
 * Daklinations with articles.
 * Keep everthing in singular.

-- Hansm 12:56, 6 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Hansm. These are good ideas, and I am certainly not qualified to "rule over" this textbook. I am concerned myself that the early lessons may be a bit too difficult, one reason that I created two levels out of each lesson (a simple and a more advanced presentation of the same concepts). We can work your suggestions into the front of the existing material, pushing the existing stuff further back in the book. While not an easy editing task, I'm willing to do it to make the text more consistent with modern German and, as you say, simplify the earliest lessons. Any corrections/additions you proivide are greatly appreciated &mdash; and input from others would likewise improve the book. That is the idea of doing a book here, so do not worry about stepping on toes. Just be conservative in removing material already worked on and try and preserve the overall style (which can also be improved on). Others have done some of these lessons (not all by me), and I usually try and keep the material by moving it around to someplace where it best fits in - Marsh 18:41, 6 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Organizing the Approach
Hm, now we all have been working on our 'German patchwork', but still I'm not so happy with the result. Maybe the biggest problem I see is the grammatical concept. Summarizing the grammatical themes, I found the following list:


 * Realize the result right now is a patchwork because all I have done is adjusted Lesson 1 and 1A to fit the material you suggested be used as "less difficult" to read; I've yet to get to any of the other lessons (just a start on Lesson 2) that are impacted by the changes. Having said that, I do agree with the approach you are starting to outline below. - Marsh 02:02, 9 Jan 2004 (UTC)


 * I've added explanation to each point to give you a sense of what organisation exists (and does not exist in many cases) - Marsh


 * personal pronouns, all in nominativ, some in dativ (Lesson 1) All are pronouns; that is all that is accomplished here: Introduction to pronouns
 * personal pronouns, but nominativ only (Lesson 1A) This is an advanced lesson, not intended for begining students to access, but should amplify one or more of the lessons in the basic Lesson 1 for 2nd year or college level students without introducing something the Basic lessons will need; rather limited on what this can be in Lesson 1A (Hey, you did this lesson :^?)
 * personal pronouns for familar and polite form, nominativ and dativ (Lesson 2) Familiar and polite pronoun concept introduced in Grammatik 2-1
 * word order in questions (Lesson 2) There are many things to cover about word order in German sentences, so this is just the first one
 * again, personal pronouns for familar and polite form, nominativ and dativ. This is the first time that the meaning of cases is explained! (Lesson 2) Not so, case is mentioned in Grammatik 1-2; this is first application of the concept (it is afterall only Lesson 2) - it could be argued this is too soon in the sequence
 * Composed nouns (Lesson 2A)- ''Please ignore for now. All advanced lessons will change somewhat, based on the premise that they should amplify points made in the basic lesson - Lesson N = Beginning student; Lesson N + NA = advanced student (same lesson, more detail)
 * Numbers, cardinal and ordinal ( Lesson 3) Some lessons will have to cover these broader aspects: time, numbers, colors, etc.; best to start early with numbers
 * telling/asking time (Lesson 3) Makes pefect sense from fact that fact that German numbers introduced are 1-12. Numbers greater than 12 will be part of a future lesson (2nd "round")
 * nouns, gender, definite articels (Lesson 3) May need to go to Lesson 4, but this is the introduction to nouns; seems like articles (definite at least) are good to include at this point. Again, there can be an appendix page that gives the rules and has tables for nouns, articles, endings, etc. This constitutes information of reference value; lesson should stick to just one aspect about nouns, nothers aspects coming up one at a time in later lessons - this approach allows the examples to grow in complexity in a way meaningful to what the student should know by a particular lesson. This is where I especially need a native speaker to develop (or tweak) the stories and conversations to keep them consistent (or close to) the expected level of grammar knowledge at the point where they appear. Note that the Vokabeln is geared to this approach as well.
 * (possesive) pronouns in accusative and dativ (Lesson 3) Each case of the personal pronouns is taken in order in successive lessons
 * again, personal pronouns, but nominativ (Lesson 3a) out of sequence for reason elaborated above; ignore for now
 * possesive pronouns in dativ (labeled as genitiv) (Lesson 4) These are possessive adjectives, not datives
 * indefinite articles (Lesson 4) Expands on the definte articles lesson in 3
 * gender of ordinals, nominativ only (Lesson 4A) out of sequence
 * details of telling time ( Lasson 4A) out of sequence
 * personal Pronouns: accusative case (Lesson 4A) out of sequence
 * Conjugating 'to be' (Lesson 5) I've not worked on this lesson - contributed by others
 * personal Pronouns: dative case (Lesson 5A) ignore for now

Is there any kind of intension behind that? For me, it looks somewhat like a random result.


 * I do not agree it either is or looks random. Although after about Lesson 2, it is now all mixed up. One cannot take any area (say verbs) and treat it to completeness in a single or short sequence of lessons. Since language is the melding of all the parts of speech and grammar, the best approach (IMHO) is to start with as many of the basic concepts as can fit in but initially cover each rather superficially, then step these up in complexity in a programmed way ("rounds").  Thus, the lessons now present cover lots of different areas, but only in a basic way. The next set of lessons (yet to be even dreamed of by me) would go back to all of the concepts in the first 5 or 7 lessons and bulid in complexity on each. It may take many cycles of this to progress from beginning German to any kind of mastery.  That is how language courses work.  One can now find in several places on the web German language grammatical rules - sites that present everything there is to known about pronouns on one page, all there is to know about verbs on the next, etc.  These are great sources of information, but no one has or could learn to speak a foreign language from them. They are not language courses, but language information sites. In a sense, I did envision having appendices to the language book that somewhat used this approach - Marsh 02:14, 9 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Proposal
I'd propose the following strategy:
 * 1) Elaborate a grammatical giudeline. Fix, what grammatical themes should be treated in which lesson.
 * 2) Write the example texts.
 * 3) Give short additional explanations and vocabulary.

Point 1. is probably better done by those who have learned German as a foreigne langugage since natives often do not realy know what porblems may occure when learning German grammar and what are the actual grammatical rules.

Point 2. is maybe better done by German natives. -- Hansm 14:29, 8 Jan 2004 (UTC)


 * I think this is a good idea. In fact I proposed something very similar awhile back on one of the Germam:Talk pages. But you are the first native speaker that has expressed any interest in the organization of the book. I especially agree with your assessment of who should best work on the first two points (although I'd like to stay involved in all aspects as I suspect would anyone else that joins in) &mdash; but clearly a native speaker can do the best job on the example texts. - Marsh 02:19, 9 Jan 2004 (UTC)


 * Please exapand on your third point. I'm unclear what you are proposing there? As for the grammatical guideline, I can make that clearer, even to the point of getting out ahead of where the lessons presently are; but that will take time. Just keeping organized/edited what we do have is already a big consumer of my online time.  Realize again, that because of the changes WE made to Lesson 1, it will take a few days for me to work through the consequences to the lessons to the end of Lesson 6.  In fact, the lessons past about 4 are not near any shape to use. Please read the Vorwort if you have not already. It explains the overall organization of the book. Otherwise, the organization that is already present is this: Each part of speach (pronoun, noun, verb, etc.) is introduced at some point early in the first lessons.  Each is then elaborated on over the next several lessons to a review point. Only fairly basic information and examples are given on each.  Then another sety of lessons is developed with a bit more complexity introduced.  From the saample Lesson 0.1 you prepared, this seemed to be exactly where you were going - Marsh 02:32, 9 Jan 2004 (UTC)


 * I never did say that we have to treat one theme after the other to completeness in a sequence of lessons. It's just the point that we have to find a reasonable and tranparent sequence of grammatical themes we want to explain. E.g., for me, it looks odd using (partly very complicated) different verb forms in 4 lessons without saying anything about verbs. But you may see other preferences. That's why I have suggested to elaborate a guideline first. Anyway, I agree totaly with your idea about more and more detailed rounds.


 * To point 3 in my proposal: Maybe I have formulated it a bit confusing. Sorry. What I wanted to say is this: After we know, what the main grammatical points for a lesson should be (Point 1) and the example texts are written (point 2), we need to integrate the key examples from the texts into the grammatical explanation. Furthermore, it might have turned out that the examples must use some additional grammatical stuff that should at least be mentioned in the grammer part. The latter 2 steps are point 3. Maybe, I better had sayd point 3 and 4.


 * -- Hansm 14:22, 9 Jan 2004 (UTC)


 * I think I see what you are saying. And of course that is also where you can be a big help. After 1 and 2 are "completed" you could go back (especially to a conversation or story) and add or modify some lines to better illustrate the lesson points.  We (or others) could extract examples from these to illustrate certain lessons (i.e., Point 3). As to your point on having so many verb forms in the conversations before verbs are introduced I can give two explanations: 1) some grammar rules will lag behind use of the rule in conversation or stories just because all the rules cannot be given up front; 2) however, you and others have been simplifying the conversations to minimize this problem (much appreciated input), so I'm not too concerned that it is a problem that will eventually not be serious - Marsh 07:08, 10 Jan 2004 (UTC)


 * One more short explanation: I think, point 2 should be oriented as close as possible at point 1, i.e. the story or conversation should be written with some new grammer rules in mind. Idealy, it will give many grammatical examples in a quite naturaly looking way.


 * I simply have begun to organize a possible guideline. The basical idea is to first collect themes (subsection 1) and then diviede it into lessons (subsection 2). I would highly appreciate if you would add your ideas and themes. -- Hansm 19:41, 11 Jan 2004 (UTC)

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Themes that should be treated
This is just a brain storming collection of themes. The enumeration is intended as reference, not as sequential number. So please, append new items at the end and give them a new number in sequence.


 * 1. Personal pronouns in nominative.
 * 2. Personal pronouns in dative.
 * 3. Personal pronouns in accusative.
 * 4. Meaning of and ideas behind declensions
 * 5. Rules for declining nouns with definite article
 * 6. Rules for declining nouns with indefinite article
 * 7. Meaning of verb conjugations
 * 8. Regular conjugation in present tense (Präsens indikativ).
 * 9. Some important irregular verbs in present tense (Präsens indikativ).
 * 10. Building the perfect.
 * 11. Building the particip perfect for regular verbs.
 * 12. Adjectives
 * 13. Adjectives must fit in number, case and gender to the noun
 * 14. Word order in German sentences: questions;
 * 15. Numbers (1-12), telling time
 * 16. Numbers, (13-100), math
 * 17. Possessives (pronouns and adjectives)
 * 18. Prepositions
 * 19. Modal auxiliaries
 * 20. Irregular verbs
 * 21. Konjunktiv I und II, and uses of werden
 * 22. Capitalization of nouns

What theme in which lesson

 * Lesson 1: 14 (introduces "grammar" and "pronouns")
 * Lesson 2: 1 (introduces "verbs")
 * Lesson 3: 15, 5, 2, 3 (introduces "nouns")
 * Lesson 4: 4, 6, 7
 * Lesson 5: 8, 9 (partly?)
 * Lesson 6: 17 (introduces "adjectives")
 * Lesson 7:
 * Lesson 8:
 * Lesson 9:
 * Lesson 10:


 * I think this is a good way to approach organization; we can "move" the themes around here to set up a good sequencing. However, I would suggest that Lesson 1 is now done as it stands; that Lesson 2 could have intro to verbs (and possibly therefore #8), but is also about done.  I have set things up to have an introduction to each of the parts of speech (English speakers are not always that familiar with this). This does not mean there cannot be a "first" lesson on that subject in the same lesson, but generally it would be best to have that in the very next lesson. Remember, that for each lesson there is also a goodly Vokabeln to be learned in addition to a grammar lesson.  We must also consider that the stories and conversations should be short so sound files can eventually be prepared for each; but that having short ones, means needing to have more. One way to have "more" is to spread the lessons out. Since this is a textbook, there is no reason to cram too much onto each "page"). I'll give this more thought - Marsh 03:08, 12 Jan 2004 (UTC)


 * I've now completed Lesson 1A, Lesson 2, and Lesson 2A. We can now develop additioonal themes using verbs and pronouns. If nouns are introduced in 3 as I suggesdt, then Lesson 3 is near completion and lessons on verb forms can be developed. I'll move the concepts/themes to the contents page for reference - Marsh 04:37, 16 Jan 2004 (UTC)

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Vocabulary
Moved to Talk:German: Introduction.

Why does German:Contents redirect here? I think, to be fair, it should redirect back to the cover page. - SamE 15:23, 27 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Same Lessons for Level II and III?
I'm wondering why level II and III point to the same lessons. Is level III a repetition of II? -- messi 23:24, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)
 * Thought I answered this already somewhere? Anyway, the answer is that yes Level III is the same as Level II but then Level III includes the advanced lesson page following each basic lesson page. This is explained in the introduction page. Appreciate your corrections. :^) - marsh 18:11, 27 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Some fun ideas for advanced sections

 * German slang
 * Bavarian dialect