My Journey to Practical, Real-World German
In 2011, I fell in love with a German, Sina, in Melbourne Australia, while she was on an overseas experience (OE). The following year, I moved to Germany on a working holiday visa to be with her. That was also when I took my first German lessons. At first, they seemed promising, but they quickly became overwhelming. The complexity ramped up too fast, and I eventually quit.
Back in New Zealand in 2013, I regretted not pushing through. Determined to give it another shot, I started researching better ways to learn German. That’s when I came across a book called ‘Learn German with Mnemonics’. Inspired by its approach, I focused on memorizing a massive amount of vocabulary. My goal was to prepare for Sina and her parents’ visit to New Zealand, hoping I could communicate with them better.
While the vocabulary helped, I realized that my real struggle wasn’t just knowing words, it was using them effectively. I could only express myself in the present, and a little bit in the past and future. But what about more complex ideas? In English, I effortlessly used different tenses and moods without thinking, but in German, I was stuck. At the time, I didn’t realize this was the real problem, I just knew that I couldn’t express certain ideas in German the way I could in English.
The Move to Berlin
In 2015, Sina and I got married and moved to Berlin. I took an integration course and, with daily German interactions, gradually overcame my fear of speaking. However, I found the traditional, linear learning approach inefficient. Spending too much time on details like cases and adjective declension, while remaining stuck in the present and past tenses, meant I wasn’t actually learning to communicate.
That’s when everything changed. Being the nerd that I am, I started reading grammar books for fun. I don’t necessarily recommend this unless you enjoy it, but I hate not understanding how something works. This led me to discover what I consider to be ‘the mechanics of the German language’. I stopped worrying about speaking perfectly and instead focused on expressing my thoughts using these elements. My communication skills skyrocketed, and for the first time, I could truly hold conversations with native German speakers.
Why Fast Track German?
Having gone through the struggle myself, I know how difficult it can be to learn a foreign language. That’s why I created Fast Track German, to help others accelerate their language learning by focusing on the concepts that have the biggest impact in the shortest amount of time. My approach is about practicality, not perfection, so you can start speaking and understanding German as quickly as possible.
If you want to fast-track your way to real conversations, I’d love to help you get there!