Learn 10 New German Words A Day: Secret Effective Method

Here is how I do it. First, I choose an online text of something I really enjoy reading. It can also be from print, like the novella I'm reading or the newspaper I take home everyday. But chances are the same text is online, or something similar. And when it's online, everything is faster thanks to the miracles of copy and paste.

Here is how you can do it. If you are a news junkie, your go-to sites are Der Spiegel or Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. Or your city's local rag or your fave tabloid or celebrity gossip blog, it really doesn't matter as long as it's written by somebody who gets edited or self-edits enough so that you're picking up relatively correct spelling and grammar. I personally have nothing against blogs but I just know I can trust news articles and published authors close to 100% for spelling and grammar accuracy that's why I go straight to them when it's about learning vocab via the posted word.

So a very personal example of how I study is that tomorrow I'm going out with a German girl who is REALLY excited about the fact that I know who Adalbert Stifter is. No joke. We danced for a while last Saturday and that was so-so but her eyes really lit up when we started talking about her lit major and I was like yeah I know Adalbert Stifter and dropped some titles of his and she just couldn't get over the fact that an American new something. This is probably the only reason she is going out with me. Talk about a low bar.

Point is, I haven't actually read anything by him but my hunch is that, considering she's German, I'm going to get grilled hardcore so I have some serious cramming to do. Or not. At the very least I can learn 10 new German vocab words.

So, the first step is to go to Michael Hart's Gutenberg Project and open up Turmalin by Stifter (a story about a father who locks his daughter in a cellar. Oh btw, Stifter is Austrian..).

Next, open up a Word doc and create a two-columned table. After adding the words it should look like this:



Next open up a new browser tab or browser window to the online English-German dictionary site Dict.cc.

Now, start reading. Any moment now, you'll find a word you don't recognize..already? Ok, take your cursor and highlight the word, then go to the dict.cc page and slap it in and hit "Search" then choose the most appropriate definition from the generated list below. Then go to the word doc and on the left side of the table copy in the German word, and on the right side the English definition. Rinse and repeat. 10x.

NOW. Here's the secret to studying and memorizing these words and it shouldn't take more than 10-15 minutes TOPS you'll be surprised.

Open up a notepad window then reduce it to the size and shape where it makes a vertical rectangle that covers over one side of the table, say, the German side. Then go down the list and quiz yourself on all the English words. Keep going until you memorize them all. Then cover the English side and test your knowledge of the definitions of the German words.

That's what I'm doing. I am learning at LEAST 10 new German words a day this way. And it's super expensive :P

Wish me luck!