We recently added more than 60 new video lessons to our online German course to cover more topics and make certain challenging aspects of the grammar clearer. I'm very pleased with the new additions, especially as they clarify many points of confusion common to learners of German — points I and my classmates struggled with often in school and university. Let's have a look at what's been added.
First, video explanations of the “particles†section of our map have been added. German doesn't really have grammatical particles in a meaningful way. In other words, particles don't really form a separate grammatical category in the way they do in other languages, like Japanese, Mandarin, and Korean. Nonetheless, swearwords, insults, and other fillers and exclamations are an important part of German as any other language. The new particle section explores some of these most common swearwords and fillers in German.
Also added are a number of videos on verbal usage. We go through and explore examples of all the different tenses, distinctions of aspect, and uses of mood in German. Of particular value to the German student will be the discussion of the subjunctive, or "Konjunktiv.†Not only do we have several examples of the subjunctive in action, but we explore the difference between Konjunktiv I and Konjunktiv II in both formation and usage, including a mini map outlining all possible uses of the subjunctive.
Furthermore, we have added more detailed explanations of the constructions found on our map, which is a great way not only to learn sentence patterns, but also to pick up a significant amount of essential vocabulary. All examples are fully parsed and translated, with both a word-for-word literal translation as well as the idiomatic meaning.
We've also added some more video lessons to the vocabulary section, finishing up a full parsing and translation of chapter 1 of "Max's dream", our key vocabulary narrative. After completing the map portion of the program, as well as chapter 1 of this narrative, you should be in a position where you can easily continue to expand your vocabulary through the story simply through reading and using the parallel text translation in conjunction with the video and audio reviews.
Finally, we've added a couple of new videos to the memory section, using 3-D modeling to demonstrate how you can build a memory palace to store all the nominal declensions of German and keep all patterns and forms separate. We've also added better headings to lesson sections so that the program is easier to navigate, and easier to use in conjunction with our latest course, on memory.
Check out our German course here.