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Better German Podcast with Susi

Susanne Schilk-Blümel
Since 09/2023 48 episodes

48 Stop Forgetting German Words - Do These Easy Steps

2025-11-06

Description & Show Notes

Hello!✨Welcome to Episode 48 of the Better German Podcast, where host Susi Blümel dives into one of the biggest challenges every learner faces: Why it’s so hard to remember German words — and what you can do to make them stick finally.
She also shares some exciting updates about the show: new weekly episodes, a growing team, and easier access to free PDF companion guides — now available to everyone, not just community members!
The Better German Community is still open for you to join anytime — a friendly space to learn, practice, and connect with others who love the language as much as you do.✨

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🎧 Summary
In Episode 48 of the Better German Podcast, Susi Blümel tackles one of the biggest struggles in learning German — remembering vocabulary. She explains why word lists and flashcards often fail, and shares simple, proven ways to make new words truly stick. You’ll learn how your brain remembers language best and how to apply it in everyday practice. Explore more tips, free resources, and live courses inside the Better German Community — where real learners make real progress. ✨

Introduction
Welcome back to the Better German Podcast! In this episode, Susi Blumel shares some exciting updates about the show—including a new commitment to weekly episodes and easier access to the free PDF companion guides, now available to everyone, not just community members. But the heart of today’s episode tackles a common struggle that every German learner faces: why is it so hard to remember the words you’ve learned, and what can you do about it?

Then she gets personal: remembering her own struggles as a student with long lists of Latin and French words that just wouldn’t stick — until she realized every learner faces this, and there’s a better way.  And if you haven’t yet, check out the Better German Community — your space for extra resources, connection, and motivation on your learning journey.

🔎Key Topics
  • Why “Vokabeln lernen” (learning word lists) doesn’t work the way we think
  • The surprising truth about how your brain actually remembers new words
  • How children naturally acquire words — and what adults can learn from that
  • Turning passive study into active use: the secret is repetition and context
  • Practical ways to use new German words every day:
    ▫️ Make sentences (even if half of it’s still in English!)
    ▫️ Use post-its for objects — but go beyond the label
    ▫️ Write and say each new word in action
  • Why “using” a word beats “memorizing” it every time
  • The sentence-building trick that can transform your vocabulary
  • Susi’s “10 words a day” fluency plan — how real repetition leads to confidence
🎧Related Episodes
Episode 4: How to Learn German

🎧You May Also Like
Episode 5: Introduction to Articles
Episode 30: “To Be” in German
Episode 38: German Word List — Family Members
Episode 47: Practicing German Adjectives

📚Other Resources
  • Email your questions to podcast@bettergerman.info — Susi might answer them in an upcoming episode!
  • Check out the Interactive German Movie Guide with curated shows and subtitles in your language — a fun way to build vocabulary naturally.
  • Listen to all episodes of the Better German Podcast and follow along with the growing community of learners worldwide.

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Transcript

Something that often happens is basically, people try to remember the German words that they learned and they don't. So let's take the first word, "der Baum," and make a sentence. So now maybe you're saying, "Hey, but I can't speak German. That's why I'm here." Okay, I got you covered, I realized that. So let's look now at how can we actually remember the words that we're learning? Welcome to the Better German podcast. I am Susi Blümel, a German teacher and founder of Better German. This podcast helps to learn German in a simple and clear way. With useful words, clear sentence structures, pronunciation, and real life topics from daily life and culture. You'll also get tips for learning German and understanding how the language actually works. And when you're ready, we have a free community and courses to support you even more. So welcome. It's great to be back. Actually, I haven't recorded a new episode for a while and there's so much that has happened, but, because I've started batch producing like a month ago, or like almost two months ago, and that is very, very cool. I'm not sure if you're going to be super interested in that, but I'm just telling you what difference it makes for you is that because of all the reorganization I have been doing, we are now officially doing one new podcast episode every week! So that's one of the changes we're having. One other change that we're having is that every free PDF companions, guides, something like that, that I usually announce, like very often when we do a Word List or something like that, I always publish a PDF with the words and translations and usually example sentences and something for you to practice that. And in the past, most of them were only available within the Better German community, and so now what we're going to do, now, I can do this now because I've been expanding my team and I have a very good assistant, Samantha, and she's been helping me a lot and she can do a little bit more work now, and I have a second assistant also being trained right now. So, what that means for you is that every one of these PDFs are going to be available also if you're not in the community. I found that not everybody wanted to necessarily sign up for the community, and it's also a little bit more complicated, even though it was free or it has been free, it's a little bit more complicated than just entering your email address once and then getting the PDF. So, that's another thing that has been changing. Then while we're on changes, what we've also been updating is that I've conducted calls with students of mine or future, hopefully future students of mine, people that are listening, like with some of you to find out what exactly you need to help you best. And I'm putting all of this in a course and I'm very excited about this course. You're going to be hearing about that course project coming up. So, this is coming next year, depending on when you hear or listen to this, episode, this could be soon. So that's what I've been working on. Okay, but let's get into this week's episode. This week I'm talking about a thing that is not only relevant about learning German. I'm talking about something that often happens is basically, people try to remember the German words that they learned and they don't, and this is a very specific thing that we're looking at it. However, it's not only true for German. It is like that for every language. Let's look at, first, how people traditionally learn when they're trying to learn new words. Okay, so in in German, by the way, that's a new word, that's a new word for a word. In German, when we learn new words, you could say, vocabulary, we have a word that sounds very similar, "Vokabel". We usually use it in plural, "Vokabeln." So we have this expression, "Vokabeln lernen." So that means "learn new words" basically. But it really means that there is a list of terms or a list of words, and basically usually what you do is, or what I did when I was a student at school and I failed miserably at it, and what I see every single student that ever came to me, no matter if they were adults or if they were children, that I was tutoring when they were trying new, learning new words, unless they were really just starting out with me and learning it the way that I taught them, what they were trying to do that was the impulse, they were taking this list and they were trying to like read it and trying to memorize it. Trying to commit it to their memory, trying to kind of create an impression, I don't know where in their brain or something like that. I did that too when I was a kid at school. I remember I have very distinct, painful memories of long lists of Latin and French words. Not so much English, I guess, but Latin and French words that I was trying to remember, like as if my life depended from it and I couldn't. And then I realized at some point that this wasn't just me, this was every student apparently that ever learns a foreign language. They're trying to memorize these words. And then the only difference that I found is that some people, actually that's an improvement, some people were trying to make flash cards out of them and then, take the flashcards every now and then and look at them. That's another thing I saw. And then another thing I saw, and that's even also better still, but it only works for specific words, is that they made post-its and they stuck them on the object. So they write, for German, they would write "die Lampe" and stick it on the lamp and they would write a little post-it note with "das Fenster" and stick it on the window. That is actually not so bad. Shame if you want to learn words like "love" and "hope" and stuff like that. Anyway, for objects, it actually works. But, in my experience, that was the extent of what people know, and what's the problem about it? Well, it doesn't really work very well to be very honest, and it's very hard work and you just, it's not very fun and it doesn't really work all that great. So I want to tell you in this episode what you can do to make it better. All right, so let's look now at how can we actually remember the words that we're learning? I'm just going to go through some very simple examples. Let's first look, how did we learn our own language? So your own native language, what happened? So you were a child and then you learned a word, right? So your first word, let's pretend it's "ball" " Ball" in German. I have a very, very distinct memory of my little sister. I have a really little, I mean now she's not that little, but at that time, she was my little sister. We are almost 12 years apart, so I have a very distinct memory of her first years, and I remember her saying Ball and she really loved her ball, and she would say, "Ball, Ball, Ball." She would for some time, say to anything that remotely resembled the ball. So, that would include an orange and maybe even an apple. Anything that was round was "Ball," but that was only for like a few days. But the point I'm making is she was using that word and she was actually using it in a real communication. She very much wanted me or my mom or whoever was there to listen and acknowledge that. So that was an actual communication. She wasn't talking to herself necessarily. But anyway, so she learned this word and she repeated this word, and she will never forget that word, and that's what we did pretty much when we learned our own language, we learned one word and then we repeated it, and we repeated it, and we repeated it, and then we learned another word. Actually, we probably learned a few parallel. So, are we doing the same thing or are you doing the same thing when you learn German? Probably not, because if you did, then you would probably not be listening to this because then you would already be speaking German. So, in order to remember anything, or actually in order to learn anything, you have to repeat it. The key is practice here. So, what you need to do is you need to take a word and use it. Use it in sentences. Use it in a game. You can do that verbally. You can write it. It is super cool if you have a partner, like a study partner. One of the easiest ways of doing it is to make sentences. So for example, in one of the first, or probably the first lesson, if you learn German with me and if you take a course, actually, you can go back to the beginning of the podcast. There is a few episodes where I'm covering is there is episode four, I believe, which is like How to Learn German, and I'm already going into that. And then there is, I think episode six where we actually learn body parts, and what are we doing? We are going through a list and we're repeating it, So, let's take a few words and let's make an example. So I'm going to teach you a few words right here, that I haven't talked about in the podcast. Let's take "der Baum," That's a "tree" and then "das Haus" " a house." " das Auto " That's "a car." And one last one. Let's do, "der Topf." That's "a pot." So I hope you like what you hear. I wanted to mention this, so the best way to learn German with me is through my life group courses. You get real teaching, you get life support, and you get a clear path to really learn German and use the language. We also offer self-paced courses and the free community with resources and practice. All of that you find on bettergerman.info. Okay, so I'm going to say it, you're going to repeat it. Ideally, you would write this up, but we're in a podcast that's an audio format, so I'm doing it a little different than we do it in a normal class. So we're going to just say both of the words and you're going to repeat that like the English, the German, and the English. Actually I'm going to start this time with English and German tree. "der Baum." " der Baum" And you repeat it every time after me. House. "das Haus." "das Haus." So car "das Auto" "das Auto" and pot, like for cooking, for example, "der Topf," "der Topf." Okay. Now let's do that again just for the sake of a really good example. Okay, good. Tree. der Baum. der Baum house. das Haus das Haus car. das Auto. das Auto pot. der Topf. der Topf Good! So ideally you would either have that written up. Best thing is that you actually write it down, because if you write it down, you will actually remember it even better. In my experience. Okay, good! So now you do know how to say that word and you could be repeating that In a live class I would see if the students already in a video course, you would just keep doing that until you can do that part. Then do you think that you can do it now? Okay. I don't know what you said, but I don't think so. By the way, you are like way further than most of my students when they learn, like when they're at school, they write down the words. Literally, I mean, they write them down. Just had a student, she just finished high school, like what is high school graduation in Austria, that is Matura, and when she started learning with me, little more than a year ago actually, that's literally what she did to learn new words. She wrote them up, period. And then she was surprised that she wasn't able to say anything, so she didn't know how to say them. She hardly remembered what they meant. Okay, if you did that, what we did now, you were probably already further than you are when you're going to a classical course, sort of. However, you cannot apply these words yet, so you will not be able to say these words necessarily. I mean, okay, maybe "Haus," because that's so similar. So what you need to do is you need to practice them. And that is super, super simple. You don't need to look at the word and go like, "oh God, I need to remember, I need to remember." No, you just use it. One way and I'm going to give you several things that you can do. The simplest, most basic one is to simply use the word in sentences. So let's take the first word, "der Baum," and make a sentence. So now maybe you're saying, "Hey, but I can't speak German. That's why I'm here." Okay, I got you covered. I realized that. So what you do is you take the word "der Baum," or even "Baum," Ideally, I mean, that's just an additional tip. It makes it easier. Use it with the article so you remember the article as well, which is very, very helpful in German. But, either way, you take the word and you can use the rest if you can't make a German sentence yet. Then you can even say the rest of the sentence in English. That's particularly if you are at the very, very beginning. I'm using this mainly in the first three to four lessons, so in the first one or two months of learning. After that you can make, even though it's simple sentences, enough things in German already. But let's make a few examples how that could look if you don't speak any German, you could say, "der Baum is big." "der Baum is green." " der Baum is in front of my house." "My dog likes der Baum." And yes, we are not caring about grammar at this point. Good. So, if you can already say a few things in German, you can say, "der Baum ist groß," which means "The tree is big." Or. sorry, der Baum ist Grün. "The tree is green." And ideally at this point in time, we left it out, you also look at the plural of the word and the plural is, " Bäume." So you could say, "Ich mag Bäume. "I like trees," But the point here is two things: Do try to say as much as you can in German. Don't worry if it's correct or not, as long as you say the word that you're learning correctly. And two, even if you can do that, still makes sentences. This action all by itself, taking every word that you learn and use it in sentences, in many sentences. This action alone will actually be what gives you a fast German language. I have even seen people that, had learned some German, or quite some German, but very theoretically, and they couldn't speak. Just doing this alone for a surprising short time, like, I don't know, two, three weeks, making sentences with maybe a hundred words and suddenly they started speaking German. So this is like almost magical, or it can be almost magical if you have learned for a long time and left that step out. If you are just a beginner, then it's perfect for you. I can't tell you how fast or slow you are learning, and please do not get discouraged if it's not just a few weeks. People learn at very, very different speeds, and this is completely irrelevant for you if you're fast or slow. The only thing or the only person that you should compare yourself to is yourself a couple of weeks ago or a couple of months ago. So as long as you are making progress and as long as you're sticking with it, if you do this, this action alone, you will learn German. You will need to learn how to make correct sentences in order to learn good German. But I'm telling you, if you just do this and you learn a vocabulary about of about 3000 words, and you can do that. That's like 10 words every day. You take 10 words and you use them in sentences, and you make 10 sentences each, and you write all so many sentences with each. So you spend, I don't know, half an hour doing that. If you do that every day, within a year, you will have fluency. I'm not saying that you will necessarily speak a good German, but you will be able to communicate. Maybe it takes you longer than a year, but it is doable. And now I have given all of my tricks away and you actually never need to take a German course again. And I am halfway joking because the point why I'm doing this, I really wanna help people learn German, and I have seen people that actually did it that way. So this is probably one of the biggest secrets you could learn regarding learning a language, and it works in every language. It even works with your own. If you want to expand your vocabulary, if you want to be speaking better, whatever your native language is, or English, then same thing. Take a word. I do suggest using dictionaries, but I'm going to make another episode about that. Anyway, so have fun using these words. Do it orally like spoken and do it in writing. If you have a partner that you're teaming up to learn German, you can absolutely do it with him or her, but you can also do it by yourself. You don't even have to say them out loud, but I think it is fun to say them out loud. But you can also just kind of think them and definitely I suggest you to say the words and write the words. There's of course other things that will make it even better, like do conversation examples. You can do some, role play, and you use the same thing, by the way, when you read. When you read German books or any books and you learn a new word and you look it up in a dictionary and then you absolutely make sentences. And so you learn a new language word by word by word, and I know that it appears to be slow to do it that way, but I'm telling you, that's really just an appearance. This is the fastest way to learn. Okay! So I hope that this is something that you find helpful. There is no particular free material for this episode, but you can definitely check out, other episodes and free materials, and I hope that I'm going to hear you again soon. If you have anything that you want to ask, then just write to me at podcast@bettergerman.info and you can ask questions, or tell me what I should be, making podcast episodes about, and don't worry, I have enough to say anyway. But, if you have questions, then let me know and maybe it's going to be one of the next episodes. I hope that in today's episode you learn something that gets you one step closer to mastering German. If you found it helpful, it would absolutely mean the world to me. If you could leave a five star review and whenever you're ready for more, just visit bettergerman.info. Okay! Stay tuned, Ciao Ciao!.

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