59 Why Do Most German Courses Start at the Wrong Place?
2026-03-10 9 min
Description & Show Notes
Description
Why do so many people study German for years and still feel stuck? In this episode, Susi looks at one surprising problem with how many German courses are structured. You’ll hear why the starting point matters much more than most learners realize—and how approaching German differently can change the entire learning experience.
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Key Topics in This Episode
- Why many German courses begin in a way that makes learning harder
- What language learning actually looks like in real life
- Why the starting point of a course matters
- A common pattern in traditional German learning
- A different way to approach learning German
Mentioned in This Episode
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- Free Live German Workshop
- Email support for episode 58 PDF: podcast@bettergerman.info
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- https://bettergerman.info/workshop
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Transcript
The question is really why do most
German courses start in the wrong place?
It's certainly not how we
learned our own language.
Hello.
I am so glad that I'm back.
Obviously, you don't know
what I'm talking about.
I have started batch producing these
podcast episodes and, for the past,
I believe, almost three months.
I haven't actually recorded any new
podcast episodes, even though they have
been going out and I have missed it.
And I'm so glad that I'm back and
I feel I have so much to share.
And I have talked with, students so
much, so maybe I've talked to you in the
meantime and I am pumped to start sharing.
Basically in the last three months I
was on a, particular part of my project.
I was finishing up a lot of things, so
my Get Talking course could go live.
I have put together everything I've
learned in the last few years from
teaching German online into this new
course, and I'm very proud of it.
anyway, for the last three months
I've been mainly working on that and
now I'm at the end of launching this.
Actually, I am getting back to
podcasting and recording my podcast.
So that's the first part I wanted
to tell you, depending on when
you listen to this podcast.
If you listen to it right
when it's released, then the
cart is probably still open.
So if you're interested in that
course, you can absolutely join.
if not, then maybe the next time around.
then the next thing I wanted to say,
that's about the last podcast episode.
The last podcast episode was episode
58, and there was a technical problem
with the delivery of the free PDF.
So maybe if you've tried downloading
the free PDF to that episode and there
was a problem, just shoot us an email
at podcast@bettergerman.info and, we'll
make sure that you get the correct PDF.
Good.
So I'm not gonna make this a very long
episode, but I I've been talking to
so many students over the last weeks
and I wanted to get a few things
into the podcast because I thought
that this could be relevant to you.
It was very interesting for me.
And what was interesting about it was
actually that I almost forgot what
a normal German course looks like.
I'm so much into the way I
teach that I almost forgot
what normal courses look like.
So let's take a look.
I've titled the podcast Why Most German
courses Start in the wrong place.
So before we even answer that, let's look
at what do most German courses start with?
Most German, German courses
actually start with grammar.
A lot of grammar.
Maybe that's not what was the
case with your course, but
that's what's usually the case.
It's very interesting.
They start very grammar heavy and
it's like almost every book, it starts
with, a lot of theory and the point
is, not even that grammar is bad.
There isn't anything bad about
grammar, but it is at the wrong point.
So what should we start with?
When we are starting a German course,
we should be focusing on vocabulary
and learning a lot of vocabulary.
The question is really why do most
German courses start in the wrong place?
And actually don't have an answer,
to be honest, the first thing that
comes to my mind is, I don't know.
I don't get it.
I'm asking myself, why
do they start like that?
It's certainly not how we
learned our own language.
So it's interesting because if you take
a look at it, were you able to speak your
native language fluently when you were
six years old when you started school.
And I bet you, you could.
Yes, of course you couldn't say
so many things as you can say now.
Yes, of course.
you might have been shy.
Okay?
And then maybe you didn't speak so
much, but I bet you, you were fluent.
And if you are a beginner in any
language, you would be happy to be
as fluent as an average 6-year-old
person speaking their native language.
And now have a look at it.
How much grammar did
you know at that point?
I bet you you didn't know any.
And that is interesting because
I'm sure that your native language,
English or any other language is not a
language that doesn't have any grammar.
So basically you learned your
native language naturally.
You learned it, and then you learned the
rules later in school, and then you became
better and you were able to say things
very properly and you expanded on that.
But first you have to have,
something to build upon.
Because you cannot, I mean, honestly, a
grammar rule doesn't tell you anything.
Whenever you learn something,
you have to observe it.
If you learn a theoretical rule, you have
to read it, and then you have to think
about it, and then you have to observe it.
You have to see that it's the case.
You cannot do that, when you're not able
to speak German, You learned German or
your native language, the natural way,
and then, you learn the rules later, and
that is one of the things that is very
interesting, if you, start learning any
course, it's usually the other way round.
It's usually very grammar heavy
and very little application.
I'm not sure I can
actually give you a why.
I I have a theory.
The theory is that most language courses
are designed by people who are linguists.
So they went to school, they studied the
language for a long time, and then when
they write a grammar book, they write,
what they've learned, they have studied
this for a long time and they write it
for other people that are also linguists
but that's not the way how you learn it
when you are starting to learn a language.
I think we should orient ourselves as
to how did we learn our own language.
So when I teach German, or English for
that matter, I teach it the natural
way, much more like you have learned
your own language and you get a taste
of that listening to the podcast.
The whole thing I do with Word Lists and
repeating, and then now we're practicing.
This is much closer to how
we learned our own language.
But if you wanna hear more about that
and more about how actually we do
successfully learn German and about a
few other things that are missing in
traditional German courses, usually, or
it could be maybe they're missing in the
way you learn German, no matter if you're
in a course or not, but that have to be
there in order for you to succeed and
then what to do instead of those things
that I'm saying we're not doing, like,
okay, we're not supposed to do so much
grammar, so what are we doing instead?
How are we learning successfully?
Like, how can we learn how to
make a sentence and stuff like
that without the grammar rules?
Then, you can come to my workshop and
that is also the first step if you're
interested in doing one of my courses,
So go to better german.info/workshop
and you will find the date there
and, uh, you can sign up there and
I hope to see you there, Ciao, Ciao.