Better German Episode 1
Unleashing Your German Language Skills: Insights from a Skilled German Teacher
2023-09-07 9 min
Description & Show Notes
Hey there! Welcome to Better German, the podcast that's all about helping you learn and improve your German language skills. I'm Susi, your host, and I couldn't be more excited to finally launch this podcast. Whether you're currently learning German, want to learn German, or have previously given up on learning German, this podcast is for you. In each episode, we'll dive into techniques for learning the language, share tips on resources, and even provide specific suggestions for learning German in Vienna. So grab your headphones and get ready to embark on this language-learning journey with me. In this episode I am going to give you an introduction about what is to come.
Summary
In this episode of the Better German podcast, host Susi discusses the reasons why learning German is beneficial. She emphasizes that while living in a German-speaking country may seem like an obvious reason, there are other factors to consider. Speaking German enables deeper communication with locals, enhances cultural experiences, and improves job prospects, especially in Austria where bilingual positions are available. Additionally, learning German opens up opportunities for travel and studying in Austria. Susi highlights the importance of language proficiency for navigating official matters and advises starting language learning early for university studies. Overall, this episode provides valuable insights into the advantages of learning German.
Looking for a place where you get support, can ask all the questions about German and get actual answers, find other learners and get weekly live German lessons? Then the Better German Community is for you. Check it out!
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I hope you enjoyed this episode. If you did, please subscribe and share the podcast.
I would love to stay in touch, so for news, new courses and books, subscribe to my newsletter.
Do let me know, which subjects you would like covered!
And watch out for the next episode!
Transcript
Welcome to the Better German podcast.
My name is Susi Blümel, and I will teach
you German and everything around the
language , the countries and the culture.
Hello, my name is Susi.
Welcome to the Better German podcast.
This is episode one.
So I'm going to tell you a little
bit, first of who I am and why I'm
even starting this podcast and what
you can expect with this podcast.
So it's about learning German.
I am a German teacher.
But my vision is to help even more people
than I could be helping now, or I have
been helping so far, to learn German.
Sometimes learning German has become
too complicated and people have given
up and people found it very difficult.
And my students have the opportunity
to learn it a little bit easier and
they enjoy it and I enjoy helping them.
And I want to help more people like
you to also have this experience.
My native language is German.
I live in Austria.
I have been a teacher for about 18 years.
At the end of 2005, I came
back from the United States.
I had done my education not only as
an English teacher, also as a trainer
and I came back after this training
and I started teaching English.
And then shortly after that people were
addressing me if I couldn't also teach
them German and I started teaching German.
However, to be honest in the
beginning, I didn't like teaching
German so much and it took me quite
some time to find good materials.
I have a colleague that
worked a lot there.
And I also developed a
lot of materials myself.
And after starting to use those materials
I finally started to like teaching
German because now I can teach German
using the same approach that I was
using before in my English classes.
Few years ago, 2018 I started
to mainly teach German.
And.
So far I've been teaching courses or
individual students either live or
online, now I'm only teaching online,
but I have come to the point where I
said, okay, I want to help more people.
And this podcast is one of
the steps to help more people.
It's going to be a weekly podcast.
As of now, there's going to
be one episode every week.
Roughly the schedule is going to be
one week, there's going to be some
teaching, For example, I'm going to
teach you words, a list of words.
And the other week, there's going
to be some more general thing.
Like how much grammar do we need?
And so on.
In the beginning, the teaching is going
to be more geared towards beginners.
But there will be stuff
for any level of German.
You can look at the podcast titles,
and then probably figure it out.
When I'm giving explanations or
give you information about German
speaking countries or Austria,
I'm going to speak English.
And obviously I'm going to
speak some German as well.
I'm a native of Austria . My
native language is German.
And my vision is to help all learners
of German to really learn this
beautiful language without unnecessary
complications or difficulties.
Sometimes in my experience it has
been made unnecessarily complicated
to learn, and I want to help you to
a German learning experience, that
is without these complications.
Let me know, if you want something
specifically covered or you have specific
questions and maybe it's going to be
the topic of an upcoming podcast episode.
So the upcoming episodes, to
just give you a little bit of
an idea of what I have planned:
We're going to cover the
reasons to learn German.
Actually, this one's live at
the same time as this episode.
And a few key words about
German or German course, and
an introduction to learning German
in different aspects of what you
can do and what you need to do.
Particularly also an
introduction to how I teach.
Then we're going to have a first word
list, a word list about body parts.
And then I'm going to go into
how much grammar do we need at
what level of German learning?
We're going to cover how
to introduce yourself.
We're going to cover what are
articles, the small words "der, die,
das" or "a" and "the" in English.
Just a small introduction.
And later on, I'm going to give you a
part two of what are German articles and
why we need them and how to learn them.
This is maybe interesting for many
students, because I've heard the
complaint of many German students, that
this is what gives the most trouble.
So I'm trying to take
some of the troubles away.
And then I'm going to give you my
favorite tips to learn German for free.
And I'm going to go over the
different methods of learning German.
In this case, you can do a course,
you can learn by joining a group or
pairing up with somebody else, or
get an online course and I'm going
to go into what are the different.
Pluses and minuses, or the
different aspects of each of these.
So if you are not sure which
one is the best for you, then
you can go into this episode.
This is just a small idea of
the next few episodes coming up.
Go to bettergerman.info/podcast.
And there you will find all the upcoming
topics and when they're scheduled.
And also on my homepage, on
bettergerman.info/ - and then
the number of the episode.
You will always find everything you need.
For every single podcast
episode, There is going to be
a separate page on my homepage.
And you will find it with the
number of the podcast episode.
So this is the podcast episode number one.
So if you go to my homepage,
bettergerman.info/1, you will be
on this page for this episode.
And not only can you listen to every
episode right there - obviously, you
can also listen to it on the usual
places where you find podcasts.
You can also download a transcript.
And you can find the show
notes there and all the links.
And sometimes some of the episodes
will have additional materials
that are downloadable and you
will always find the links there.
I could say something how I
even got into teaching German.
As I said before, after I did my training,
I started teaching English mainly.
And I loved the method that I was using.
And it took some time.
And a lot of work by one of my
colleagues who put in a lot of work
and also a lot of work that I put in
to come to the point where I am now.
And how I can help students
now to learn German.
And all of this, I want to give
to as many people as possible.
So if you're learning German, or
want to learn German, or have tried
to learn German, I want to help you
and I will help you – if you give me
the chance – to achieve your goal.
Thank you very much for listening to this.
Let me know what you need
and talk to you soon.
Thank you for listening to this episode.
You can find a transcript
of this episode at www.
bettergerman.
info and slash and then
the number of the episode.
You can also sign up for a newsletter
there and then you will be informed
when there is a new episode coming
or any other important events going
on, new articles, new freebies or...
things like that.
If you liked it and, uh, it was helpful
for you, please share it with other
people and let them know that this exists.
And if you are looking for a
course and you want to learn German
online, then you can, of course,
find all the infos as well on www.
bettergerman.
info.
So, see you there and see
you in the next episode.
Bye bye!