• German Guide
    • How To Learn German

    Your German Learning Guide

  • German Guide
    • How To Learn German

    Your German Learning Guide

    Start Learning German Today!

    Refold’s (abridged) guide to (starting to) learning a language.

    In this guide, you will be guided through how to begin learning a language. This guide is an excellent starting point, but after a few days/weeks of learning, you’ll want more!

    Be sure to join the Refold Discord Community for more tips, tricks, and advice.

    Join the discord servers:

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    The Refold Method

    If you’ve found Refold, then you’ve probably already tried to learn a language, and you probably didn’t achieve the results you wanted.

    We used to struggle too! Which is why we started Refold. We were tired of struggling for months, only to hardly be able to hold a basic conversation.

    Our method focuses on two things:

    1. Learner success rate
    2. High level fluency

    That first goal we solve by focusing on sustainable learning habits and having fun with learning. Once you’re able to have FUN in a language, you’ll never want to stop! You can enjoy YouTube, Netflix, podcasts, and novels.

    And the second goal, of high level fluency, we achieve by ignoring traditional language learning advice. With the Refold method, you won’t be doing:

    • Grammar Drilling
    • Conjugation Charts
    • Themed (and boring) Vocab Lists
    • Translation
    • Stressful Speaking Practice

    These methods are okay if your goal is to pass a class and to get a passing knowledge about the language. But if you want to be able to naturally and easily speak, they won’t be much help.

    Instead, we focus on building an instinct for the language, so that you understand easily and can imitate what native speakers say. You’ll sound much more natural and fluent.

    We do this through immersion in the language, in the comfort of your own home, and becoming comfortable understanding the language, not through speaking and writing. You’ll do this by watching TV or videos in the language, listening to podcasts, reading books and whatever else you can find!

    To get a better idea of the entire Refold method, here’s a 10-minute video which goes over the entire process!

    The Basics of German

    Since you’re new to learning German, it’s a good idea to get a general idea of how the language works.

    You should NOT try to memorize all the information in this section. The goal is to learn some of the most fundamental parts of the language so that you’re not surprised. It’s like looking at a map of a city before you go visit. You’re not learning every street name, but it’s useful to learn that there’s a bus network or that there’s a huge park you should go visit.

    Watch some (or all) of these videos over the course of the next few days, don’t try to do everything today.

    Phonetics (Sounds)

    Learning to hear a new language can be challenging. Every language has different sounds. Even if you think the sounds are the same as your native language, they are slightly different. You won’t be able to hear these differences until you have immersed for hundreds of hours.

    German Phonetics

    German phonetics are fairly straight-forward, but do have a lot of things going on.

    There are a lot of sounds very similar to English and other Germanic languages.

    The most difficult part will be getting used to some brand new vowels sounds. Learning to hear the differences will be the biggest hurdle, but the second video below will set you on your way.

    Here are some resources we like for learning German phonetics:


    German Script

    • German uses 26 of the Latin alphabet, plus a few letters with umlauts ä, Ăź and Ăś and ß.
    • These extra symbols aren’t considered their own letters, but more like modifications, like how sch together aren’t a new letter, but are a new sound.
    • The spelling rules are very consistent. After a little practice, you’ll be able to read every German word.

    🇩🇪

    Refold German Alphabet Deck

    Learn the German alphabet the Refold Way!

    Get the deck!

    German Vocab

    Vocab is discussed again later in the guide. This section is only a quick introduction.

    • The most frequent 1,000 words in the German language make up about 88% of spoken German. Studying these words will help you quickly understand your immersion.
    • German and English share a ton of words, so you already know lots of German. Use our optimized flashcard deck to quickly build your vocabulary:

    Learn Fundamental German Vocabulary

    100 days of new, useful vocabulary to help you learn German.

    Get the Deck

    Free Recommended Resources

    Goethe Verlag A1 vocabulary deck

    Language Transfer

    Excellent free course to learn basic words and grammar

    Grammar (Sentences)

    Grammar is the glue that turns words into sentences. Studying a little bit of grammar will help you make sense of the words you see in your immersion.

    Grammar is not a set of strict rules. Languages are messy and illogical, so you shouldn’t expect the patterns to be consistent or have a logical explanation. If you find yourself asking “why does it work this way?” The answer is often “It just does. Don’t worry about it.”

    German Grammar

    German Grammar Primer

    Learn all the grammar you need to begin immersing efficiently!

    Read the guide now

    German Video Grammar Course

    Being a Beginner

    As a beginner, you won’t understand much at all (maybe even nothing). That’s normal. We all start somewhere! Your goal right now is to learn enough of the language so that you don’t need to force yourself to have fun.

    This can be a challenging process, but Refold is here to help you navigate the difficulties of learning a new language.

    There are a few keys to understanding a new language:

    1. Use priming*
    2. Use easy material

    Priming

    Priming is what we call “studying things about the language.” We call it priming, since you’re only preparing yourself to learn those ideas and concepts during immersion.

    If you learn a new word, for example, but you never see it in the real world, your brain will forget it very quickly, because it’s not useful. But if you see that word often and in context, your brain will realize it’s important, and store that information for the future.

    Here’s a (slightly long) video diving into how we learn words (watching is optional):

    For now, your priming should be learning the first 1,000 words of the language. We recommend using Anki for this, since it works on all platforms and doesn’t overwhelm you with tons of ads, paywalls and lets you focus on learning.

    We offer our DE1K Anki deck on the Refold store. It’s been handcrafted to contain the 1000 most useful and common words and has native recorded audio and example sentences.

    Learn Fundamental German Vocabulary

    100 days of new, useful vocabulary to help you learn German.

    Get the Deck

    If you’d rather a free option, there are many options on the Ankiweb Shared page, but they’re all of varying quality.

    When you’re ready to install Anki, here’s a quick tutorial:

    If you’re not interested in using Anki or you already have an app you like, you can continue with that. There are dozens of potential options like Memrise, Clozemaster, Lingvist, Duolingo, Buusuu, Fluent Forever, etc. Each have different benefits (and disadvantages) and support different languages.

    Once you have your vocab priming tool ready to go, all you need to do is study every day!

    Easy Materials

    We also recommend beginning to immerse with very easy content. This is sometimes called “Comprehensible Input” or “Beginner Content” or “Learner Content.”

    The main purpose of content like this is to make it easier to understand, even if you’re brand new to learning a language.

    Here’s a tutorial on how to start using content from your very first day learning a language:

    We recommend using YouTube to find content. There are thousands of hours of materials that you can access totally for free. But, don’t continue to use a YouTube account you already have in your native language.

    It’s too easy to get distracted and end up not spending time with the language. Here’s a tutorial on how to set up an “immersion account.”

    Beginner Content

    German has a lot of great beginner content! Here are some of our recommendations:

    German Playlists

    When starting a YouTube account for immersion, YouTube will not know what content to give you. The above Seeder Playlists contain a variety of thematic playlists based on level or topic.

    With the seeder playlists you can quickly find, watch, like, and subscribe to YouTube channels in German to “seed” or program the YouTube algorithm to give you content in German that is tailored to your specific interests.

    You should also check out the German Crowdsource Database for more beginner suggestions!

    Learning basic words and immersing in easy content can take you very far! You will struggle to understand things in the beginning, but with time, it gets much easier.

    Immersion Tools

    You could just use simple content and some priming, but there are a few additional tools that can make your life MUCH easier.

    These tools allow you to easily look up new words you find and help you to understand immersion materials.

    Language Reactor

    Language Reactor is a Chrome extension which helps you to watch videos on YouTube and Netflix while quickly looking up words.

    It’s optional, but we recommend you try it and see if you like it!

    Popup Dictionary

    A popup dictionary is a dictionary that you always have with you and opens to the right page, right away. We recommend Definer (available for Firefox and Chromium).

    When you click on a word, it will be looked up and translated automatically!

    Once you install the extension from the web store, it will work with no configuration, but if you’d like more detailed definitions, you can add more languages or dictionary sources.

    Using tools like Language Reactor and Definer will help you to understand more of the language early on in the process.

    Setting Yourself Up for Success

    The final, and potentially most important, part of this guide is focused on your future. There are a lot of great language learning apps and resources on the internet, but great materials don’t matter if you don’t have a learning system.

    Your learning system is how you approach your language learning. It’s a combination of your habits, routine, materials, mindset and many other things.

    Systems Beat Motivation

    You’re likely very excited to start learning a new language right now, but that motivation will fade. When it does, you need to have a daily system in place to carry you to success. Take a moment right now to plan your system.

    At the beginning of your learning process, you should keep things as simple as you can.

    Here’s a video talking about making your language plan.

    Daily Minimums

    Your motivation will fade. There will be days when you don’t feel like studying. On these days, the most important thing is to do ANYTHING in your target language, even if that just means 2 minutes of immersion.

    This helps you build the habit and makes it easier to immerse the next day.

    2 minutes is infinitely more than 0 minutes. So do 2 minutes, and call it a win.

    Accountability Buddies

    If you want some friends to help keep you accountable, join our accountability group!
    Every day, a bunch of learners post what they did for the day and cheer each other on! It’s a simple way to stay engaged and motivated since you know others are out there doing it too.
    After joining the server, click the other roles channel, then on the little target down below!
    We’re here to help!

    Conclusion

    That’s the end of the Quickstart guide!
    Save this page so that you can come back in the future.

    If you need more support on your learning journey, check out our “Teach Yourself a Language Course” for a guided, coach supported learning journey.

    Check out the course today!Learning New Languages With Refold
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