Today is THE day. 15 exercises in 1 hour and a half: 4 of vocabulary (food and drinks, family relations, kitchen tools, and garbage), 8 of grammar (Indefinitpronomen, Direktionaladverb, wenn, Konjunktiv II of können and sollen, weil, Wechselpräpositionen mt Akkusativ and Dativ..), and 3 of communication with neighbours and in a restaurant. Again, I don’t want to jinx it, but I think it went well. Except for the vocabulary which you know I hate.

The interview later went fine. I really like this position and the work the company does, so I’ll keep my fingers crossed. I went for a run right after, and I was lucky to get out to see the sunset in time – what a beauty!

I’m lucky to live this close to Schönbrunn. It’s a great place to go for walks and runs in any season. I heard they actually change the flowers and floral patterns in the gardens every season, so it’s always a new feeling every time. And the way you’re able to immerse yourself in the forest, and forget you’re in a European capital… you gotta love Vienna.

Day before the first test, today! Yes, tomorrow we have a small mid-way test for the teacher to see how everyone is doing and if we need help or to revise in something specific. We review the topic of the Imperativ which we saw in A1.2, with verbs like “machen”, like “arbeiten” with “t” or “d”, like “lesen” or “sprechen” that change their “e” to “i”, and like “fahren” with the “ä”. Then the teacher introduces the modal verbs “sollen” and “können” in their Präteritum form: sollte, konnte.

As tomorrow is the test, we spend the second part of the class after the break that we always take at 10am, to revise the topics that we have done in the past classes, in this case the topics of the first 4 units of the book that we are using.

After class I rush home, cause I want to have lunch and I have to prepare for the test of tomorrow, but most importantly because I have to research a company… because I was asked to join (tomorrow afternoon) an interview for the application that I sent during the weekend! I’m over the moon but I don’t want to jinx it. Will follow updates. I leave you with a beautiful commercial that I see on my way home from school, and that leaves me in awe every time.

Back to school on Monday, we correct the “Hausübung” and tell each other how the weekend was (pretty standard for me, I sent out some job applications and hung out with my flatmates). Despite my focus to always write on the grammar we learnt (which is my favourite part to be honest), we have been introducing new vocabulary last week, and so we revise that. Afterwards, we learn the use of “wenn” and “dann”, which thankfully work pretty much like “weil” in a sentence.

After school I walk home all the way through the 4^th and the 5^th districts, to get to the 12^th where I live in a very nice but tiny WG. I do the homework for tomorrow, and somehow I find the energy to go for a run around Schönbrunn. I can’t go inside because this month the garden closes really early in the evening and I’d risk remaining locked inside and meeting the famous ghost that lives in the Gloriette… 😊

Today it is Friday and I’m happy that the week is over. Just as happy for how this first week back to German was. We worked on the Indefinitpronomen today, to complicate things a bit more. I say it in a very honest way, and as a person who loves languages and learning German: this language is tough! We finally get comfortable with a grammar rule or using a certain construct. Right away from around the corner comes a new challenge. So now we have something that looks a lot like an article, but has a different ending and it is a pronoun. And I write this with a smile on my face, don’t get me wrong 😊 Challenge accepted German!

To end the week on a very productive note, I walk to the beautiful Nationalbibliothek. It is just a few minutes away from DeutschAkademie passing through the Burggarten, and I get something done for my Master thesis. It’s lovely to study here, even though you have to pay a small fee to get in. It is very calm and the building from outside is an attraction itself.

Relaxing day today regarding the grammar and new things: we learnt about the use of rein, raus, rauf etc. and we revised the Wechselpräpositionen which we did yesterday with both Dativ and Akkusativ. We played a very funny game in couples, in which we had to tell each other where the rats were on a picture that we were given. Of course, the rats were in different positions in our two pictures, and Zeinab and I got almost all of them right! I really enjoy these games because we get to practise in a very spontaneous way, and I find it important that we have some lighter days where we add some vocabulary and just a little grammar, cause it can be hard to do keep up the attention in such an intensive course.

Today the sun is unexpectedly shining and the wind is not to strong, so after the class I decide to go to the place that made me fall in love with Vienna and move here: the Belvedere. I just love the garden, and although in summer and spring is much more colourful, it has its charm even in winter. The highlight of the art collection is of course “der Kuss” in the Upper Belvedere.

It’s day 3 of my 2022 DeutschAkademie adventure and it’s a tough topic today: Wechselpräpositionen. It was hard enough to learn the articles in “Dativ” and “Akkusativ”, and to remember that with these prepositions (an, neben, zwischen…) the dativ was required (we did this in A1.2). But now we have to use them with akkusativ too? But in a different situation and with different verbs? German is really a challenge 🙂 Between the thousand rules and the exceptions and the very illogical things that you have to learn by heart…. the good thing is that actually having class every day helps a lot. Even if you wanted to forget something you wouldn’t be able to.

One thing I really like about this course is the homework: weird right? we try to escape them all our school years and now I enjoy them. They actually only take 10-15 minutes. But they are extremely good to see if you’ve understood the new rules and to memorize the new words without having to learn them by heart from a list. Plus we usually get a very small written assignment which we then give to the teacher who brings it back the next day. I’m usually very confident that what I wrote is correct, but when the corrected version comes back.. Let’s just say I’m here to learn 😉

Rainy day today, I got to class just in time to correct the homework: somehow I took the wrong U-Bahn and realized only 2 stops later. The biggest topic that we covered today was the use of the Perfekt and Partizip II. We had already done it in the end of A1.2 but it was great to revise it. We got to add a few details and rules that we overlooked the first time.

Our teacher Christine is great, she only speaks German in class, and whenever we ask the meaning of a word, she uses simpler words. She’s very patient to find more ways to say something until everyone understands. Plus, the classes are extremely interesting: there is always a component of speaking, listening, grammar, and vocabulary, and she makes it fun by making us do games or small dialogues in pair.

First day in DeutschAkademie after more than a month away from learning German! Tough, but great. I have forgotten so many words from A1.1 and A1.2, but they are slowly coming back to my mind as I start to hearing and speaking only German. My class has only 7 students, and I find that everyone’s level is really high: in the other courses I took we were 12 people, but this course I’m taking now is only over 3 weeks, not 4, and we do 5 days a week instead of 4, so it’s super intensive.

Anyway, today we introduced ourselves and by answering the question “Warum lernst Du Deutsch?” we got to learn the use of “weil” in a sentence. After class I went to the Naschmarkt which is right around the corner from the school with a friend from the course whom I had met in November. We had an amazing falafel sandwich and two small but tasty pieces of backlava with ice cream and chai.

Believe it or not, a month has already passed by. This month has passed by very fast, probably because we all have been overwhelmed about the number of things to be done.

This was my second month in a row doing the course at the DeutschAkademie. I am pleased to see how much my brain has adapted to the language. Now I have started talking on my own with very simple phrases and words in German.

Today’s last topic was „should“, „would“, „could“ and „might“. We went through some grammar rules and did some exercises such as translating, examples and speaking. Afterward, we talked about what we were able to do as kids or what we used to like.

Few little things that I have learned during these past months is that in order to improve you should really practice every day, learning new vocabulary every week and get familiar with the most common verbs and with a little bit of luck and effort you will be able to see results.

Hope you guys enjoyed my blog and hope that your learning process will be smooth!

Liebe grüße.

About what, on what, at what. A rough translation for an apparently easy topic but then we realized that is way trickier than it looks like. The differences are quite subtle and in English especially there is no specific translation for all of them.

After the first hour of going through grammar we started doing some exercises and did some translations as well. After that, we broke out into small rooms and asked each other some phrases using these 3 words.

Around half an hour before ending our class we also studied how to say “I am looking forward to see you“, „I am looking forward to go there“, „I have joy doing something” etc.

The lesson was quite intense, especially because we all had lots of questions about this new topic but finally, we managed to get the best out of it.

This afternoon I am going to go to the canal to have a walk with a friend of mine. Today it is such a spectacular day, yet glacial, but I want to catch some sun lights.

Have a nice evening and see you tomorrow for our last class!

Today it is the coldest day so far, but a bright sun is shining, so everybody is in a good mood. We started out our class with some adjective and words games. Then we broke out into small groups and pretended to call someone and wanting to book an appointment.

After that we started going through a new grammar topic which is reflexive verbs. That are pretty much verbs with additional pronouns that refer back to the subject. These pronouns are called reflexive pronouns.Then we did some exercise about that on the book. Afterwards all of us had to think about a reflexive verb, it was a useful and engaging activity.

Now the class is over, and I am about to go to have a walk along the Donau, hoping not to freeze.

Have a nice evening and see you tomorrow!