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Learn Vocabulary & Reading

While there is a ready-made vocabulary course on Memrise for the texts that you are about to work with, you don't have to leave this course to learn vocabulary and can start reading in German right away due to its smart design.

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to get to the ONLY COURSE on Memrise you should work with.

The video above will give you a general introduction on how to read any (!) text efficiently, including this course's texts. Whenever I say "book" in any of the videos in this course, I mean the texts that you will find in every single lesson of this course.

Don't worry if all the instructions seem like too much. I will guide you through the process step by step, and soon everything will be very intuitive for you.

How to read efficiently (overview)

0 | Don't even bother trying to retain all the information in this overview. In the very next step you'll be guided through your first real text step by step.

1 | Browse through the text on the next page and note any word that you don't understand. Do not try to understand what you are reading; just look for unfamiliar words. This is purely a technical task.

Do not look up definitions of the words yet. It will break your workflow and make your reading far more frustrating than necessary. You will get a chance to learn the meanings of these words.

2 | Next read the English translation. This will help you make more sense of what you are reading. If you still want to use a dictionary, you can look up no more than 5 words, so choose carefully! You do not need to understand every word of every text. It is all about making some sense from what meets your eye (and ear).

3 | Read the German text again. This time without the help of any translation.

4 | Finally read the text again, but this time listen to the audio that came with your text while you read along with the text. Pause the audio as often as you like to give your brain a chance to process the new information. Repeat this step once or twice as you like.

I'll guide you step by step through every single text in this course.

The course texts

The texts in this course are meant to be an inspiration and do not claim to be 100% accurate in their information. Neither is their content reason for any discussion in this course. For discussions about certain content please use my free online forum here or simply find a fitting Reddit forum

I certainly won't join any discussion other then about wrong statements or mistakes of any kind. If you like a topic, simply explore it a bit deeper with help of the internet. I'll often provide you with links to related pages or sources for our texts for further reading.

We tried to keep the tone and vocabulary of the texts as natural as possible. They are not simplified but rather difficult to master so you might at times have to invest some serious time in order to crack them. After all level B2 is quite a steep upgrade to your German level. But don't despair. With the sG techniques that you have learned in my A1-B1 course (which are the ones you'll find again in this course) you will be able to master B2 eventually. Remember: it is all about enjoying the journey and not about being the best at something here.

Share your Thoughts

Also try to explain in your own words what you have learned in this lesson.