Rationale

The ideas behind this step

You have already worked with the sentences of your Diktat in the former steps of this cycle, so some of the words you hear should sound familiar. If you do not understand anything, use → The Quicktime Player 7 (!) from Apple or the → VLC player which allows you to slow down the speed of the audio. If this still doesn’t help, simply repeat the previous steps of this cycle. A Diktat requires and trains several skills of yours at once:

Listening

You need to listen very attentively in order not to miss even a nuance of what is being said.

→ There will be sounds, mainly word-endings, that you simply won’t be able to hear, no matter how much you try. After the age of 16, most people lose the ability to distinguish sounds that do not exist in their native language. But as an adult you can still manage to "hear" these sounds with your brain and also learn to produce them. It is just a lot more work. Also: no one expects you to sound like a native speaker. You might aim for that if you enjoy (!) such a challenge but it is completely unnecessary.

While in real life you won’t always have to listen to every detail, at times they might be important, e.g., it matters a lot whether someone says

Ich möchte einen heißen Tee. Or
Ich möchte einen Eistee.

Don't expect to master German in a short time. You'll learn fast with this course but it will still take quite a while until you are able to quickly deal with such nuances and to speak fluently and properly without thinking. That's just human. If you are not human, please contact me. I'd be very interested in your planet's culture.

Writing

Many German learners complain about their weak writing or not quite as weak spelling skills. After a few Diktate, you will know how to spell many German words as your brain will have noticed recurring spelling patterns, e.g., the letter combination “sp” is usually pronounced “shp” as in “spielen”: to play → speak: shpeelen

Reading

What you write, you will automatically read. You will also listen to the audio again after writing and read along your freshly written lines. Should you have any gaps in your first draft, now is the time to fill them. When reading along with the text while listening, you will “hear” missing words better because you can sometimes predict them, thanks to their context.

Grammar

There are words, spellings, and endings that can’t be heard properly. You have got to learn those by heart. Your grammar skills will help you to “hear” whether the speaker said: “Ich habe den Mann informiert.” or “Ich habe dem Mann informiert.” (the first sentence is correct, the second one not).

Share your Thoughts

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