Anyone feel like collaborating making learning materials for/from German books/movies/series?

Community-Created Courses German
1

I want to improve my German. One part of this is improving my reading/vocabulary. I could just start reading books in German again, but I’m thinking this time around I could use spaced repetition to make it easier.

I’m thinking I would like to, in an Excel file, link every word in the material to:

  • Its dictionary definition in a German-German dictionary
  • Its definition in several German-Other Language dictionaries
  • The first [n] paragraphs/lines the word is used in.
  • The frequency of the word in several corpora + the frequency of the word in the current material

If you wanted to use movies/TV-series as a source, you could additionally rip small audio/video clips from the video file using subs2srs.

Having this, you could make a course the way you want it in the program/service you want.

I’m scratching my head still on, mainly, (1) how to deal with the different forms of a word and how that affects dictionary and sentence lookup, and also (2) which dictionaries to use.

For (1) my idea for now is to have a source that has all the different word forms for words and when I want to make an entry for a word, copy & paste the word forms for that word into a a table in Excel and have Excel filter the sentences using that table. That would probably kinda work, but it’s too many operations for my taste.

For (2), easiest would be to link to different online dictionaries. I know Anki allows this, and for now you can also do this on the website version of Memrise with a userscript. Ideally you don’t want to have to rely on internet access though.

If you’re interested in the same for Swedish, see:

If you’d like help with other languages, I can see what I can do. For Chinese I’ve already prepared something. I have a Pleco dictionary file for 《武林外传》for example that gives the first 10 lines the word is used in and frequency data. And I can quickly make something for you.

Anyone interested in collaborating or just pointing to resources? The perk would be that you’d get nice learning materials for the material you want.

Tagging @Geil, @cherub721, @Kaspian, @Hydroptere, @Uber1, @Andrea_Mo3, @TheFour-GatedDanzig, @dylan.nicholson.548, @SYberg as I see them posting in the German subcategory.

2

just the first impression…

… German films, with very few exception, do not excel in the domain of “above average parlance”…

… for a strong source regarding the vocabulary, I do recommend dwds.de.
A lot of “Korpora” in the direction you seem to want to follow

1 Like
3

Not sure what to say on 1, other than that’s going to be a lot of work no matter what.

another source (though not much subtitles) is… has just about every show you can think of.

I have also been working on a rather ambitious course at the moment. Transcribing my out of print Austrian Hochdeutsch dictionary in its entirety.

1 Like
4

I think your best bet is to avoid cases and conjugated adjectives or particles. If you already have a solid grasp on the grammar, you should be fine learning the standard form and applying it yourself.

For sources, this depends on what type of literature you wish to read. Learning HP vocabulary is helpful if you plan on tackling fantasy novels, but it’s not going to help so much reading Hölderlin.

If I were starting today, I think I would want the standard German not “above average parlance” lol of https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frühling_(Fernsehserie) . You could rip the subs from that.

Then, book wise, Böll writes in limpid German but keeps the complex syntax. He’d be a great introduction to read belles lettres. Maybe take his vocabulary, plus maybe Buddenbrooks? With the normal sentences and vocabulary from Frühling with the literary diction, you’ll be all set.

1 Like
5

Hello, check my library: http://readlang.com/user/58895c06c5e20bf71407c3d8/texts/de
This site has also SRS and dictionary functionality integrated.
I will be glad to add more content to it with you and other members of the community.
You’ve there a movie, tv shows, news clips, learning materials, and music.
Check the Deutsch Plus shelf for an example of both English and German translation side by side.
We can add a lot more.
I’m trying first just finishing all the stuff I already added there.

1 Like
6

Thanks @Hydroptere for pointing me to https://www.dwds.de/ I will be using that.

Thanks @Geil for the link. I started watching the dubbed GoT on there. That confirms that dubbed series are a bit too easy, the diction is too clear, (but then I still like German subtitles – which you can apparently add). I’ll explore the site more to look for native German context. You also gave me the idea to look for the sites of the German TV-stations.

Thanks. Yeah. It was worth a shot. What I’m now planning to do is either read or watch something. If I’m going to read something, and I decide to use spaced repetition, I’ll print out the text and mark any words I don’t know, and after I’ve marked no more than 25 or so words, add cards to Anki for those words. The cards will have the text of the paragraph, a screenshot of dwds.de, and a screenshot of a German - Other Language dictionary. If I’m watching something I’ll make a screenshot, and an audio or screen (video) recording. I’ve been playing with OBS Studio, recommended here: http://www.techradar.com/news/the-best-free-screen-recorder but even a 10 second video at 640x360 resolution gives me a 5MB file, so I’ll have to see if I’m doing something wrong or if that becomes a problem if I make thousands of cards like that in Anki. Or maybe it’s just better to use audio.

Thanks. I’ll take a look. Do you have any other recommendations for tv-series?

I’m going to ignore your book recommendations for now :slightly_smiling_face: I’ll think I’ll start with Astrid Lindgren and quickly move on from there.

I don’t. At all. My writing is non-existent. I’m planning on doing a conjugations course. Does anyone have recommendations for typing conjugations courses? I’m also planning to start writing on https://www.italki.com/ or similar.

@Casper_duo, thanks. I’ve tried readlang after you suggested it in the other topic. I like it because it’s so easy to use. I don’t like it because it only gives one-word definitions, which are too often wrong. That’s such a big drawback that I don’t want to use it. I’m better off finding a browser plugin that gives better definitions or best of all try to get the pop-up dictionaries on my e-reader to work.

7

I’m using it with a subscription ($5). Try it for one month.

Check also this: https://www.duolingo.com/comment/22965982
I would love it if someone would do a Memrise course for the Heute Show.

And a TV-show with subs about mountain rescuers: https://www.zdf.de/serien/die-bergretter/steinschlag-1-100.html

1 Like
8

Thanks @Casper_duo :slight_smile: I tried it one more time and watched the instruction videos. I’ll give it a try. I’ll probably like it. And thanks for the TV-show. I couldn’t load your duolingo link.

9

ard.de, zdf.de, arte.tv, 3sat, all have the option with subtitles… and Hörfassung, oder Hörversion, I forgot how they call it

zum Beispiel: http://www.ardmediathek.de/tv/Alle-Filme/mehr?documentId=31610076

zum Beispiel ZDF:

Capture.JPG1301×317 28.4 KB

the second symbol in der Taskleiste (menu bar?) down in the video screen, Untertitel anschalten/abschalten

for a bit smater documentaries, news etc, I’d say maybe 3sat and arte… (well, propaganda all over the place, but still)

1 Like
10

I should of mentioned this before, but youtube already gives you all the practical tools to learn any language, with virtually no work involved.

image.png1117×702 426 KB

find a good news channel such as the one above (that is Austrian)
subscribe to it…

click here to lower the speed to 75%

image.png1129×538 402 KB

click on CC for captioning.

log on a good dictionary in a second window next to the video and look up words you don’t know.

You can do this for just about any video. And there are countless Channels auf Deutsch.

1 Like
11

This is not a very good suggestion. Firstly, the captions are almost certainly automatic, so the quality is questionable. Secondly, manually searching, and typing by hand, almost every second word with a dictionary is highly inefficient and a waste of time. I will only recommend it for people who are already at a high level and understand a good portion of it (like 80%).

Look at my suggestion above instead:

Arete_Hime said before that the link is not working but it seems to be working fine for me, so I don’t know why it didn’t work for him.

You can also import such current event clips with accurate transcript quite easily: http://readlang.com/library/5943328bc5b758211fa26db8/scroll/0

I think it is actully better to do it in isolated bite size chunks like that, until you’re more advanced, and then moving on to other methods.

1 Like
12

you have control over the content you watch. It does not have be advance news topics.

and the closed captioning is actually pretty accurate. Not perfect, but damn good enough.

making your own content linking to multiple dictionary sources seems like a lot more work than typing a word here and there.

13

No, the syncing is quite fast and the transcript is easy to find (but sometimes you need to make a few adjustments).
It’s quite a fast process actually (less than the length of the video if no corrections to the transcript is needed), and you can also share it with the community and do collaborative efforts, and also rewatch it, and test yourself on a particular video at a later date, as many times as you want. The video in itself can become the SRS. The initial effort spent is just a one-time thing. There are a lot of benefits in doing it this way, and the added initial work is quite minimal and quickly compensated. You will actually save a TON of time. No need to go back and recheck definitions etc.

I’m mostly relying on google translation to try to quickly make sense of it, and I’m quite certain that will only lead to adding another layer of confusion, to an already confusing enough situation as it is.

With your method, you can also check only single definitions and not phrases which is a huge drawback.
Half the time the definitions in the dictionary don’t help at all.

If you understand already a lot then yes, I would not be bothered with that.

If you find excelent materials such as this, that is also a great option: http://www.tagesschau.de/multimedia/sendung/ts-20127.html
You can google translate on the fly, as the subtitles are shown in a plain text format.

14

I hope you are not relying on google translation at all… with anything… :stuck_out_tongue:

Not sure what you mean you can only check single definitions with my method. Like I said previously, you can control the level of content you watch and watch things according to your level of German. If you have a hard time depicting idioms and phrases, then watch something easier… a good phrase dictionary is Dict.cc.

ja the Tagesschau is good clear sounding german… that you can also find on youtube with CC and slower speed for learning. I can list about 20 different German news sources that post on youtube.

15

What I meant is it will take even longer to type a whole sentence. Too much time.

What is special about the Tagesschau is the subtitle format in plain text as you can select it.
That doesn’t exist on youtube.

Watching content fitted to your level is good, but the more interesting and real stuff is at the advanced levels, so you’re more interested with those. It may be harder but that also pushes you that much more forward, as you learn more than say something that you already at 95% comprehension. One might say you “wasted” 95% of the time. That is one way of looking at it. It’s good to challenge yourself. After a while, you have a breakthrough if you keep chipping at it.

Why?? It is certainly one of the most powerful tools I know that is at the language learner disposal.
Sure it has its flaws but that does not diminish from its usefulness. It’s incredibly smart. I rely on it heavily.
It is usully quite obvious when the translation is bad.

1 Like
16

To each there own then, I guess…

17

Thanks. I’ve quickly tried 3 videos. The first 2 from the NDR didn’t have closed captions, the 3rd from another uploader did. Now I’m wondering what determines whether a video gets closed captions?

I am able to follow TV programs so the level is okay, it’s just the random word every, say, 5-20 seconds I don’t know. Seeing it on the screen helps. But almost every line will have mistakes, even if from the narrator…

I get a 404 page. I’m guessing it works for you because you’re logged into Duolingo? Maybe paste the discussion here?

18

The uploader has to mark the option to have CC when the video is uploaded. When the video is, it takes about an hour for the CC to follow up.

I checked NDR, seems all their videos have CC…