It has been a lifetime since I studied German, but I remember how I filled my head with enough of the language to visit Germany a few days in 1982. For me the most difficult part was knowing that I don’t know the language well and my fear of sounding uneducated in front of a stranger. I had one year of German in school, but that is merely an introduction. If you are in the same hurry I was in to learn “survival” vocabulary, then here is what I did:
- I learned a simple and useful sentence in a present, past, and future tense.
- I memorized nouns plus I memorized the way the (der, die, das) word “the” belonging to memorized nouns would change in my (item 1 present, past, and future) memorized sentence.
- I memorized verbs plus I memorized the way some of them would break up and fit the pieces into my memorized (present, past, and future) sentence.
- I considered “what could go wrong or what might someone answer to my questions” and I memorized the probable phrases I might need for my time in Germany.
I managed to understand and to be understood just enough to have a successful adventure. I relied heavily on memorized words to understand; I used my probable phrases to navigate when I got lost; and I forgot most all of the words after over thirty years of not reviewing the memories. It is possible to jam these memories into your mind, but I also am a victim of distraction and life has distracted me from refreshing those memories. You can do this.