German timeline and January 09 RECAP

How I learned German while watching TV.

While I was able to learn Italian "completely" through passive exposure, German is still a work in progress.

I can follow any German TV program, reading feels tiresome but I can read advanced texts without the aid of a dictionary. Older literature is a bit of a pain - however considering that I still have to finish a "real" 19th ct novel I can read surprisingly well and without the aid of a dictionary. Legal texts and other specialized areas I never paid much attention to are tiresome but I still managed to use German professionally sifting through financial information. I have recently tested myself on Dialang: listening comprehension C2, vocabulary 820. I intend to also do the other tests while I am still a grammar virgin. I used German dictionaries maybe a dozen times in my life. I am not anti-grammar, anti-dictionary etc. I simply did not care. Most of my German experience involved turning on the TV.

I never attempted to communicate with anyone. I never wrote a sentence in German. My "silent period" was ridiculously long. My brain has been pickling in native German juices but when I attempt to pronounce words and sentences aloud I am not always very pleased with the result.

EDIT: My experience at the local German cultural institute has taught me that I am perhaps judging myself too harshly, lol.

Most of the time however, my pronunciation sounds pretty good. Perhaps I pulled my brain out of the German brine too early. I still have to figure out how to approach this one but I have enough experience with passive learning to know that I need some active effort. I also know that a massive amount of passive learning considerably accelerates the road to fluency. However, I am not sure this is a very good way to study several languages (especially remote languages).

German TV hours (1990-2002): very difficult to estimate. I initially wrote 2,000 hours but this is a very rough estimate. It is possible I spent less time on it, German TV was an occasional passtime. I took very long breaks, at least 7-8 months every year during several years. I wasn't trying to learn German - I was simply watching German TV in my free time and only when there wasn't anything interesting on other channels.

In 1993 I attempted to read my first German book - I personally scribbled the date on the book. I quickly lost interest.

2002-2006 - absolutely nothing

In 2007 I listened through Takeoff in German in two days. I didn't know a couple of words. I read a few pages in German here and there and I watched a couple of movies and TV shows.

2008 - several movies

January 09 recap

German: around 80 hours, mostly movies and audiobooks.

Russian: 10 hours (audiobooks)

I am now "serious" about mastering German.