Having not had a television in my flat I have resorted to radio for the past 2 month. Despite alot of English and American songs being played it’s a great way to practice your hearing techniques. As a result of listening to copious amounts of radio here I am able to understand the Berliner accent somewhat better.

A problem with watching Television in Germany is that alot of the programmes are produced in foreign countries and are hence dubbed. I have been told that seeing an actors lips moving the wrong way for what he is saying can be detremental to your learning.

And by the way  Star 87.9 FM is the best radio station I have ever heard.

Here’s the new radio I bought in Saturn beside Deutsch Akadamie.

When conversing in German the toughest thing for me is not understanding what words are being said to me but actually what words are being said. The Berliner accent can be quite hard to understand and takes a lot of practice to get better. In my opinion one of the best exercises in class that we do is listening to the Themen Aktuell CD while reading the  the text in the book.  I find this helps every aspect of my German from vocabulary and grammer to pronunciation and the ever important word recognition skills.

I have found that the best place to practice what I have learnt at Deutsch Akadamie is at home. I currently live with 3 German girls. They are great resource to enhance my German language skills correcting my mistakes and providing much needed German conversation.

I found the room on www.wg-gesucht.de here there are an abundance of advertisements for flat-shares and it also has an option for listings in English. I would be hesitant to look for rooms on craigslist as rooms I saw advertised appeared to be scams at later stages to me.

Here is my new clothes hanger that I bought in IKEA and recently assembled.

The Untergrundbahn (U Bahn) and Stadtbahn (S Bahn) are the two types of railways operating in Berlin. The difference being that the S Bahn stations are further spread apart and hence is faster over longer distances. Both types have about 7 or 8 different lines that operate throughout the city connecting at different points. Combine these excellent public services with a host of bus and tram networks and one can travel effortlessly through Berlin. The trains operate from 04:30 to 01:00 but night buses follow the U Bahn lines at 30 minute intervals when the trains are not operating at night.

Tickets are available for different areas of Berlin and various lengths of time. But I have found the best value ticket to be the Monat kard (€72). I generally use the U Bahn 3 times a day, so over a month’s period each trip works out at less than €1 less than half the price of a one way ticket.

Deutsche Akadamie also offer an online grammer course free of charge. Its quite comprehensive there is over 20,000 different grammar and vocabulary exercises. Its structured according to the European Framework of Reference for Languages so you can find your level effortlessly. And what’s more is there is a forum where a teacher will answer for questions.

What more could you want?

This is the book that the teachers in Deutsch Akademie teach from. Its quite well put together and its really helped at during my time at Deutsch Akadamie. Its a combination of listening, grammer and vobulary exercises. Its written entirely in german which supports Deutsch Akadamies policy of teaching only through german. The book is illustrated with bright colourful pictures. I’ve had a lot more success learning words in German when seeing a picture beside in the German word than simply memorising words on a sheet of paper.