German Alphabet

It is only fitting that the first post on learning the German language should involve learning the alphabet. To help with this, I searched out a YouTube video that I think does an excellent job of it. You can view it below:




I've always loved the tune they use for this. This specific video is geared towards teaching Spanish speakers German, so the pronunciation under the letters is a little different than what you might see if it were made for English speakers, but it should still work well.

In my next post I will review nominative pronouns, the verbs 'haben' (to have) and 'sein' (to be), and the use of definite and indefinite articles.

First Post

Hallo Freunde!

The purpose of this blog is to help me prepare for the Zertifikat Deutsch für den Beruf exam later this year. In the earlier posts I will go over a lot of the fundamentals of the German language and will progressively get into bigger and more complex concepts. I will try to start this out in a way that a beginning German student would appreciate so that beginners will be able to use this as a resource as well.

I could just study from the texts that I have, but thought this would be a good chance to try and explain the concepts that I am reviewing. Your comments and questions are very much appreciated and I will try to address as many of them as I can. If I am just not hitting a subject that you would like me to review, send me a message and I'll work it in somewhere or point you to the post that goes over that.

A little about myself. I lived in various parts of Germany from February 2002 to January of 2004 where I gained the bulk of my experience with the German language. Since that time I have only had occasional opportunities to use the language, but try to keep some of the basic speaking, listening and reading skills up to par by watching newscasts on itunes and reading articles in German from various sources. Since returning to the United States in 2004 I married my sweetheart and have started a family (we are currently expecting our second daughter and our third child overall) and graduated from a local University in 2009 with a bachelor's of science degree in Business Management with an emphasis in International Business. I enjoy a variety of activities that range from being a chronic bookworm, to a love of all things outdoors--most notably camping, backpacking and fishing. Currently I am employed with the university where I earned my degree, but keep my eyes open for new opportunities. Click here to view my resume.

The current plan is to do 2-3 posts per week on a variety of subjects. As an anchor, I will post every Tuesday evening and will leave the other 1-2 posts to when I have time during the week, but if you want to receive automatic updates when posts are available, please subscribe to the RSS feed in the side bar.

And with that, ich heiße euch herzlich Wilkommen!