revial: It is always better to learn a language via immersion. It can seem daunting and very frustrating, but it works.

Your German class sounds like it's actually attempting to teach the language, as opposed to simply fulfilling a language requirement your school may have for the core liberal arts part of your degree. There's a difference. :p

Wraith: Ok, I want the community opinion on this since we have plenty of multilingual people here.

I've taken both German and Japanese at my university. Japanese was insanely hard because we used a book called Japanese: The Spoken Language that broke everything down into linguistic terms. This was made harder by the fact we couldn't speak English in class at all. We couldn't have a book out, we couldn't have a dictionary, everything had to be memorized.

So I transferred to German since I lived there and found it easier, despite the fact I hate gender in grammar. Well, finishing up 100 level was easy but we were allowed to speak English, and I felt like I learned more because it could be explained. Fast forward to German 203, my final German class. We can't speak English or we get marked down, but we can use books. But when we start getting into more advanced grammar, it is explained entirely in German. Does anyone have any experience with learning a second language like this? Was it easier, harder, etc?

To give you an idea of my frustration, this is a second year German class and we are discussing the works and philosophy of Immanuel Kant and Karl Marx, who are difficult enough to analyze in English.

Edit: Also, I'm writing this while the teacher is speaking in full German trying to explain Reflexive verbs and using words barely any of us know. Needless to say, I don't know what the fuck shes talking about so I have an english page explaining it up.

Wraith: Immersion works but you can't learn solely through immersion. I've learned this much over the years. Certain things need to be explained in English. I have no problem if the grammar is explained in English beforehand, and the rest of the class is taught in German. First year went great like that. Second year, not so much.

I am taking German to fulfill the requirement but I actually LIKE German. And Japanese. I will probably continue learning both outside the university, but I just feel totally frustrated with not understanding difficult grammar terms because they are so bullheaded about not speaking English in class.

revial: Well, it sounds like you've already made your mind up and didn't actually want any opinions. ;) I'll stick with what I said though. It's incredibly frustrating, but it works. Obviously individuals have varying differences in how they learn, but in a classroom setting, one has to take a general approach to teaching, and imo, immersion is the best way to do that.

If we were talking about a 1 on 1 tutor you privately hired, I might have a different opinion.

Good luck!

Wraith: Japanese was insanely hard because we used a book called Japanese: The Spoken Language that broke everything down into linguistic terms. This was made harder by the fact we couldn't speak English in class at all. We couldn't have a book out, we couldn't have a dictionary, everything had to be memorized.

Wraith: Fast forward to German 203, my final German class. We can't speak English or we get marked down, but we can use books. But when we start getting into more advanced grammar, it is explained entirely in German.

Wraith: To give you an idea of my frustration, this is a second year German class and we are discussing the works and philosophy of Immanuel Kant and Karl Marx, who are difficult enough to analyze in English.

Edit: Also, I'm writing this while the teacher is speaking in full German trying to explain Reflexive verbs and using words barely any of us know. Needless to say, I don't know what the fuck shes talking about so I have an english page explaining it up.

Wishbone: To be honest, it sounds incredibly stupid. That's no way to learn a foreign language. You need to scale up the difficulty according to the skill level of the students.

This reminds me of when my class participated in an exchange program with a class from France. They came to stay with us for 2 weeks, and then we went to stay with them for two weeks. When I was there, I had the opportunity to look at the textbooks they used for English class. They were much too difficult for their skill level (which was very poor indeed). Full of articles from The London Times and stuff like that. They didn't have a chance of learning much from that, because they simply didn't understand enough of it to figure the rest out from context.

The best way of learning a foreign language is of course to go where it is spoken and immerse yourself in it, but only if you already have a basic grasp of the language. If you have no frame of reference whatsoever, you really can't learn much from context alone, at least not nearly as fast as if you do.

choconutjoe: Lots of universities teach foreign languages like this. I had a similar experience learning Russian. The focus is on training people to translate texts rather than actually learning to speak the language. It's a terrible way to actually learn a language imho.

To echo what others have said, you have to learn the rules and then go there and immerse yourself in the language. You learn by actively trying to use the language to communicate. You'll fail a lot of course, but that's how you get better.

I was able to learn fluent Norwegian that way, but my attempts to learn other languages solely from books have all failed miserably.