From 9th grade through my freshman year in college, I took German classes. I was actually dreaming in German about the same time I quit, which IIRC someone mentioned is a precursor to fluency. Of course, I didn't know that at the time and 19 year olds shouldn't be allowed to make life decisions. :-) Or at least me at 19 shouldn't have been making these types of decisions. By the time I realized my mistake, the university wanted me to take the placement test again (I'd already taken it before my freshman year because of my 4 years of high school German) and the cost of this test was expensive for a full-time student.
Since then I've entertained the idea of taking German again because it can't be as hard to learn a second time as it was the first, right? But while I did buy a computer-based German language program, one lesson showed me that it was going to be a challenge to relearn. This was at the same time that I was dealing with a house in Minnesota while I was living in Atlanta, aging parents who were still living in Minneapolis, and later, moving, my mom's death, moving my dad in with me, writing, etc. It went on the back burner.
In June, I received an email that I could get two audio programs for one credit, and of course, I went to check it out. There at the bottom of the page was a language learning system. I perked up. One credit would get me lessons 1-5 and 6-10 in German. I decided it was worth a shot.
At the time, I figured since it was audio learning only, I could listen to it in my car while I commuted. But I tried out the first lesson at home one evening and decided it required too much focus and I needed to keep my attention on the road. I decided to keep it to the evenings.
I'm through lesson 2 now and this method seems to be working for me better than the computer-based program did. Words started coming back to me and I was able to understand the rudimentary conversations on the audio. I'm not getting too excited yet. Lesson 2 is pretty darn early in the learning process and things will only get more difficult going forward, but I'm heartened that I am managing to re-learn.
