Language Goal: C2 German in India

Learning another language in another country may seem counter-productive, but this isn't too far of a stretch. Benny the Polyglot did it with Arabic in Brazil, and now I’ll be pushing myself the extra mile while living in India.

From August 25th 2015 until March 30th 2016 I’ll be working towards the Goethe Institute C2 level exam. This will involve some pretty heavy concentration and a long list of goals, as language progress is much harder to map the farther you inch into the intermediate proficiency. This is called the plateau.

Language learning, even at this stage, is the same as all goal-setting stages. What changes are the benchmarks, and finding suitable evaluations to see if you’re on the right track.

I won’t list every single detail, but here are some example activities that go beyond just speaking:

• Writing detailed opinion essays – I intend to write a piece every two weeks, and then go through each sentence and check grammar using a reference guide, as well as sites like iTalki. This will cement more useful transition words. But once it’s corrected, it’s important to practice speaking about the topic from memory – to yourself or someone else. Looking for references in the target language will also expose other types of writing – like technical documents, graphs and statistics. If you remember my review for Wört für Wört, you can probably guess I’ll be keeping that book handy, especially during the writing exercises.
  
• Being able to recite a poem from memory – or anything, for that matter. This is something done in classrooms as well, but it helps to strengthen vocabulary, word order, and cultural knowledge. It’s also easy to check.
  
• Dictating clips from movie or popular serials, or especially interviews. Interviews with locals or celebrities for documentaries and entertainment channels will offer a more natural rhythm, and it may be more useful.

Now this isn't to say that I won’t be learning some survival Hindi, but that my main focus will be on further strengthening my German skills and expanding my vocabulary. Wish me luck!