Suggestions for Getting the Most out of It

[allykat]

Hello. I'm moving to Germany late 2010 to marry my fiance. This summer (as in nine days from now,) I'm flying to Nürnberg to stay through the summer. I'm staying just under 3 months so I don't have any kind of special visa or work visa. I have minimal German skills. I've studied for about 1,5 years and I'm not very fluent (though I understand most

Comments

[jhubert]

Go to the website of the city of Nuremberg. It lists all sorts of events, museums, and other cultural activities you could visit during your stay - and improve your German at the same time.

Of particular interest are:

- List of museums (I visited the Dokumentationszentrum Reichsparteitagsgelände, the Germanisches Nationalmuseum, the Kaiserburg Museum, and the Naturhistorisches Museum, and can recommend all four. Many of them will have explanatory texts in English - but try to read as much as possible in German nonetheless.

- List of major events. Also use the calendar on the website to see what is happening on a particular day. There are many events where you will have to listen to other people speaking in German, which will be good practice.

Oh, and do try the bread - especially the "Bauernbrot" and other varieties with a really thick crust.

[wieselkind]

there might be a night school that offers classes, if you picked one that wouldn't require lots of talking e.g. art or dance you could immerse yourself in small talk like 'could you pass me the pencil, how was your day?'. The one one Duesseldorf was called the Volkshochschule (VHS).

You could buy kids games and play them with your husband, there are lots of question and quiz type games in bookshops.

Try and do the small things in German, write your shopping list in German, speak to the cat (or houseplants) in German.

Germans are keen on Audio books, pick a German translation of a story you know and listen to it.

Buy magazines, even if its something junky like Brigitte or Cosmo, or pehaps another interest, Geo is like National Geographic short articles on interesting subjects from around the world. It's less discouraging that trying to read a whole novel and you can guess things from the context and pictures.

good luck!

[fraumickey]

If you are looking to expand your vocab, you could label EVERYTHING in the house.... when I first went to Germany I labeled the sink, counters, dishes, furniture, electronic devices, etc.... it especially helps to learn the gender of different items if you look at it everyday. Good luck!

[das_elysium]

I would also go for some easy reading magazins - I think the mixture of text+pictures makes it easy to stick to it, cuz it's not overwhelming. Plus: they use colloquial German!
Also: make lots of German friends and force them to speak German to you! :)

[hottiegyrrl]

awwwww...i lived outside of Nurnberg when i lived in germany. reading that made me a little "homesick." i was an exchange student in the early 90's and then ended up sticking around a few months longer and coming back a year later. it's a lovely area, especially this time of year. i did A LOT of tv watching to improve my german and just jumped in to speaking it all the time. i found that most folks loved that i was trying and were super helpful. i went to a language school, but really just getting out and talking to folks was what did it. good luck and have a fabulous time! :)