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People have tried to learn German language in various methods already. Some choose to listen intently to audio CDs and mp3s while doing multitasking; some also prefer to depend on Internet and discover hundreds of discovered and not-yet-discovered ideas in making the learning less complicated; and there are really those who choose to avail the formal way and learn German at language schools.
Each has different needs and wants when it comes to acquiring a language, and each has their own unique ways of making the language learned easier and in faster pace.
But there are actually those who provide incredible ways and methods to make such learning become more perceptive and easy. The source of this method doesn’t actually call it like how I call it today, but let’s just name the method “comparison”.
Why is it so? It’s because it was so amazing how English words can be used as “clues” in identifying a certain German language word. Is this possible? Well, yes! Let’s take a look at this incredible example.
“These EAGLEs look the SAME to me. First equal, I think.”
Egal – same, equal
We have a sentence listed above as an example. The German word we are trying to learn here is the word “egal”. It literally means “same, or equal”. It would be too boring if we focus learning it by just knowing its German word along with its translation, right?
To make it more exciting and easier to remember, the source of this method actually compared the German word “egal” to a common English word, and the closest English word to “egal” is the famous “eagle”. It was then constructed in a sentence to make it more dramatic and the learners can get the word of it instantly!
Isn’t this great? We have other examples here, you know.
“So, imagine a man HISSES and spits out a FALCON!”
Fauchen – to hiss, spit
The German word “fauchen” is pronounced similarly to the word “falcon”. We have other examples.
“Imagine a smoking ape is asked its AGE at the ALTAR.”
Das Alter – age
“Imagine Demi Moore driving her own MOWER in the WALL.”
Die Mauer – wall
Usually, the German words compared have similar English words that we famously know today. This may perhaps be not the recommended learning method for those who are really in a hurry of learning German. But if we really dig deeper, the method is intended for those who often forgets German vocabulary and somehow requires a sort of “clue” to make them recall it. The term “comparison method” is actually how I call it. (But if you want, you might want to name it differently then.)
As what was mentioned earlier, there are lots of ways people can learn German. As for me and for someone who prefers being reminded and of course, wants to have fun during the learning process, comparison method is one method we can use to learn German language.
