Over at Lexiophiles there was an article about the decline of German as a second language in French schools. I made the following comment.
L’appetit vient en mangeant. If people can just get started in a language it soon becomes attractive. I suspect that the way German is taught is a major obstacle. It is only when I stopped trying to nail down the case endings, and just focused on listening and reading and enjoying things of interest to me, that my German started to take off. Focus on input first. You cannot make mistakes when just listening or reading. If the odd section is a little unclear, and even if you get some things wrong, it does not really matter. So, I also avoid any questions testing my comprehension. My comprehension is my business. One should just try to enjoy the language, build up familiarity with the language, increase one’s vocabulary, and soon enough one wants to speak.
As in much language learning, I suspect it is the teachers who kill the fun.
