Boost your career by studying German!

 

If you study a difficult language like German in the RIGHT way, and set clear, achievable and measurable goals for yourself, you can become more confident in speaking it with as little as 10 minutes of practice a day.  But how do you do it?

Firstly, you need to be very clear about WHY you want (or need) to speak business German. Is it because you want to understand German culture in general? Or you want to get a promotion? Maybe you just want to make yourself more visible in a German-speaking work environment? Whatever the reason, you need to have a clear vision about what you want to achieve, and why, otherwise you might lose motivation and interest in learning the language. 

It’s important to bear in mind that learning a new language is not a sprint, but a marathon. You’re not going to be able to learn to speak fluent business German from one day to the next. Instead, it’s going to take a while. You have to build your vocabulary step by step, and you also need to build your understanding of the grammar and structure of the language. 

If you want to level up your career, German is an important language for business and commerce. Germany is an economic superpower; several multinational companies’ headquarters or subsidiaries are located there. Speaking German can open unlimited opportunities for you if you want to move to a German-speaking country and live there. German is the official language of Germany, Austria, and Liechtenstein, and one of the official languages of Switzerland, Belgium, and Luxembourg. Speaking German not only enabled me to graduate from college but also to get a promotion later in a multinational company. I was not only able to analyse the financial situation of the company’s clients located in a German-speaking region, but I was also acting as the first point of contact for the business. Speaking German helped me to better understand commercial contracts, e-mail communication and business interactions in general.

So it’s obvious that learning German can boost your international career. But anyone who has tried to learn a new language before know that it’s not easy - especially when it comes to business. Not only can the grammar be a complete nightmare, but memorising long words can be demanding as well. Not to mention the pronunciation! 

Personally, I learnt German the hard way, using apps and books. It took a long time, it was not interesting to me, and it involved way too much memorisation. I also studied alone, so I had no one to practice and speak with. 

Here’s why I wouldn’t do it the same way again, and why you shouldn’t either: 

1. Apps are great, but they’re too simple. On the one hand, language learning apps are indeed great options to begin with learning German, because you can learn the basic vocabulary, simplified grammar, and practice basic conversations. On the other hand, however, the conversations are quite simplified, many times they lack real life interactions and are quite repetitive. Moreover, it takes lots of time to improve your knowledge with these apps, because the whole concept is based on step-by-step learning, putting words into sentences. 

2. Books are outdated and can be boring. Learning from books could work if you are highly motivated otherwise you will skip studying from them because they are one-dimensional, and you will lack interactive learning. You will not be able to learn new slang or any potential new words and phrases in general, because it is a printed media that cannot be updated from one minute to another. 

3. The process is too one-dimensional. Learning a language involves not only reading and understanding the content, but also listening, speaking, and writing. These are important parts of the process.

To sum it up, the best way to learn a language is to find those methods that are the most efficient and engaging for you. What worked best for me was the traditional way of jotting down business German words and complete sentences multiple times. Not only did this help me improve my spelling and pronunciation skills in German, but it also helped with vocabulary retention. By physically writing down the words, I was able to memorize and recall them more easily and all the writings stuck with me for a long time. 

What if you are a creative mind who likes making up stories? Then I advise you to play with Story cubes. Story cubes are a set of dice with different pictures or symbols on each side. You just simply roll the dice and then use the pictures or symbols that appear to create a story or narrative. In sum, learning with Story cubes is a great way not only to develop your creativity in storytelling, but you will be forced to speak in German as well in the meantime. If you try to play it solo though, it will get quite boring after a while, because the whole game is designed for more players and more suitable for group exercises. All in all, involving a tutor who corrects you grammatical mistakes during the game will be the most efficient way of learning. Of course, besides all the techniques described above, I also asked for help from a tutor, and this is what I suggest you doing as well.

Learning German on your own can be challenging and time-consuming, but I can guarantee you that you will gain more knowledge and learn faster by working with a tutor like me. If you would like to know how to create your personalized vocabulary lists for business German and use the right words in a job interview or in your job role, then feel free to sign up for my mailing list.