Learning to hear German

I'm trying different strategies to improve my German listening skills. I tried recording myself read a passage and then listen back and write down what I said. Interestingly most of it was easy to pick up, but I could only capture a few words at a time; up to three, and I would have to stop and rewind and re-check.

What I stuggle with is und, I keep hearing it as un. I keep leaving the r off of einer. And three words I struggled with were bewaldete, frütterte and wechselte. Even hearing multiple times I came up with wiewoltete, vertote and wuchselte. Funny I should mistake "b" for a "w", but understandable for thinking an "f" was a "v".

Then I tried recording a short vocab list and tried writing down the english. Interestingly I struggled writing the english unless I'd written the german down first for certain words.

My word I'm a world a way from hearing german and then translating it on the fly!

Location:UK

iOS 4 multitasking

Omg very impressed with multitasking on iOS 4. I just put Radio Box into the background and it has continued to work, whilst I go into safari and then into Evernote to write this.

Then left evernote to change radio station and went back in, and it put me back in same place in Evernote, yazah! Very impressed :-)



To close a program, you hold an icon on the multitasking bar, and the a minus sign appears; press again and this closes the app.

Location:UK

iPhone app recommendations

Adobe Ideas is a good drawing package for the iphone and its free.



You can find it in the app store here;

http://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/adobe-ideas-1-0-for-iphone/id365441166?mt=8

http://iphone.tvcatchup.com



This allows you, after you've registered, to watch live tv, it is very good. Just save it as a button on the home screen and its as good as having an app.

Liebe bis in den Tod - is a german audio book and its excellent for helping improve German listening skills.



You can get the first chapter free;
http://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/id326139385?mt=8

Or pay for the whole book for £2.99;
http://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/lernkrimi-daf-liebe-bis-in/id324667094?mt=8