German Language Course - Authentic Dialects and Accents

I created Tikker Lingua out of my teaching practice because I noticed that students were claiming that people on the streets doesn´t talk like the examples in a standard german language books. This brought me to the idea creating authentic high quality videos which are rooted in a real character  -1 from 1.6 Million living in Munich/ Germany. I would like to add that those soundslides are created to keep up with aesthetic criteria as well as a method of effectiv teaching. Every soundslide is about 3 minutes. It is not styled for German learners. People speak as they would tell you a story meeting up at the ´Oktoberfest´. The focus on this course is to train your selected listening comprehension skills. Like if you sat at a train station listening to train stations announcements  filtering the information needed. Your filter here will be your level based questions.

How it works:

Make sure you go on with the same sequence as follows:

1. Along this course you gonna work on 4 different soundslides with slightly different German accents/ dialects.

2. First I am gonna introduce the person in a written version to give you some context.

3. Then you should study the vocabulary on the pdf worksheet to make sure being able to answer the questions that follow.

4. Choose your language level you want to study with (A1 beginner - A2 advanced beginner-B1 intermediate student)

5. Read through the questions of the level you chose

6. Start watching the soundslide

7. Repeat watching the slide till you are able to answer all the questions.

8. Look at the solution sheet near the end of the pdf in order to control your progress.

9. Proceed to the transcription with the blanks

10. Return watching the soundslide till you are able to fill out most of the blanks.

11. You can check the full transcripts on section 7.

The carpenter and turner Jochen makes pepper and salt mills made out of tree roots which he dries up to 10 years in advance. His handmade mills have a lifetime warranty and can be inherited to grandchildren. The more difficult the wooden root to work on the better to transform it into a unique masterpiece of art which decorates dinning tables around Germany.

Download and open the pdf work sheet first:

1. Go over the vocabularies

2. Decide which level you gonna take: A1 beginner A2 advanced beginner B1 intermediate

3. Go over the questions: Make sure you understand every word in the questionnaire. The answer usually is gonna be heard but it can also refer to something you can see on the soundslide. Sometimes there is a time track indicator (in brackets) - this is the part of the slide you should work with

4. Start watching the video and answer the questions:

   • First 2 times to get a general impression of what it is about

   • For the next round focus on your question (remember: the task is answering the questions and not understanding everything).

   • Solutions you gonna find on page 10

5. Transcript- Phase: Transcript is always written as you hear it (e.g. colloquial, dialect, accent).

   • Listen to the soundslide again while reading the transcript and fill out the blanks - key in section 6.

   • Advanced technique: translate the colloquial transcript into standard German - key in section 6

6. Follow this blueprint to work with every soundslide

Thomas Wilhelm Beckert, bavarian fashion designer, opens up his new studio in Munich. His unique fusion -style consists of traditional leather trouser manufacture and fitting in new contemporary elements like blacksmithing.

You will find a lot of traditional expressions in this video....

Check out Thomas´s website: www.derguertelmacher.de

In this lecture you are going to meet Hubert the tinkerer: He has a very peculiar hobby: He collects everything with regards to bicycles. In his garage is full of bicycle parts which he artistically put together creating vintage bicycles.

The last soundslide for this course highlights a Mexican living in Munich. Even though his German is fluent, you do note the latino accent. There are a few grammar mistakes. Can you figure them out in the transcript phase?

In this section you are going to find all transcriptions of the previous videos.

You can use this key to check the assignments of each lesson where you had to fill out the blanks as well as for the assignment to transform the text into standard German language. 

In this lecture I am going to highlight some expressions used by the characters in the previous Soundslides:

Listen to the Video/Audio and repeat the phrases you hear.

It is important to know that you start from the end to the beginning of a phrase in order to get it right and fluent...somehow you pick it up more easily if you address it that way.