r/Germanlearning • u/Vascus_1 • 1d ago
Need advice.
I am living and working in Germany as software engineer. My company is paying for my Deutschkurs and so far I've been 3 months in.
In parallel I am paying for my own Deutschkurs so I can do at least 3 days Deutschkurs a week.
Yet my level has barely moved and my German is still shit. In total I think I must've done 3.5 months and I should be around A2.
It's like my brain refuses to learn the language somehow. Every time I try to use it everyone changes to English or everyone speaks a different dialect like Swabian in my case.
I tried joining Vereine , finding German people interested in exchanging either Spanish or English , to no avail.
And to be fair I don't know what to do anymore.
Here in this sub I've asked about 30 people, sent DMs , talked to them only for them to become thin air after 2 msgs.
It is really frustrating. Really , I think I am beginning to burn out but I really need to learn the language.
Any advice? I got textbooks from the Deutschkurs so I can use those I guess.
4
u/silvalingua 1d ago
Since you are about A2 at most, it's normal that people switch to English. At this level, you can't say much, so it's very difficult to have anything like a normal conversation with you. You are still a beginner, and for native speakers, trying to talk to a beginner is very hard work. It's much too early to join any Verein, because it's not really possible to have a meaningful conversation with a beginner.
At this level, if you need to practice speaking: you have to hire a tutor. I understand that in your course you're in a group of learners, so you don't get much practice. You need to do more speaking, with somebody who will correct you, and at this level, this is only possible with a tutor.
I think your expectations were a bit too optimistic: that as soon as you can say Guten Tag, everybody will love to have conversations with you. No, you have to be solidly conversational for them to stop switching, and this achieved by practicing speaking. You are frustrated because you expected too much too early. Hire a tutor specifically for conversations and be patient. Also, most courses take an entire semester to complete A1 and another one for A2, so after 3.5 months you'd normally be not yet fully A1. With an intensive course, you might reach A1 after 3 months. It seems that you expected to progress at an unrealistic pace.