Introduction to German Listening Practice
You’ve decided to take the German AP® Exam, great! So let’s begin to understanding how to best prep for the exam. Twenty five percent of the exam is composed of a listening comprehension portion, testing you on not only listening to the language and comprehending the context but also relating the meaning to other materials provided. These materials may include text or images that may go along or connect to the audio provided.
To succeed in this space repetition is key. German listening practice is not something that we can just wake up one day and do; it takes time to build up an ability to use context clues and conversation flow to extract useful information. During the exam, the content of the passages are chosen from a wide range of topics, from news stories to historical pieces, poems, all the way to daily conversations. So for us to master this section of the exam, listening exercises are important but utilizing a wide variety of sources and content is of equal importance.
Let’s delve a little deeper into the listening portion of the exam. German has many different dialects and accents associated with various regions of the country. Therefore German listening exercises need to encompass as many variations as possible. The German AP® exam usually sticks to Hochdeutsch or the version of German that is spoken with the least regional accent, however in previous exams, audio with slight accents have appeared. This makes sense right? You are being tested on a language of a country, not just a particular region. So getting German listening practice in various accents is another important aspect of the listening preparation.
Finally, the third key element to mastering German audio is the Umgangssprache, or the daily language often used in conversations. This language shows a stark contrast to many more formal pieces that may use very proper forms of German. The daily language is an important element within our German listening exercises as it will more naturally relate topics you hear about to your overall understanding of the language. In this article, we will discuss the different nature of authentic German media found online, how to use each to your full potential, and finally how to find them and which sites prove to be particularly great tools.
The two big types of authentic media available to you are radio and video. In today’s world these are easily come by but understanding how to use each and distinguishing between a good source versus a bad source is of utmost importance.
Radio Sources
The first type of media that we will discuss will be radio. This is a tool that is very powerful as it is so versatile. Radio can provide pieces on current events, formal documentaries, daily talk shows, etc., all these add elements to our listening toolbox. Along with it being powerful, it is a very accessible and easy tool to use.
Many German radio stations are publicly owned in contrast to US radio stations, so the material is usually diverse, and ads are often limited. Many stations have various channels. Usually, each has a more modern channel, a traditional channel, a news channel, and so forth. As you can see one radio station can provide you with all the content, you could desire. A great website to find most German publicly owned radio stations is, Deutschland.fm.
You usually can’t go wrong with any German radio content wise as they are publicly owned and many have similar stories, however, one thing to avoid are the stations that are too regional. In these stations regional accent may make it very difficult for you to understand and being able to comprehend deep regional accents is outside of the scope for the German listening portion of the exam.
Here is how to utilize the radio to enhance your German listening skills. First, it is paramount that you listen to as much radio as you can either while working out, walking or driving to and from school or any other time you would usually listen to music. By purely increasing your exposure to the language it will enhance your ability to comprehend. However, we want to utilize the tool to not only get used to listening but also to get listening practice.
This is a little more difficult for radio in comparison to the tool we will discuss next, but good practice is to constantly question yourself what was that last report on, or what did the moderators talk about? Immersing yourself in the German language will enhance your listening ability to use context clues and quizzing yourself will give you confidence that no matter what type of media or dialect is given to you on the exam you will be able to analyze and answer related questions.
TV Sources
The second media source is a little harder to find and is not directly related to the exam but it’s still a great tool to improve your German listening skills and this one is a little more fun! Using video’s to study for the listening portion may seem abnormal, but it allows you to relate much easier to the language as context can be picked up visually as well as verbally. We will break down three different forms of video that all have unique advantages.
Let’s begin with the easiest form, watching sitcoms or your favorite American TV show in German. These are easily found on YouTube by just searching your favorite show and then adding, in Deutsch, at the end, often clips and experts are the first few hits. The reason we are describing this source as the easiest is that often you already know what’s going on in the clip. Therefore, it will naturally connect the spoken German to your knowledge of the scene.
Making this connection is a great German listening practice for enhancing your context clue ability and understanding how certain scenarios sound. You should utilize this tool often as it is very easy and our generation is watching videos or clips so often why not build in some listening practice, right?
Similar to radio, Germany has state-owned television stations that have vast video archives. The two biggest stations are ARD and ZDF, also known as the first and second program. Each has their video published on their homepages, ard.de and zdf.de respectively the links are provided here to each, http://www.ardmediathek.de and http://www.zdf.de.
Most of the material found on these two sites is very helpful when practicing listening to current event and news. However, they also have cultural pieces often published on their landing pages. On each site videos are divided into subcategories, where news stories fall under, Nachrichten and more cultural pieces are under Doku or Kultur. Besides these main two, that are best for the listening practice regarding the AP® German Exam, you can find a multitude of other categories that may be interesting for you personally.
An advantage to visually watch the news and current events through video is to make contextual analysis easier by adding another sense into the mix to detect when certain phrases are used and how certain words are used. Many times these sources use a very proper German with minimal regional dialect or accent.
Combined Sources
The third source we will discuss is another TV source called the Deutsche Welle, found under http://www.dw.com/de/deutsch-lernen/s-2055. We will consider this source separately because it is not easily grouped with the other two TV sources discussed above. Deutsche Welle is probably the best tool to use for German listening practice, for a multitude of reasons.
Deutsche Welle has multiple different topics on their website from culture, news, as well as German listening practice for English speakers. This could be your one-stop shop, but it is always best to have multiple authentic media sources to use and utilize while practicing for the listening exam.
What makes this site so amazing besides the diversity of backgrounds on the clips is that it is usually presented in a very proper Hochdeutsch making the clips very easy to understand. However, this is a warning as Deutsche Welle provides most pieces in Hochdeutsch but getting a breadth of listening experience is key to mastering the listening exam portion.
To practice retention of heard material you should always self-quiz yourself to ensure you can rephrase and therefore understand what you just heard. The genius thing about Deutsche Welle is they do have some quizzes and knowledge checks built into their site for you to practice. These questions may be similar to the more simple questions on the listening portion of the German AP® exam.
Finally, on a side note, Deutsche Welle also provides manuscripts for some of their videos. Therefore, you can follow along with the corresponding text, allowing it to be an excellent simulation if the exam asked you to compare a listening section to a written text. Even though on the exam the written text and audio will not be identical, getting in the habit to pick apart and relate sound to writing will enhance your listening and context interpretation skills.
Finding authentic German media as you can see is relatively easy and utilizing these tools is simple as well. Always remember that the best way to study for the listening portion is to surround yourself with the media and find subjects that interest you. Getting the hang of German audio heavily relies on repetition and enhances exposure to be able to listen to longer portions of spoken German and be able to understand not only the holistic objective but also the details that compose the bigger picture.
Now that you have three excellent video sources and hundreds of radio sources you should be able to find the best way for you to improve your German listening skills and prepare to master at least a fourth of the exam putting you on a path to crush the exam. Let us know if there are any other sources that helped you prep!
Let’s put everything into practice. Try this AP® German Language practice question:
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