If you are new to Germany or you are thinking about moving, we have some tips for you to make the language learning process easier.

First, you should choose a good language course with a great teacher. Learning a new language is always hard, it’s going to take time, but it doesn’t have to be something you hate to do. Just make sure to find a patient teacher who can make you feel relaxed, who’s giving you opportunities to speak and ask questions. Depending on your spending limits and your free time, also think about whether you want to take group courses or one-to-one lectures.

Remove grammar from the top of your list. When you are trying to learn a new language in a short period of time, you should always start with learning as many words as you can. Sure, grammar is very important, but you can’t put together a sentence correctly if you don’t know the words you want to use. Start with a couple of useful phrases and try improving your vocabulary. This is the most important step in understanding other people and communicating. No one really cares about your grammar as long as you are getting your message through and no matter how hard you try, you won’t get it right in the beginning. If you know a couple of helpful phrases, you can study those to try and figure out the word order. When learning words and phrases you have a lot of options. Some people prefer flash cards with German words on one side and the English equivalent on the other side. There are some that prefer notebooks or even audio files. The possibilities are endless. If you are learning a new word, try to learn a phrase or two it appears in, this way you will not only think of the word, but you’ll know a few useful phrases as well.

Input is key, especially for a beginner! Try and get as much input as possible, it will really help your grammar and pronunciation. If you get enough input your grammar will improve a lot and you won’t even realise it, so just watch a lot of German TV and listen to the radio as much as you can. Of course there are other ways for listening to the language, like going to public readings, taking some German classes or just staying at busy places with people talking. If you want to extend your learning to the written word, try newspapers, books, magazines or just simply search the internet for a topic that you like. It can be very frustrating to look up every other words in the dictionary, but if you practice, you’ll understand these in no-time.

Another thing you can do is to look for patterns in the language you are learning. This will make the a lot of things easier once you realise how to use different patterns for your advantage. Of course, there are always exceptions in every language, but even if you make a little mistake, people will still know what you are talking about.

Get some great dictionaries! When buying a dictionary try to find something that is intended for foreigners, because they have a lot of useful information and tons of easy to understand phrases.

Speak German! Well, if you don’t speak the language, you won’t improve. Try and find someone to speak German with you, even if speaking English (or some other language) seems to be the easier way for you both. It may feel a bit strange in the beginning but you’ll get used to it.

So the most important thing is to never give up and just keep trying. Try reading, try listening and try speaking. If you continue on your journey of learning the language, you will eventually get there, even if it’s not easy in the beginning and it takes time.