German Literacy on your personal electronic device

Digital literacy is a hot topic because we are all using our electronic devices, like cellphones, tablets, or computers to read things constantly. We can send quick notes and images via text message or an app. We can reach the person standing next to us, a person on the opposite side of the planet or everyone and anyone in between depending on how we go about sending our message. Vice versa, we can receive a message from anyone in the world, we are only limited by the languages that we speak, read, and write. When we learn a foreign language, we have just opened our communication ability to a whole other group. Not only can we use our electronic devices to send and receive message, but we can read their books to increase our German skills.

Reading German is a great way to increase literacy and language skills in that language. Picking up new vocabulary is easy when it is within a context that makes sense. How many times have you seen a word for the first time, but knew exactly what it was because it made sense within a sentence or paragraph? This will happen with German words too. The best writers will write about what they know, and everyone knows their own culture, or how they experience life within it. The only way to get a direct line on someone else’s experience is to talk with them or to read what they have written. One can join German groups on social media that share interest. Do you like to cook, knit, play a sport, a type of architecture or are interested in a certain career? There will be a group of people who like the same things and they like to share information in these groups. If you search for the German terms of whatever you like, you will surely find a group of people that have already established a group on their common interest. These groups are generally a great way to get to know people across the world but they may not teach you the best grammar. Have you ever noticed mistakes that people make on social media in English? Well, the German users are not much better at checking their spelling and grammar.

Published works in German are great for learning the language. Perusing the local bookstore’s single shelf of German books can get quite boring, but we are not limited to print thanks to the internet and e-books. Amazon.com has a much better selection. If you visit the German Amazon.de store and simply browse their selection of their “kindle edition” books, you get over 40 thousand hits. You may want to narrow them down by interest. The “kindle edition” books can be delivered to a kindle app that you can download onto a device that you already own. There is no large up front purchase and the e-books themselves are generally cheaper than print books or free and without any shipping costs.

It is easy to find people to communicate with in another language about commonalities and differences in social media groups. Making friends across the globe is a great way to learn a language and a culture. To be sure to learn correct grammar, do not rely on your new friends too much because nobody likes to have their grammar corrected. Rely on published works that are plentiful and inexpensive and maybe you could pick a book and have an international book club discussion group that meets once a week.