This is an aside to my question in this post : German speakers..did hitler sound like Arnold Schwarzenegger? - Factual Questions - Straight Dope Message Board
I’ve been listening to ‘teach yourself german’ audiobooks on my way to and from work each day. Also spending a bit of time each day reading ‘teach yourself German’ textbooks. And then i’ll listen to youtube clips of native speakers and try to piece together what i’m learning.
Anybody here have success with this method? I’m sure i’d have much more success in a classroom setting or even better in a total immersion environment. But it’s not an option for me.
What i’m noticing is that I can pick up on a few words now, and can kinda sorta barely begin to read a german language magazine article. At least enough to get the gist of the content. But I couldn’t, on my own, construct a sentence of speech from my own mouth.
Is learning a foreign language when you dont have a context to actually use the language a fools errand?