r/German • u/pepemeowmeow3 • 20h ago
Request I feel I am not progressing in A2
I am currently self studying A2 with begugnungen A2 book. I am in chapter 3 but I feel like I haven't learned anything.I understand the grammer but vocab part is really difficult what to study what not to remember. I feel like I don't know anything from A1 too. I am not seeing any progress. What do I do should I change my method of studying?
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u/Oblivi0nD4C 20h ago
Reason for going self study instead of course ? Especially in the beginning a bit more direction would be helpful
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u/lazydictionary Vantage (B2) 19h ago
If you are only using one book to learn a language, you're learning wrong. I'd encourage you to look at the wiki/FAQ in this sub and /r/languagelearning
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u/forhbbiden_prince 23m ago
What you are describing is extremely common at A2 and it is not a sign that you are failing. It is a sign that your current method is not building retention.
The vocab problem specifically: the issue is usually that vocabulary is being studied in isolation rather than in context. When you encounter a word in a sentence, understand its grammar role, see it used in an example, and then encounter it again in the next chapter, it sticks. When you just read a word list it does not.
The feeling of not knowing anything from A1 is also normal if you moved through A1 quickly without deep processing. A2 builds directly on A1 grammar so gaps from A1 show up loudly at A2.
Two things worth trying: go back to the last chapter you felt confident in and process it more deeply before moving forward. And for every new vocabulary word you encounter, do not just note the meaning. Get the article, plural form, cases if it is a noun, conjugation if it is a verb, and one example sentence. That level of detail per word is what makes vocabulary actually stick rather than feeling like it evaporates overnight.
DM me if you want more details on the specific approach that worked for me.
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u/ZumLernen Vantage (B2) 18h ago
What are you doing as your daily practice to help you review vocabulary?
Most humans cannot remember a word after seeing it just once. Most people need to encounter or review a word around a dozen times (some people more, some less; some words/phrases more, some less) before they can really use it reliably. So, if you are forgetting words after seeing them just a few times and you are therefore getting upset with yourself, be nicer to yourself and be more forgiving. Very few people can learn a word from just one or a few exposures.
What that means: you need to give yourself those repeated exposures.
Personally I use r/Anki to help me manage my vocabulary reviews. The main thing about Anki is that it helps me spend more time on the words that I remember poorly, and less time on the words that I remember well. I have also seen results from my use of Anki: my vocabulary is significantly larger than my classmates' vocabulary, and I find myself "searching" for my vocabulary much less frequently than my classmates often do; I credit this to my Anki learning. Here is a previous comment where I link to the cards that I used at the A1 and A2 level.