We learn German by playing a game: We are in Switzerland since one year… and we still don’t speak German!

This last 7th of January was our first anniversary in Switzerland. How fast time goes on!!

When we look back, my husband and I, and we see how many things had happened in this elapsed time, we cannot believe it! We’ve moved to another country, we got married, we’ve met new people, a new culture….but the most important, we are parents now. Yes, really, the most important thing this last year is that we are now parents…

Being parents has been such a big challenge, not to talk about being parents on a foreign country, with little friends and no family at all! So we had to prioritize, and we could not achieve big improvements in some of the challenges we where facing this year. What I am talking about?..its all about German..yes one year later we are just in the basis…

So, I decided there is enough, we are stronger than all that! We can manage to learn it! So thinking a bit about what are mine major weaknesses in German I found I need much more vocabulary. I know, more or less, the basic gramatical rules, but when I try to talk I always get stack on words I don’t know how to say.

Furthermore, for those of you that don’t know yet, German has three posible genders, that is: feminin, masculin and neutrum. Which don’t follow any logical rule. And also, the plural can be made in 6 different ways! So when you learn a new word it is really important to learn also its gender and plural (I’ve learned that to late….snif…)

My solution has been to invent a game. I have created some cards which have in one side a picture and on its back the name of the image with its gender and plural. Till now I made cards with the following topics: the body, kitchen hardware, clothes, fruits and vegetables. Not much, but it is a beginning

All the cards I’ve already made

In the front an image and on the back the name of the image with its gender and plural in red.

I am still not sure about how we will play this game, although I have several idees in mind. One option can be to use a Trivial pursuit board and instead of using its classical cards, use mines. Another option is to make more cards, this time with verbs and adjectives, so the game can be to make sentences. I think this option can be rather funny, depending on the chosen cards!

This cards can be useful for those learning german (on a basic level). So I’ve decided that everybody that wants to have them can download the cards from the following link: cards for learning German.

The document you can download from the previous link is a word document and has this aspect:

In one page the images and on the next page the names.

To make the cars you just need to print them by duplex printing. I’ve used a paper a bit thicker than the normal one. Be careful when printing the cards, so the name is placed just behind the right image.

Once printed, you just need to cut them and the funny (and educational) part can start!

I’ve thought they can also be useful for those learning other languages ( it doesn’t maters if you are learning German or Chinese, you will always need to say apple, isn’t it?. In this case, just download the file, and change the names for the corresponding names on the language you are learning!

Hope it can be useful and you have a nice week!