[nabs-l] teaching myself german

[Julie McGinnity]

Hi,

I am a German major and have been taking German for 10 years.  I did
not teach it to myself, so I cannot help you with that aspect of
learning the language, but I can give you some things to help.  I use
grade one braille for German Braille.  The only signs you have to
worry about other than the alphabet are the umlauts(A, O, and U).
There are braille signs for those; however, when I write papers in
German, I usually use the E after the letter that has the umlaut,
which is acceptable as well.  There is also the Szet, which is the
double S in German.  There is a braille sign for that, but it was kind
of rare that I got to see it used.  I didn't use it myself and can't
even tell you when it's used and not at this point.  :)

I would recommend using Braille to learn.  Perhaps the library of
Congress has some options for learning German.  I don't know if I
would try to use a website because depending on how it works with
jaws, the German will either be pronounced incorrectly or will be way
too fast for a beginner.  When I find websites that jaws reads
correctly in German, I still have to slow it down a lot to read.  So I
would recommend using a textbook or something else from NLS.  I can
also give you some links to German dictionaries that I find
accessible, but a dictionary won't help you unless you understand the
language a little bit.

Sorry for the long message, and let me know if I can help any further.

On 1/23/13, vejas <brlsurfer at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi all,
> I am a fluent English speaker, and I know Lithuanian (because my
> family is) and I take Spanish in school.  I'd like to learn some
> other languages, though.  I am thinking that I want to first
> learn German.  So I have a couple of questions:
> 1.  Have any of you taught yourself languages online using an
> accessible site? Was it easy?
> 2.  What is German Braille like? Are there any other symbols I
> need to know besides the alphabet?
> I already understand that it's going to take longer to learn
> German because I won't have the opportunity to be with
> German-speakers every day, so geting the accent will be tough.
> Amazingly, it's not taught at our school, but I'd still really
> like to know it.
> I appreciate any comments.  By the way, I'm 16 if that helps at
> all.
> Sincerely,
> Vejas
>
> _______________________________________________
> nabs-l mailing list
> nabs-l at nfbnet.org
> http://nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/nabs-l_nfbnet.org
> To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info for
> nabs-l:
> http://nfbnet.org/mailman/options/nabs-l_nfbnet.org/kaybaycar%40gmail.com
>


-- 
Julie McG
National Association of Guide dog Users board member,  National
Federation of the Blind performing arts division secretary,
Missouri Association of Guide dog Users President,
and Guiding Eyes for the Blind graduate 2008
"For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that
everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal
life."
John 3:16