 In Another Word: How did you learn German quickly? Almost 6–7 Months invested for the language class and 1 month for exam preparation is not considered quick enough, at least for me it’s not Quick. For learning language, it is still fast given that you didn’t any previous experience with the language before. As I was about to finish my Bachelors in engineering, I had started looking for what to do further with my career, after adequate research I decided to go for Masters in Germany given that I have done my B.Tech in Automobile Engineering. After researching MS courses and educational details about Germany, I decided to go for a German taught master degree in engineering. I was a little bit concerned with language difficulty as many others, but my father did his research and found out few contacts who were well settled in Germany, and he encouraged me to continue with the German taught course. And If the Indian father says something to you, you don’t argue with them, you just do it. (Joke only !!!) Now coming to your Question. How? I joined the language class by a native German teacher in my home town for initial levels(A1-A2). This took around 2.5 months. The class duration were 7–8 hours 5 times a week. The teacher was very good and enthusiastic, she had organised many group activities and practical exercises for speaking and comprehension. As the alphabets are the same and have almost the same pronunciation as in English, made the reading and writing(spell errors) part easier. Grammars and sentence structure were difficult in the beginning but by doing exercises and practising it made it clear and understandable. Apart from that, I was using Duolingo for learning new words and other useful apps for identifying der, die, das articles with the proper suffix for different cases to cross-check my grammatical part. I was writing voluntarily on different topics and emails and was letting it checked by the German teacher. This way I was able to score 95 in Goethe A1 level exam in India. In these 2.5 months, I was able to make a strong foundation for my German learning, which helped me making tower up to C1 with lesser efforts. Though A1 and A2 exam formats from Goethe are not that difficult and also do not expect more fluency from you, but the contents from the coaching are important as most of the basic grammar rules and syntax will be covered in A1 and A2.  After getting admission for my language school and visa as per my plan I had to begin my language learning from B1 to C1 in Berlin. Until now I was surrounded by my fellow countrymen, where I couldn't use or utilise my German other than in class. In Berlin, this scenario changed completely. I had booked the German guest family for my accommodation in the initial months. Here I had more time speaking with the guest mother Mrs.Faber about different topics and history. She loves to talk and tell stories about her life and city and also wartime history of Germany, which more or less was preparing me for my German in an indirect way. Also in Language school, I was having intensive learning with more colourful environments under the native German teacher. I didn’t stop the use of Duolingo and my writing habit which helped me for the exams and also, in general, I had more words in my vocabulary compare to my classmates. I used to listen to the radio as I didn’t have laptop and TV with me at that time, which ultimately forced me to either listen to the radio or watch or play in the small screen of my Sony Z1 compact. I started with B1 German in January 2016 and I was finished with my training around May/June 2016. After that, I was prepared exclusively for the exams like TestDaF, Telc C1 Hochschule and DSH which are the main requirement for German taught MS course. I gave 3 of them and was qualified for two of them to secure the admission in German taught MS courses from 4 different Universities.
During language coaching, I was actively using the language itself with the people in surrounding like my guest family, my classmates and roommates and so on. As being in Germany your exposer to the language is higher than in your home country. You will learn so many things by listening to people or trying to talk with them. I changed my phone’s default language to German since January 2016 till now and I am even using my Laptop in German mode. Watching movies and listening to German radio will definitely help and also it tells about the local culture, one can also read newspaper, books and magazines to get familiar with literature and culture in Germany. By being in contact with native can definitely be a big plus point, especially someone talkative like Mrs.Faber. All these factors together helped me to get the needed fluency in the German language. Luckily I was one of the three candidates out of 20 students to crack the C1 exam. Even today sometimes I use Duolingo for german language, though I am learning Spanish for myself. It won’t be easy peasy or piece of cake, but It’s 100% possible. Language is also not mathematics or physics that you can learn by remembering some set of formulas or theory. For me, every language is an expression of Art, if you will give respect to that art and give your effort to understand it, with the right desire to learn the language with consistency you will surely find your way out. At the time of writing this answer, I have finished my M.Sc Fahrzeugbau with good grades and started working in the Automotive industry still in a German-speaking environment. All the best !!! Ankit Sheladiya (અંકિત શેલડિયા) Useful Links :
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