Session 14 — Pronunciation, Letter Review & Test-Prep Planning
Friday, 17 July 2026 · with Sabahat Batool · Sounds, forms, and a plan for the mock test
Builds on Session 13: more formal-letter practice, plus a new travel/form-filling skill and
pronunciation work — and a concrete plan for a practice test before the real exam.
Part 1 · Pronunciation drills — minimal pairs
Like you're five: these three verbs look almost identical in writing but sound different —
drilling them side by side trains your ear and mouth together.
| German | English |
|---|---|
| lachen | to laugh |
| lassen | to let / leave |
| lernen | to learn |
Also drilled: H / K / L / Sh sounds, using the class textbook (ISBN 97831919475) as reference.
Say all three verbs — lachen, lassen, lernen — out loud back to back, several times, until
the vowel/consonant differences feel automatic.
Part 2 · Letter review — punctuation & capitalization
Continued from Session 13: reviewed punctuation and capitalization on a formal letter draft, this time about
stomach pain and requesting understanding (e.g. for missing class or work).
Keep applying the Session 13 rule: capitalize every noun, and check comma placement around subordinate clauses.
Part 3 · Gendered occupational nouns
Many German job titles have a masculine and a feminine form — usually built with the -in
suffix (or, for some words, a completely different pairing).
| Masculine | Feminine | English |
|---|---|---|
| der Bergmann | die Bergfrau | miner |
| der Arzt | die Ärztin | doctor |
Part 4 · Travel / form-filling exercise
Practiced filling out a paper travel form — a common real-life A1 task (accommodation booking).
| Field | Example / options |
|---|---|
| City | Amsterdam, Hamburg, Berlin, Frankfurt |
| Accommodation type | das Hotel, die Wohnung, die Pension |
| Anzahl der Personen (number of people) | 9 |
| Hobby | klassische Musik |
Real-world tip from class: paper forms should be filled out with a black ballpoint pen
(der Kugelschreiber) — not pencil.
Part 5 · Test-prep planning
A concrete plan was set for building a mock/practice test:
- Sabahat will take 4 pages of material and divide it into a test.
- Saif will prepare the test file and send it to Sabahat.
- Follow-up meeting scheduled for Sunday at 3:00.
- Goal: aim for at least 50% on the model/practice test before the real exam.
- Timeline milestones referenced during review: June 19, July 2, July 7.
Session 14 recap
If you remember only 5 things
- Pronunciation trio: lachen · lassen · lernen — say them back to back.
- Keep applying capitalization + punctuation rules on every formal letter.
- Gendered jobs: der Arzt / die Ärztin, der Bergmann / die Bergfrau.
- Travel form vocab: Hotel, Wohnung, Pension, Anzahl der Personen, Kugelschreiber.
- Practice test plan: aim for 50%+ before the real exam; follow-up Sunday at 3:00.
Source: sessions/2026-07-17-fri — Read AI meeting summary + Google Doc "Notes by Gemini".