How to understand this website as a reading guide

My project for 2024 is to read through Harry Potter to acquire more German/Deutsch vocabulary, creating vocab lists with their English translations and their usage in the text.

Right now, I have taken up to B1-level German and in a B2 class, but I can confidently say I’m likely distant in vocabulary acquisition and speaking than where I should be. That means, at the beginning of my project, I am underlining vocabulary in the book that would be likely unknown to B1- or B2/1-level Deutsch learners. To not overwhelm vocab lists, as well as to keep up with my reading speed, I have limited lists to 20 words per chapter (after Ch3 of HP1). I am hopeful that I will see an improvement as I read through the book, but I see so far that I forget some words that were on prior pages—oops! That means there are repeated words on the vocab lists every now and then :) And I’m definitely not trying to read all seven in one year. Likely I’ll only get through Sorcerer’s Stone.

Of note: I am organizing vocabulary page by page based on my copy of Harry Potter. Obviously, this is not the most helpful it could be for learners with other editions, but will help me get through the project. I bought a set of Harry Potter from a local secondhand shop. The hardcover edition of the first book is:

  • Harry Potter und der Stein der Weisen by Joanne K. Rowling

  • Aus dem Englischen von Klaus Fritz

  • Carlsen, 1998. pp. 5-335.

I will also say here that I have struggled to separate the art from the artist, especially when it comes to the author’s transphobic remarks and ongoing realizations of problematic material in the Harry Potter series. For that reason, I strongly encourage buying books secondhand. I think there may be also conveniently-uploaded PDFs out in the great world wide web. We can use these resources for our benefit without further benefitting monetarily someone ahem else.

Lastly, I am not a professional linguist or language teacher. I am also not using a side-by-side English-language Harry Potter to figure out the translations. That means I’m using good old Google Translate and trying to match the translations to what I think fits into the sentence. I’m probably off in some circumstances! But I am trying my best. If you see any glaring issues, please do send me a message through the Contact page above.