5-Day Language Study Plan to Journal About Wishes and Speak Naturally

You’ve come a very long way: going almost 3 months into a new language and especially through a range of essential topics, like describing your work/study life, your daily routine, your weekend plans, your last holiday in past tenses, your opinions and reasoning. Your sentences already connect into arguments. Your vocabulary has expanded into multiple areas of life. Now comes the final step at this beginner level: tackle the language study plan to journal about your wishes while sounding like a person, not a textbook in the target language.

“Would you like to move to another country?”

✨ Read Vietnamese version: [Bạn Có Muốn Chuyển Đến Một Đất Nước Khác Không? Kế Hoạch Học Ngôn Ngữ 5 Ngày Để Nói Tự Nhiên]

That one question opens three big doors.

First, the language of “would” — wishes, daydreams, and polite requests.

Second, the grammar of comparison — bigger, better, the best, to make your description and reasons stronger.

And finally, the small, almost invisible words that give a language its warmth, mood, and personality.

This language study plan for speaking naturally is where correct German (or any language) finally starts to sound alive. It is also the chapter to close the 3-month beginner level of Language Essential Series.

So excited, let’s get started!

5-Day Language Study Plan Week 11 for a complete Beginner of a new Language: Make Plans and Comparisons — 5-Day Language Study Plan Week 11 for a complete Beginner of a new Language: Wishes and Adjective Comparisons

Overview: What This Language Study Plan to Journal about Wishes Covers

This is Chapter 11 of the Language Essential Series — same five-day rhythm, each day building on the last until you can dream out loud, compare, order politely, and add that human layer that separates a fluent speaker from a careful one.

Here is what this language study plan for speaking naturally covers across the five days:

1️⃣ Day 1 — The language of “would”: wishes, dreams, and polite requests

2️⃣ Day 2 — Bigger, better, best: the grammar of comparison

3️⃣ Day 3 — At the café: ordering politely in the real world

4️⃣ Day 4 — The human layer: the little words that make you sound natural

5️⃣ Day 5 — Write and speak: moving abroad, and planning the perfect day out

After completing this chapter, you will be ready to answer these LAST 2 prompts from the 30-Day Language Journal Challenge, finishing the challenge as a beginner of a language after 3 months of diligent study (how cool is that!):

Prompt 29 — Would you like to move to another country — the country of your target language?
Prompt 30 — Suggest a day out: what would you do, where would you go, what would you eat?

Let’s break it down — one day at a time.

Day 1: The Language of “Would” — Wishes, Dreams & Polite Requests

Every language needs a way to step out of reality and into the imaginary — what you would do, how things would be in that imaginary reality. For many languages, learning how to do this offers a softer, more polite way to ask for help or a favor too:

EN: I would love to live in another country. That would be an adventure. (👉 special “would” forms)

DE: Ich würde gern in einem anderen Land leben. Das wäre ein Abenteuer. (👉 special “würden” forms)

VN: Tôi rất muốn sống ở một đất nước khác. Điều đó sẽ là một cuộc phiêu lưu. (no special verb forms here actually)

Pair this special verb form with “IF” or “WENN” in German, we achieve the must-know structure of conditional sentences. See more examples in the table below.

The same tools make a request polite instead of blunt:

EN: Could you help me? (softer than “Can you…?”) / Would you mind helping me with this?

DE: Könnten Sie mir helfen? (vs. the blunter “Können Sie…”?) / Wäre es möglich, dass …?

VN: Anh/Chị có thể giúp tôi được không ạ? (no special verb forms here, the optional particle “ạ” adds warmth and respect)

📌 German learner note: German has a whole “imaginary” mood — Konjunktiv II — for wishes and politeness.

Two forms are worth memorising directly (wäre = would be, hätte = would have)
For everything else, use würde + the verb at the end.
könnten (“could”) is the gold standard of a polite request.

Get a full detailed explanation of this special verb form inside Chapter 11 of Dear Deutsch E-Book HERE:

German Language Guided Self-Study: An Essential Writing and Speaking Guide for Beginners to reach A1-A2 Fast, by Daily Journaling and Speaking from Day 1

YOUR TURN:

How does your target language turn a plain wish into a polite “would”? With special verb forms like the German Konjunktiv II würden / könnten or a helper modal verb like would / could (English)?

👉 Day 1 goal: Write 4–6 sentences about a country you’d love to move to — what life there would be like, what you would do, what you would miss.

Example sentences

English	German	Vietnamese
If I had more time, I would learn the language faster.	Wenn ich mehr Zeit hätte, würde ich die Sprache schneller lernen.	Nếu tôi có nhiều thời gian hơn, tôi sẽ học ngôn ngữ nhanh hơn.
That would be wonderful — but would it be possible?	Das wäre wunderbar — aber wäre das möglich?	Vậy thì tuyệt quá — nhưng điều đó có khả thi không?

Day 2: Bigger, Better, Best — the Grammar of Comparison

A useful structure that might be required when expressing wishes and reasoning behind is adjective comparisons. To explain why one place or thing wins, you need comparison — and languages build it in strikingly different ways:

EN: Germany is bigger than Austria. / Vienna is one of the most beautiful cities.

DE: Deutschland ist größer als Österreich. / Wien ist eine der schönsten Städte.

VN: Nước Đức to hơn nước Áo. / Vienna là một trong những thành phố đẹp nhất.

📌 An English speaker and a German learner would see a similar pattern here: the adjective must be transformed

While English distinguish “bigger” and “the more beautiful”, German simply adds -er to the end of the adjectives for “more” (but watch the double consonant in English and the umlauts in German) AND then “than” or “als” after the transformed adjective:
- bigger than
- größer als
While English distinguish “the biggest” and “the most beautiful”, German adds am …sten for “most”, like “am größten” and “am schönsten”. However, a handful of irregulars can be found in both languages
- many/much → more → the most
- viel → mehr → am meisten

Languages like Vietnamese and Chinese do not transform adjectives (similar to no verb conjugations). Fascinating!

📌 German learner note: Before a noun, the comparative and superlative also take the adjective endings from Chapter 6 (die schönste Stadt).

YOUR TURN:

To say “bigger,” does your language change the word (English big → bigger, German groß → größer) or leave it untouched and add a “more” word after it (Vietnamese to hơn = literally “big more”)?

And how does it say “the most”? Like English big → the biggest, German groß → am größten) or leave it untouched and add a “most” word after it (Vietnamese to nhất = literally “big the number one”)?

Find out all the transformation rules and irregularities in your target language and configure the comparisons for the top 20 must-know adjectives in any languages.

Claim your FREE list of 1000+ Must-Know Vocabulary to kick start your language learning FASTER & MORE EFFECTIVELY with.

👉 Day 2 goal: Compare your target country with home — what would be better, what would be harder — using at least two comparatives and one superlative.

Example sentences

English	German	Vietnamese
Life in the countryside would be calmer than in the city.	Das Leben auf dem Land wäre ruhiger als in der Stadt.	Cuộc sống ở nông thôn sẽ yên bình hơn ở thành phố.
For me, Vienna is one of the most liveable cities in Europe.	Für mich ist Wien eine der lebenswertesten Städte Europas.	Với tôi, Vienna là một trong những thành phố đáng sống nhất châu Âu.

Day 3: At the Café — Ordering Politely in the Real World

Now put it to immediate, practical use: ordering food and drink. This is where “would” earns its keep, because a polite order sounds like a wish, not a demand:

EN: I would like the salmon, please. / Could you bring us the menu?

DE: Ich hätte gern den Lachs, bitte. / Könnten Sie uns die Karte bringen?

VN: Cho tôi món cá hồi, làm ơn. / Cho tôi xem thực đơn được không?

📌 German learner note: The classic ordering phrase is Ich hätte gern… (“I would like to have…” — Konjunktiv II again), always finished with bitte.

Inside the Dear Deutsch E-Book, a full restaurant dialogue will be laid out for you to guide you step-by-step through the conversation. So no freezing when ordering in public, only sounding polite and confident!

Dear Deutsch E-Book: The Journal-Study Method Designed to Help You Reach German A2 and Speak with Confidence in 90 Days

Your turn:

What’s the natural, polite way to order in your target language — and what customs come with it?

Learn some restaurant etiquette in the country of your target language, like: Does water arrive free or must you ask? Do you tip, and how much? Do you flag the waiter or wait to be approached? The words are half of it; the culture is the other half.

👉 Day 3 goal: Write a short café dialogue — greeting, ordering drinks then food, one polite request or dietary question, and paying.

Example sentences:

English	German	Vietnamese
Could you tell me whether the soup contains cream?	Könnten Sie mir sagen, ob die Suppe Sahne enthält?	Bạn cho tôi hỏi món súp có kem không?
We’d like to pay, please — together.	Wir möchten bitte zahlen — zusammen.	Cho chúng tôi tính tiền — tính chung nhé.

Day 4: The Human Layer — the Little Words That Make You Sound Natural

Here’s the secret ingredient. A sentence can be perfectly correct and still sound flat.

What gives speech texture — warmth, surprise, softening, shared understanding — is a family of tiny “flavour” words. And this is a feature some languages take much further than English:

Modal Particles:

That IS wonderful, isn’t it! / So, what would you like?

Das ist doch wunderbar! / Was möchten Sie denn? (modal particles, mid-sentence)

Tuyệt vời quá! / Thế bạn muốn gọi món gì nào? (sentence (mostly at the end) particles — Vietnamese’s speciality)

📌 German learner note: German sprinkles in small, almost untranslatable modal particles — doch, mal, ja, denn, eigentlich, wohl — that signal warmth, surprise, curiosity, or gentle softening. They sit in the middle of the sentence, unstressed, and belong entirely to speech and informal writing — never to formal prose.

Let’s look at some examples of some of the most frequently modal particles used in German daily spoken language:

Particle	Core meaning	Examples
ja	you know / obviously	Ich möchte ja nicht unhöflich sein. (I don’t mean to be rude, you know.)
doch	contradiction / reassurance / softened imperative	Das ist doch wunderbar! (That’s wonderful, isn’t it!)
mal	softens requests and imperatives	Schau mal! (Just look at that!)

YOUR TURN:

How does your language add warmth and softening? Vietnamese is a world champion here — its sentence-final particles (nhé, à, đấy, mà, thế) can flip a sentence’s whole mood. English leans on just, you know, and tag questions (…, isn’t it?). What are your language’s little words — and do they go in the middle like German, or at the end like Vietnamese?

Adverbs to turn up volumn or provide indirect softener:

English	German	Vietnamese
The cake takes really good!	Der Kuchen schmeckt echt gut!	Món bánh này ngon thực sự luôn!
I would actually also say so.	Ich würde eigentlich auch so sagen.	Mình thực ra thì cũng tính nói vậy á.

With these little words to jazz up flavors, you can sound not only more natural in daily speeches, but also more polite and less direct when asking for favors (to not sound bossy) or giving suggestions (to not sound pushy).

Day 5: Put It All Together

This is your production day. Over four days you’ve gathered the language of the imaginary (the “would” forms), the grammar of comparison, polite ordering sentences, and the human layer of flavour words. Now you bring it into two personal entries. Rather than copy a finished example, build each one yourself with the frameworks below.

Prompt 29 — Moving Abroad

Yes, I would love to move to ___, because ___.

Life there would be ___–er than here — it’s one of the most ___ places I know.

If I lived there, I could ___.

I would miss ___, but it would be ___.

Prompt 30 — A Day Out (with warmth!)

Hey — I’ve actually got an idea for ___!

How about we ___ first? It’s supposed to be really ___.

Then we could ___ — that would be nicer than ___.

The food at ___ is meant to be ___. What do you think — that would be lovely, wouldn’t it?

Fill each blank with your own dreams and plans, and you’ll have two complete, natural entries — every structure from Days 1–4 has a place to land.

👉 Day 5 goal: Use the frameworks to write your own Prompts 29 and 30. Then read them aloud — warmly, with the flavour words in place — and try describing a friend’s dream move using he/she forms.

📘 Inside Dear Deutsch: complete worked Sample Writing for both prompts — a full “move abroad” reflection and a warm, particle-rich date proposal — with English translations, plus the complete restaurant script from greeting to bill, the Konjunktiv II and comparison reference tables. Plus, you’d get a fill-in-the-blank self-check and the framework to guide your journaling and help you sound fluent and natural German with flavour words and all.

Chapter 11 Completion Checklist

Before moving on, check that you can do each of the following without looking at your notes:

✅ Express a wish or hypothetical with your language’s “would”
✅ Make a request politely instead of bluntly (“could” vs “can”)
✅ Build a conditional: “if X were true, Y would happen”
✅ Form comparatives and superlatives — however your language builds them
✅ Say “one of the most…” naturally
✅ Order food and drink politely, and know the local customs
✅ Make a special or dietary request without sounding abrupt
✅ Add at least one “flavour” word to soften or warm a sentence
✅ Write and speak both journal prompts in full

If you can tick every box, you have completed this language study plan for speaking naturally — wonderfully done.

What’s Next?

You’ve just completed the final grammar chapter of the beginner journey — and crossed the line from careful learner to natural speaker. Everything from here belongs to you: the vocabulary, the structures, the polite requests, the comparisons, and the little words that make it all sound human.

I reserve the final Chapter 12 as the send-off for Dear Deutsch E-Book learners. It is a full recap of everything you’ve built across all eleven chapters, practical survival language for real life in Germany, exam preparation (for German learners, the Goethe and TELC A2 exams), and a roadmap for your journey onward to B1 German.

I am so happy and excited if you read through 11 chapters of this Language Essential Series. It has been the most massive project I’ve ever done for language learning and becoming a polyglot journey. I’m grateful for your interest and support thus far!