Meet the Team

I was an exchange student in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany, from 2019 to 2020, and that experience marked the beginning of my journey with German. It introduced me not only to the language but also to Germany’s culture and people.

I now attend the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where I am pursuing a double major in Computer Science and German Literature Studies. I wanted to build something that combined my computer science skills with my experience as a German learner—from arriving in Germany without speaking the language to working toward completing my German major.

Many sections of German in 3 Minutes focus on topics that I once found difficult or saw other students struggle with. German Wechselpräpositionen and adjective endings, for example, can be especially challenging. Those shared difficulties helped shape the practice materials on this site.

Ever since I was a child, I have been fascinated by foreign languages and the many ways the same idea can be expressed. I am a native Chinese speaker and studied Japanese and Swedish in high school. In 2023, I began learning German through courses at UNC Greensboro and UNC Chapel Hill, where I also study linguistics and language pedagogy.

While studying German, I noticed that many learners struggle with its grammar. Features such as explicit case marking, personal conjugations, and flexible word order can be especially challenging because they do not work the same way in English. Yet German grammar and syntax, like those of any language, follow a logical system of rules and patterns. The challenge is that many of these rules are not immediately intuitive to the average language learner.

I believe grammar should be taught as simply and intuitively as possible—something many language-learning resources do not always achieve. When I was invited to help develop German in 3 Minutes, I was excited by its ability to present fundamental grammar concepts clearly and concisely in a format that is approachable for beginners.