Vocabulary 4: taking it up a notch or three

Up until now, I've been using a single index-card notebook to record German words and expressions I want to work on with J. Although this is "systematic" to the extent that I strive for a certain number of repetitions, the material itself is not organized in any particular way; I just write down any word or expression I think it would be a good idea for J to know. I talk about this here. 

This summer, I've decided to start organizing this material systematically. So I took out this book...* 

.... and photocopied the four comprehensive lists of idiomatic expressions:

1) Prepositional phrases
2) Preposition-adjective combinations
3) Idiomatic verb-preposition combinations
4) Idiomatic noun-verb-preposition combinations. 

Then in a few cut-and-paste sessions ... 

... I put together three new index-card notebooks. The first ...

... combines the first two lists, idiomatic prepositional phrases:

and idiomatic preposition-adjective pairs:

The second notebook: 

Contains this sort of thing:

And the third notebook:

These puppies:

Obviously this is advanced and bookish language (especially the noun-verb-preposition combos), not the kind of thing one thinks of as conversational. And indeed, it's hard to imagine imagine ever trying to work an expression like etwas in Abrede stellen or eine Anfrage richten an into conversation with J! 

Still, a large number of these expressions do occur in our L2 reading and listening, especially in the non-fiction materials. Furthermore, my own German, which is conditioned by literary and academic discourse, is simply rather bookish, so that is one of the linguistic registers J is going to get from me and I make no apologies for it. Lastly, the next notebook I'm planning will be a counterbalance to the elevated style: slang and "youthspeak." Already J says things like Verkrümele dich! and Verpinkele dich! when he wants me to stop bothering him! ;) 

It's all about having multiple linguistic registers at one's command.   

*Here's the most recent edition.