Tag Archives: German grammar

A Tough Week

25 Friday Nov 2011

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I’ve had a tough week emotionally this week.  My emotions have been all over the place, but mainly in the downwards directions.  I blame the constant fog, cold damp weather and lack of sunlight.  I’ve beaten myself up for having problems deciphering German grammar and not being as good speaking German as some of my classmates.  I’ve gotten all depressed because for some reason I feel isolated here, even though I know I have a wonderful circle of friends. I’ve gotten angry at myself for putting on weight, even though I’ve started eating better and started running again and have lost 2.5kg in the last 2 weeks. All in all, it’s been one crap week and I’ll be glad to see it end.

I know that when I get like this, I need to go and do things to cheer myself up.  Tomorrow I’ll be hitting the Christmas markets to shop for Christmas gifts for my family and to indulge in Schmalzkuchen and Glühwein and tomorrow night I’ll be treated to a home-cooked Indian meal by my Indian classmate and will get a chance to get to know some of my classmates better.  Then on Sunday, I’ll be having brunch with a dear friend who I haven’t seen for a couple of weeks. I’ve also just brought a book that explains German grammar in English and will be diving into that as soon as it arrives.  I know things will get better and this horrible dark feeling won’t last forever, but I really hate these low feeling weeks.

German Letter Writing

23 Monday May 2011

Posted by in Expat

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My A1 test is coming up next month and one of the exercises we have to do in the test is to write a letter.  Therefore, our German homework over the weekend is to write a letter to someone back home about Hamburg.

Here is my attempt, a letter to my friend Kym back in Sydney.

Liebe Kym,

Ich wohne jetzt schon acht Monate in Hamburg.  Hamburg ist sehr schön und ich liebe es hier. Meine Wohnung ist in Eimsbüttel und nah der Supermarkt und die Drogerie.
Meinen Nachbar sind ruhig und freundlich.
Letze Woche waren meine Eltern in Hamburg. Wir sind zu Michael’s, St. Nikolai und Miniatur Wunderland gegangen. Am Sontag wir sind zum Hafengeburtstag gegangen. Mein Vater hat die Schiffe geliebt.
In Hamburg kann man viel machen: ins Rathaus gehen, im Stadtpark spazieren gehen und in der Mönckebergstraße einkaufen. Hamburg hat sogar ein englisches Kino Streits heißen. Einen Film kostet €9. Es ist billiger als Australien Kinos.
Ich hat viele freunden gemacht. Am Sonntag abends gehen wir zu Finnegan’s Wake für pub trivia. Es ist in Englisch. Diese Woche kamen wir siebten. Wir sind nicht sehr gut aber wir haben spass.
Ich vermisse dich. Besuchen bald!

Herzlich Gruß,
Meg

I’m still really struggling with accusative, nominative and dative cases.  I know the various forms but I have no idea when to use them.  I flunked grammar in school and am now struggling to learn it in a foreign language.  I’m hoping that one day it will just click into place, but probably not before my exam.

Please feel free to pick out all the mistakes I have made.  I have already annoyed the wonderful German speakers on Twitter about the correct way to say ‘My father loved the ships’ in German (I never knew it was so damn complicated) but I’m sure every other sentence also contains errors.

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Dreaming of German Grammar

16 Wednesday Feb 2011

Posted by in Expat

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My German class has finally reached learning about one of the pain points of German grammar – Accusative, Nominative and Dative pronouns.  These seriously are screwing with my mind.  I can not get my head around them, probably because I never understood them in English grammar.  I foresee some quality time being spent with a grammar textbook in my very near future.

Last night in class we struggled with dative pronouns using them in conjunction with in, auf and an for masculine, feminine and neutral nouns and then putting them in sentences. I came home, I did my homework on the same subject and went wearily to bed with my brain totally confused.

Therefore, it probably should have come to no surprise that I began dreaming of constructing dative pronouns, but what was most annoying was that my brain also decided to give me a very rare romantic dream at the same time.  So there I was in my dream with an amazingly gorgeous woman who is wanting to move on to more interesting activities but I am constructing sentences using dative pronouns and asking her if I got them right instead.

I woke up seriously pissed off with my subconscious, but I think I may have finally got the pattern of dative pronouns down. I wonder if this gorgeous woman will turn up in my dreams again to teach me about when something is accusative, nominative or dative.  I might forgive my subconscious if it could finally make me understand that.

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