Tag Archives: German language

Blog Discovery – German Is Easy

16 Wednesday May 2012

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German-language newspapers in North America in...I’m always on the lookout for good online resources to help boost my German language learning, as I really do need all the help I can get.  Most online German learning resources are a bit hit and miss but today I stumbled upon a blog called German Is Easy and whilst I’m not entirely sure I agree with the title of this blog, the content is first class.  Emanuel takes a word in German and explains all the many different ways it is used both in proper German and slang.  His explanations are clear and easy to understand, even for those of us who don’t really understand grammar. He also injects humour into his posts which stops them from being dry and boring. The blog is in English which makes it perfect for beginners and for those whose German is still developing.

If you want to know more than just a dictionary meaning of German words and how to use them in different situations, check out German Is Easy and add it to your RSS Reader or your bookmarks as it is a resource you can keep coming back to as, well for me, just one read through is not enough to absorb and more importantly remember all the information contained within each post.

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A Reprieve – Kinda

21 Tuesday Feb 2012

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19/366 The Night Circus

19/366 The Night Circus (Photo credit: clogsilk)

So you know how I was all freaking out about my German test that was scheduled for next week, well, I’ve been given a reprieve – kinda. My German teacher, for some reason, is away until next Thursday, so we have been given one extra week’s preparation time.  This does mean I will be studying on my birthday (boo hiss!) but having an extra week in which to prepare has dropped my stress levels dramatically.

That said I’m starting to feel good about what I have been able to accomplish so far in terms of preparation, but an extra week will really solidify it. I still feel shaky on my writing skills though as we won’t be allowed a dictionary which I really rely on to get my word choices right.  I’m hoping we will get told the theme and the writing type (letter, short story etc) so we have some time to think about what we need to produce in the exam.

In preparation for the exam, tonight’s homework is to write a short blurb about our favourite book. I’ve just finished reading The Night Circus which I loved, but have had no time to write a book review about.  So here is one, although it is more of a blurb and less of a review, in German.

Der erste Roman von Autorin Erin Morgenstern, The Night Circus ist eine neunzehnten Jahrhundert Geschichte uber das tödliche Spiel zwischen zwei großer Zauberer und ihr zwei Studenten. The Night Circus hat, als ein fantastisch und mysteriös final Schlachtfeld zwischen die zwei Studenten, gebaut. Aber dieses tödliche Spiel ist nicht langer zwischen die zwei Studenten, es beteiligt jetzt das Leben der viele Leute.

All bad word choices, wrong cases and hideous grammar are mine.

I think, despite all my mistakes, that I’m slowly starting to get better at writing in German.  This blurb was kinda fun to write.

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The love story of Wilhelm and Eva (Die Liebesgeschichte von Wilhelm und Eva)

19 Sunday Feb 2012

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Writing

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My German teacher set us a writing task to do this weekend. Using a personals ad as inspiration, we are to write the love story (die Liebesgeschichte) of the two main characters using some set phrases (eg Am Anfang, Am Schluss, Deshlab etc) and the pictures in our course book.

The ad is as follows:

Ich bin 65 Jahre alt und fühle mich seit dem Tod meiner Frau sehr einsam. Welche liebe Dame (Nichtrauchen) mötche sich einmal mit mir treffen? Ich bin ein guter Tänzer, wandere gern und habe ein schönes Haus in Grünen. Tel: 77 53 75

The love story I came up with is:

Seit dem Tod seiner Frau viele Jahre vor, hat Wilhelm sehr einsam gefühlt . Deshalb hat er eine Anzeige in der Zeitung gesetzt. Eine schöne altere Frau heißt Eva hat ihn angerufen. Sie hatten viele Hobbys gemeinsam  und sie entschieden sich zu treffen. Am Anfangen, alles war gut. Sie gingen tanzen und wanderen und sie verliebten sich bald.
Später, nach ein bisschen Monate, Wilhelm fragt Eva ihn zu heiraten. Eva hat  ‘Ja’ gesagt. Sie waren beide sehr glücklich.  Aber bald, sie anfingen zu streiten .
Schließlich hat Wilhelm die Hochzeit gestrichen als sie waren sich nicht mehr verliebt.
Am Schluss war Wilhelm noch einmal allein.

Now here comes a big favour, can those of you who are fluent in German pick this monstrosity apart and tell me where I have completely and utterly screwed up the grammar and tenses? Knowing what mistakes I’ve made will be very helpful for my A2 Prüfung where I have to produce a piece of writing, like the one above, but without the help of my German dictionary and my textbooks.  Thanks!

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Bilingual Technical Rehearsal

07 Tuesday Feb 2012

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Logo/icon for Stagecraft and technical theatre.

Last night was our technical rehearsal for the play ‘Beyond Therapy’ for which I’m doing sound production. At the technical rehearsal, we had to set up the entire sound system from speakers to mixing boards.  It took four hours and involved climbing up and down multiple ladders.  Whilst wrapping my head around how much sound production technology has changed in the past 20 years, I also had to wrap my head around all the German names for everything as naturally in a German theatre all the signs are in German.  I’m now making friends with words like Saalbeleuchtung and Steuerung (although no one seems to know what the Steuerung button does).

What I also found wonderful and somewhat terrifying is how everyone around me was switching between German and English as the make-up of our crew is both Germans and expats.  I think I’m one of the very few people who do not speak both languages fluently as I’m the only ‘expat’ who hasn’t been living in Germany for at least 10 years or was fluent in German before moving here. I was able to follow parts of the German directions, thanks mainly by knowing the German word for curtain (Vorhange), so that felt pretty good.  However, I think this production, which is in English, might have the unforeseen side-effect of helping improve my German.

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First Dream in German

27 Friday Jan 2012

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I’ve been dreaming in German for quite a while now but all those dreams have been rehashing the grammar rules I’ve learnt that day or conjugating verbs.  Basically my subconscious trying to make sense of everything I’m learning and consolidating it. However, last night I had my very first dream in German where both I and the other person in the dream were speaking in German. I don’t remember an awful lot about the dream but I was walking up some stairs chatting to the person next to me and what I remember is that even in my dream I didn’t understand every single word that they were saying, but I understood enough to be able to make some kind of reply. It was interesting to see my dream life resembled reality, although it would have been much more cooler if I had been completely fluent in German in my dream world.

I’ve been told that when you start dreaming in another language is when you finally make some kind of breakthrough. I hope this is correct.  For those of you who are conversational/fluent in another language, at what point did you start dreaming in that language? And do you think that it had any relation to what stage of learning that language you were up to?

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Pulling My Finger Out

16 Monday Jan 2012

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Deutsch: Beispiele deutscher Beschilderungen i...

With the failure of my Fluent in 3 Months language challenge and the depressing realisation that everyone in my class speaks better German than I do, I have decided to pull my finger out and get serious about learning German. I know I have talked about doing this, but this time I actually am. I’m actually putting all those grand plans into action and I feel I’m very slowly getting somewhere.

I read out loud to myself a short German children’s story every night and hope like hell the neighbours can’t hear me, but if they can I hope they are enjoying the monster and dinosaur stories of late. If they could shout back some corrections to my pronunciation, that would be fantastic.

I have loaded my iPod with the audio CDs that came with my German textbooks that I have never bothered to listen to, except in class, and every morning and evening on the U-Bahn I listen to them. I’m actually understanding most of what I’m hearing, which I really should since I’m still on the A1 CDs, but still it’s a nice feeling not to be completely lost.

I have gotten a copy of Rosetta Stone and am working my way through it.  I’m still on the basics, but I figure it is a good idea to really consolidate that base before getting to the stuff I find challenging. I’ve already learnt some new words and am slowly getting my head around accusative and dative and how the word endings change.

I still need to increase the amount of German TV I watch and the most scariest for me, increasing the amount of German I speak on a daily basis.  However, I’m determined that 2012 will be the year that I conquer German.

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Improve Your German with a Web Series

10 Tuesday Jan 2012

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As you know I’m always on the lookout for ways to improve my German, especially my ability to understand spoken German.

The website Young Germany has a section that is full of great resources to help improve your German. One of these is a web series called Jojo sucht das Glück. The language used in this webseries I would class as upper A2 – B1, but it has subtitles which makes it accessible to people who are able to read German far better than they can understand it, like me.  The story is a little formulaic and the acting is at best quite wooden, but it is a fun way to pick up new words and practice your listening skills if only for the amusement value of all the bad luck the main character Jojo has.  Each episode is only 3 minutes long, so you can watch a couple of episodes during your lunch break or whenever you have a couple of minutes spare.

If you are aware of any other web series created for beginner/intermediate speakers of German, please let me know and I will add them to this post.  It would be great to create a list of fun resources.

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Failure of the 3 Month Language Challenge. Time to start over.

02 Monday Jan 2012

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My ambitious challenge to become conversational in German in just three months failed due to one reason alone : I did not make learning German a priority. Yes, I went to my twice weekly classes, did all my homework, spoke a bit of German here and there, but I made no real effort to learn and more importantly practice my German.  I’m not one of these lucky people who have a ear for language and can pick them up easily.  I seem to need to work twice as hard as everyone else to get to the same level. However, I know I have the ability to learn German, because I learnt to speak English, but I need to put some effort into it.  I simply did not do that.

This time, I’m not going to have any gimmicky challenge, I’m simply going to make learning German a priority. I need to get over the fear of making an fool of myself and just start speaking German, cause quite frankly, I’m more than capable of making an fool of myself speaking English, might as well accomplish that in German too. I also know that I’m not really going to make a life for myself here in Germany until I start speaking the language.

It’s time to stop making up excuses and just do it.

 

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It’s The Little Victories

13 Thursday Oct 2011

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The title card for the musical comedy series G...

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When I first moved to Germany a year ago and had to start functioning in German, it was being able to accomplish the little things that brought such joy. Things such as ordering lunch without having to switch into English and being able ask how much something cost.

These days not much has changed, except that the bar has been raised a little higher. One of the things I’ve wanted to do was to have a simple conversation with someone I didn’t really know. Therefore when I ran into the cute receptionist (CR) who works for the business centre my office is in, I decided to seize the chance.

Now, a bit of a backstory. I have seen CR almost every single work day for a whole year and never been able to say more than a simple hello, goodbye, thanks and that weird Northern German custom of saying ‘mahlzeit’ (mealtime) when you go to lunch. Now most of that has been a language issue but some of it has also been a confidence issue.  I’m not really confidence around cute girls when I’m in an English speaking country, therefore in a German speaking country I have zero confidence. Add to that that CR looks like Brittany from Glee (Gleek will know exactly what I’m talking about) and it’s a wonder I can get out a basic greeting.

Fast forward back to this morning when I run into CR waiting for the lift up to our floor.  I think ‘fuck it’ and after saying Good morning, I ask her how she is doing and we play out a carbon copy of the ‘how are you’ conversation you learn on day 2 of German class. I do this every day with my colleges, so I’m feeling pretty comfortable.  Meanwhile CR is lovely enough to be completely surprised at apparently how good my German is. Bless her.  Then, and this is the awesome bit, we continue to talk in German all the way up to the office. It was simple things like how long I’ve now been living in Hamburg and if I like it here and then where was I from and after learning I was from Sydney, why on earth did I move to Hamburg. Once she learnt it gets up to 40C in summer she was much more okay with why I moved.  Then we had the typical bitch about Hamburg’s rainy weather.

The icing on the cake was the look on the other receptionist’s face when we walk into the office chatting in German.  It was like ‘what the fuck!’.  This is because no one has ever heard me speak more than one or two words in German since I arrived a year ago.

So, have a conversation with someone I barely know in German and talk to a cute girl without looking like an idiot have now been ticked off my list of things I want to accomplish. Win!!

Of course this means the next time I talk to cute girl or try to have a simple conversation with someone I don’t know, I will fail spectacularly. This is the way the universe works.

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Thoughts on Week One

10 Monday Oct 2011

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I have now been speaking German in the office for one week. In that week, I’ve come to realised just how much German I need to learn.  It is a little daunting, but I always knew that the road ahead would not be easy.

With three of my dear friends from Australia visiting over the weekend, I did not watch any German TV, read any German books nor practice any of my vocab.  I basically had the weekend off.  I’m going to give myself a guilt-free pass on that one cause spending time with friends from home definitely trumps spending time learning German.

I also spent Thursday and Friday not listening to any German audio, despite promising to listen to 30mins of German audio every day.  That I will not give myself a guilt-free pass on.  It was sheer laziness. I can’t promise I won’t do it again, but I will do my best not to.

All in all, the first week has been an interesting one; discovering how much German I know, how well I can currently express myself (basically as well as a 2 year old) and realising how much I have to learn (lots).  I’m hoping as this Fluent in 3 Months challenge continues I can begin to see some progress, but at the moment, it is just too early to do so.

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