AMD2

After watching a few German comedians, as well as some practical joke films I realized that I did not find their sense of humor to be terribly funny. In comparison to American humor, German humor was not as up beat and the people did not seem to have the same amount of energy as American comedians. The German comedians seemed more reserved and lacked much of the body language present in American comedy that gives jokes much more emphasis. Another thing is that the German comedian talked much more about stereotypes from around the world which it seemed the audience did not entirely understand. The German jokes seemed targeted at people who travel and are decently educated, rather than the average person. American humor is based more around actions and everyday experiences that everyone can relate to, like racial stereotypes or sex, but German humor required the audience to have to think about the joke and have prior knowledge about the world, which many Americans lack. As much as I do enjoy an American comedian sweating bricks and watching him crawl all over the floor explaining how his kid acts when his diaper is full, I found the German sense of humor more interesting. Mostly because it does require that bit of intellect and when you actually have to put some energy into understanding the jokes it is much funnier and a bit more rewarding in my opinion. I am a very big fan of sarcasm and the fact that sarcasm requires one to think about what was just said, to firstly figure out if it was sarcasm and then what is meant by it, is much more enjoyable than being told jokes about something vulgar or a common experience that is often too overdone in the first place.

A couple links:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&feature=endscreen&v=nOtyvaXKEAg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76Gw6OFFMW4

AMD 2

For the second AMD I chose to read Mark Twain's essay "The Awful German Language." I really enjoyed reading this essay; it was really funny, especially for someone trying to learn the German language. I took a stab at learning German in high school, but got frustrated with all the exceptions and cases, which were something completely new and foreign to me, and gave up pretty quickly.

This time around I'm ready for the challenge, and the way we've been learning in class is proving to be more helpful to me than the methods from my last class. This essay also helped make light of a lot of the frustrations I'm dealing with. Even Mark Twain struggled with case and knowing what "sie" actually means in a sentence.

The direct translations provided by Twain had me laughing out loud, especially the one demonstrating the separable verbs. Although I'm trying to learn not to directly translate in my head, I still do occasionally and the sentences produced from translating German back to English are rather amusing.

For the most part, even though I enjoy studying German, I have to agree with much of what Twain said, although I'm not as big a fan of Schlag and Zug as he is. I find them more confusing than useful.

AMD2

This weekend, since the marching band did not travel to Purdue for the football game , several of us went in small groups. I went with several other clarinets. While in the car for the 5 hour drive there, I brought along one of my all time favorite books: Also sprach Zarathustra: Ein Buch für Alle und Keinen (Thus Spoke Zarathustra: A Book for All and None), by Friedrich Nietzsche. Nietzsche was born in 1844 near Leipzig in the German Kingdom of Prussia. He is probably the most well known German philosopher for his notable work in existentialism. However, many people who are unfamiliar with his work do not realize that he is also one of the greatest writers of both prose and poetry Germany has ever produced. His writing is somewhat dry- it isn't a book I would recommend, simply because it can be not understand any of what he means.

I much prefer the book he published previous to Zarathustra, Die fröliche Wissenschaft (The Gay/Joyous Science). While Zarathustra is written in a manner that is similar to a novel (in fact, many compare its layout to that of the Bible- a mock Gospel, in a way). Die fröliche Wissenschaft, on the other hand, it written entirely in "sections" that are aphorisms- short, pithy statements that are easy to remember. Each section has a heading number, a topic sentence or question, and a response. For example, one of my favorite aphorisms is "Section 270: What Saith Thy Conscience? "Thou shalt become what Thou art." While many of these aphorisms can be several paragraphs long, many are also one sentence long. I much preferred the format of Die fröliche Wissenschaft and I feel like I was able to learn more in reading it compared to Zarathustra. I would indeed recommend it.

AMD2

Ich höre Musik in Deutsch am Wochenende.

Ich finde ein Weihnachtslied although Chritsmas is two months away from now. It's called "Schnuffels Weihnachtslied". Since it was sung by kids, the song sounds very sweet and is full of happiness. I think it might be a good way to learn German by listening to the songs sung by kids cuz they pronounce clearly.

Part of the lyrics are
"Ich bin happy, wenn Du an mich denkst
Ich hab für Dich ein ganz tolles Geschenk
Und ich zünde eine Kerze an
Und dann wart' ich auf den Weihnachtsmann "
I could  feel the excitement that kids have, waiting for the Santa Claus!

The second song I recommend is "Das Beste" from Silbermond. Very different from the first one. This song is somewhat moving cuz the singer is singing to express her gratefulness for her lover. My favorite sentence is: Du bist das Beste was mir je pasisert ist, es tut so gut wie du mich liebst! It's been so exciting to listen to the German songs and I was so surprised when I found so many words that I've learnt!!

AMD 2

For my activity, I decided to try and learn German vocabulary by writing lyrics with a German friend, Carly.  It turned out to be extremely fun, but our lyrics didn't seem to make sense.  We tried to have rhyming lyrics, but with our limited vocabularies, we came up with a few nonsensical songs.  Most of them seemed to be a cluster of random nouns and colors...

Wir haben ein rote Hund
er isst das Ananas... und
ich sage "Guten Morgen!"
er sagt "das Lied ist beschissen."

To be completely honest, this is probably the best we've come up with... and it probably doesn't even use proper grammar.  However, we figured that a lot of songs we knew didn't really use proper grammar and our lyric writing exercise could help us with learning vocabulary.

It didn't...

...BUT it was extremely fun, and I hope to write some better songs in German by the end of the semester!

AMD 2

Ich spiele das Darts dies Wochenende.  I played with my friend who studies German here.  We made a point of only speaking German during the matches.  My contribution was counting the score after each round, which required me to call out numbers von nul bis zwanzig, and mark down numbers von dreihunderteins bis nul.  I used phrases like, "gut Schuss" (good shot) und "schlecter Schuss"(bad shot).  I would go for the dreimalig zwanzig during the early rounds.  The game must be won on a double, I won the final game on a Doppeleins.  Meine Freundin had the best single turn with a score of fünfundneunzig.  My favorite phrase was, "Ich habe gewonnen!"

While playing, I only listened to what she said in German, and was able to pick up a few cool phrases unrelated to the game.  I learned that "diese Wiedergabeliste ist fantastisch" means, this playlist is fantastic.  And, "wann ist Ihr Vorstellungsgespräch" means, when is your interview.  It was great to have a chance to practice in such a low pressure environment.

AMD2

Mittwoch Abend my friend Samantha and I went to the Berlin There, Done That event hosted by the Max Kade House. I truthfully think it would be scary to live in a place that's dedicated to speaking only German, but my friend doesn't. I do suppose if I were to become better at speaking German it wouldn't be as scary. The food that they had at the event was some of the best food I've had since I've been at U of M. The mac and cheese was delicious and the potato cakes were amazing. I'm not really a sauerkraut person but the bratwurst in it was really good. We had to go around to different stations, I found the tie-dying fun and interestingly enough I found out that I've been pronouncing "Tschüss" with too much a "T" sound. There was one station that involved trivia about many famous German people, and surprisingly I recognized a lot of them from class! Overall I had a lot of fun at the event and I learned not only more about German, but German here at U of M.

AMD2

For my post, I decided that I wanted to listen to some popular German music that is out today. So, I looked up Germany's Top 40 list. Unfortunately, all of the songs were in English, even though I haven't heard really any of them. I went back to google and found a list of 100 Popular songs in German that are out today. I listened to the first five songs. They were: "Gloria" by Joachim Witt, "Bin Dann Mal Weg" by Blumentopf, "Hoher Als Der Rest Der Welt" by Massiv, "The Diamond Boy 2012" by Massiv, and "Irgendwie Anders" by Tonbandgerät. All of these songs came from different genres, just like American music. I am now assuming that Massiv is popular in Germany because he was on the list several times and made the Top 5 twice. He is a rapper, not my favorite. I did like "Bin Dann Mal Weg" and "Irgendwie Anders." "Bin Dann Mal Weg" is more rock than all the others. "Irgendwie Anders" was poppy and catchy. The band that plays "Irgendwie Anders", Tonbandgerät, sounds a lot like Matt and Kim. Overall, I enjoyed exploring the music from Germany; it is cool to see what other countries like in music and what the whole music scene is there.

AMD2

Since there is no better way to learn a language than to be totally emerged in it i changed the language on my phone and on my computer to german. At first it seemed to be overwhelming and it still is i can understand about half of the words clearly and the other half I'm lost at first glance but the longer that i look at the more it makes sense considering a lot of the words have a stem word which we have already learned. Where it gets really confusing is on the internet where i usually take things for granted i no longer do. But as of right now i feel like i understand the language a little better because it isn't in the classroom. Yes the book can help a lot but there is no better way than to jump into the language and try to accomplish my task even if that measn navigating something which is usually a piece of cake in german. I think from now on once a week I'm going to switch the language settings over for an hour or two just so i can get a better grasp of what "real german" is like.

AMD2

Since I spend a lächerlich amount of time on Facebook, I figured that would be a good place to practice German.  I changed my Facebook language to German and have been trying to navigate it that way since.

Some things on there were already familiar to me, such as "Wohnt in ____ " "Studeirt ____ " or "Aus _____ " in people's info sections.  Also, it has been helping to reinforce my memory for the days of the week and the names of the months (otherwise how will I know if that party invitation I got is for friday or saturday?)

I enjoyed seeing familiar things in a different language, such as the "like" button saying "Gefällt mir" or  notifications being "Benachrichtigungen"

Some phrases weren't as familiar, but I've been able to work them into conversations with my friends who speak German, such as "Was machst du gerade?" ("what are you doing?" which is the prompt in the status-update box).

AMD 2

I decided to read Mark Twain's essay "The Awful German Language". My roommate thought I was a weirdo for chuckling at some of the things Twain mentions on how strange German is. A lot of the stuff he brought up like 3 different "the's" or how some nouns have a gender when they shouldn't I agreed with. The example I found pretty funny was the turnip and young lady,

"Gretchen.

Wilhelm, where is the turnip?

Wilhelm.

She has gone to the kitchen.

Gretchen.

Where is the accomplished and beautiful English maiden?

Wilhelm.

It has gone to the opera.".

That seemed to sum up the language well, basically illustrating how confusing and how complicated their grammar is.
On a side note, when Twain wrote, "Now there are more adjectives in this language than there are black cats in Switzerland" I didn't realize Switzerland was known for its black cats.
I think Generalstaatsverordnetenversammlungen is my new favorite word. I don't think English has words of that length or even close to that length. That word alone looks like it is a sentence and someone forgot to put spaces between the words.

AMD2

For AMD2, I listened to German songs that are currently popular. The songs I listened to were: Schau nicht mehr zurück and Lila Wolken. A lot of the songs popular in Germany are in English so I also listened to a few other German songs that are not as popular. These songs are: Sleipnir and 99 Luftballons. Some of the popular songs include She Wolf (Falling to Pieces), Stardust, Summertime Sadness and Feel Again. The song, Gangnam Style, is also quite popular. The first song, Schau nicht mehr zurück, is about how the singer is not going to look back on the past but instead look forward to the future. The second song, Lila Wolken, is about being young and living life to the fullest while still young. The third song, Sleipnir, is about a battle. The fourth song, 99 Luftballons, is about the cold war and is a song of protest. Also, I was surprised at how many words I was able to recognize in all of the songs.

AMD2

For this activity I listened to the German National Anthem. To my surprise I was able to distinguish a lot of terms that I have learn through classes so far. For example The opening starts off as Germany, Germany above all, above all in the world. I recognize the "in der Welt" and learned what über alles, meant. I also was able to grasp Vaterland since I know vater means father vaterland will mean father land. I distinguished what Ihren alten schönen Klang, "their old beautiful chime" since ihr, alt, schön, were all words we have learn in class. In one part it states "Deutsche Frauen" which of course I know it means German women. I liked listening to the anthem it had a fun, marching beat to it and was pretty easy to understand parts of the lyrics.

AMD 2

     A couple weeks ago a video of a guy named Flula was posted onto Reddit. It was basically a video of him complaining why it's stupid to shoot fish in a barrel. You already caught the fish, why do you need to kill them? It was very funny but now I appreciate the humor even more after reading the Kultur 2 texts. Flula is everything that is German. He starts out every video extremely distraught. Usually saying something like "So I haf dis DJ friend. And he say to me, 'Flula. You are preaching to the choir'...What? There is no choir here. And I would not preach to it". He complains about everything! One of my favorites is when someone tells him he is the cat's pajamas. He takes it as a death threat.
     It's strange to think of idioms that are so common in  English being a puzzle to people who are not native speakers. Because really, a lot of them don't make sense. A lot of them have strange origins from the Middle Ages. One of my friends gifted me a book of strange English sayings. Most of them say "This phrase originated in the courts of Queen Elizabeth"or something like that. For example the phrase "Put your best foot forward". Apparently footwear was a sign of how well off you were. So at fancy parties, you would present yourself putting your best dressed foot forward. Neat, right? So most of these sayings at one time made sense, but English speakers don't use them without knowing their origin. So Flula's hilarious confusion is alright by me. I'd be certainly confused if I was him.

     Here's another Flula video!

     Hier is a website with German idioms that might confuse me. One of my favorites is "bis in die Puppen gehen" which literally translates to "to go to the dolls". What on earth could that mean? Apparently it means "very lengthy"...Ich verstehe nicht...

AMD2

For my blog I read up on a famous German that has made plenty of waves in American sports; Dirk Nowitzki.  For those of you who don't know, Nowitzki is a basketball player that came overseas from Germany to play in the NBA in 1998, and is arguably the best European basketball player (if not the best non-American basketball player), since the inception of the game.  A 7-footer, Nowitzki is notorious for being a center that can also hit the 3-pointer when open.  He has a gentle giant attitude, yet at is determined to win every game.  This attitude and will-power helped him and his team, the Dallas Mavericks, win the NBA championship in the 2011 Finals, as well as the Finals M.V.P. award.  He is with the team to this day, heading into his 15th season later this year, serving as an inspiration to the kids of his homeland in
Germany.

For more information on Dirk Nowitzki: http://espn.go.com/nba/player/bio/_/id/609/dirk-nowitzki

AMD2

For my AMD2, I watched a lot of German Sesame Street youtube videos. The first one I watched was about the German U-bahn, which I mentioned in my AMD1 post. It was basically a music video showing how the Germans love to take U-bahn. Then I watched a video where Kermit was reading a story in his chair. I was proud of myself that i was able to recognize a lot of the verbs and other words in the dialogue. I am also able to understand many of the verb conjugations. The next video I watched was twinkle twinkle little star in Germany, called "Funkel Funkel, Kleiner Stern."

AMD2

Ich schaue um 20:00 Uhr Nachrichten auf tagesschau.de. Es ist sehr interessant. Sie sprechen um viel Welt Streitpunkt. (Now is English....)The news talked about some of the pressing news stories from around the world. They briefly talked about the updates in the Syria/Turkey conflict. A big topic on the news and across the website was the Presidential debate last night. They even had graphs of the swing states! I never knew Germans seem to be really interested in this election.

Another big topic of interest is the EU Stresstest fur Atomkraftwerke (Stress testing the Nuclear Plants). A Greenpeace made a brief appearance.

It is also raining in north and central Germany just in case you were wondering.

And apparently its the 50th Birthday of James Bond?! Alles Gute zum Guburtstag!

With all that heavy news we need to lighten it up with some Sesamstrasse. Sing, sing ein Lied...

Not even Mitt Romney can kill this joy!

Willkommen!!

Welcome to our class blog!

We will be using this blog throughout the semester for two kinds of assignments:

1. Once per chapter, the homework plan will direct you to post a response to the culture readings for the chapter on the blog.

2. Roughly every other week, the homework plan will direct you to post here for your Abenteuer mit Deutsch (AMD) assignment. First you do a fun activity that involves German, then you post about it. You should spend an hour total on this (maybe 45-55 minutes doing something, 5-15 minutes posting about it). See Was ist ein AMD, AMD Ideen and Beispiele for ideas. This should get you excited about the kinds of things you can do!

Whenever you post something, please include your name and the name of the assignment (e.g. AMD2, Kultur5) as labels. See "Blog: How To" for more details!