AMD 3

For this AMD I watched a production of Richard Wagner's Der Fliegender Holländer (The Flying Dutchman). The opera follows the tale of the Flying Dutchman and its capitan who are doomed to travel the sea for eternity except for once every seven years when they can dock on land. The only way to break this curse if for the Dutchman to find a wife to be true to him. One night the Dutchman comes aboard another ship and runs into its Captain, Daland. Daland has a daughter named Senta and the Dutchman immediately sets his sights on her. Problem is she already has a boyfriend.....The opera ends on a tragic yet epically Wagnerian as Senta runs into the sea profession her loved after the Dutchman sails away. The opera concludes with both of them ascending to heaven.

The music in this opera is unreal. Wagner is just such a genius. The way he is able to convey such a specific sense of setting and emotion through the music is unparalleled. I first was drawn to the music when the Chicago Symphony Orchestra played in Hill Auditorium in October. It is so easy to get swept up in the raw power of the music. I highly recommend it to anyone.

The production, however, was complete crap. It was such a shame. I couldn't even finish watching the third act it was so bad. I look forward to the day I can actually see it live!

AMD 3

For this AMD assignment, I watched an episode of the show "Scrubs" in German. The episode I watches was "My Overkill" (Staffel 2, Folge 7). I have seen this episode before in English, so I was able to follow along somewhat and understand what was happening while hearing it in German. I was able to recognize some of the vocabulary we have learned in class and the nominative vs. akkusative forms of the dialogue. There were a few parts where the dialogue was a bit fast, but for the most part I was able to keep up.

AMD3

For the third AMD, I was thinking to watch a German Movie but it seemed not very interesting cuz I would focus more on the content of the movie instead of learning the language itself. So I decide to analyze a lyric word by word, sentence by sentence. I keep listening to different Deutsch songs but <Das Beste> is my Lieblingsongs by now. And I suddenly realize that many words seem familiar now!
<Das Beste>

Ich habe einen Schatz gefunden,     precious!

und er trägt deinen Namen.            wear
So wunderschön und wertvoll,       very beautiful

mit keinem Geld der Welt zu bezahlen.     money
Du schläst neben mir ein,       einschläfen  =sleep

ich könnt dich die ganze Nacht betrachten,   why not kenne?

sehn wie du schläst,

höere wie du atmest,

bis wir am morgen erwachen.      wake up
Du hast es wieder mal geschafft,

mir den Atem zu rauben,          cannot breathe

wenn du neben mir liegst,

dann kann ich es kaum glauben,

dass jemand wie ich,

so was schoenes wie dich verdient hat.
Du bist das Beste was mir je passiert ist,

es tut so gut wie du mich liebst!
Vergess den Rest der Welt,       forget the rest thing in the world

wenn du bei mir bist!                when you stay by my side

I have searched for the Deutsch Spongebob but es gibt nür videos mit kein "subtitles".
Could you send me a link if you have any great episode in Deutsch with subtitles so that I could watch a short one every day! :)

Danke!

AMD 3

For this AMD I read the article on how language impacts the way we think. I found this article really interesting. Like people on the opposite side of the debate, I had previously thought that all humans thought the same for the most part, and that differences in thought we have are due to cultural differences, no difference in language. After reading this article, however, I now believe language has a great effect on how we think.

This article got me to examine how my thought process has changed now that I'm learning a new language. I'm still pretty fresh in my learning of German, but I'm already noticing changes in the way I think. For example, the gender of the article in German is something English doesn't have and therefore I haven't really considered before. It also seems to be one of the things I'm struggling with most because we don't have it in English. Another change I've noticed is because of the German case,
I now consider where the noun is in the sentence and how it functions. Had I learned German earlier in life, my lessons in English class about subjects and direct objects maybe would've gone a little smoother the first time around.

These are just mild changes I've started to notice as I work on learning German. I'm looking forward to noticing more changes in the way I think as I get a better grasp on the German language.

AMD 3

For the AMD 3 I spent time looking through the required book "Oh, Wie Schön its Panama" in an attempt to see how much I could now understand. I was able to hear what a lot of the words sound like in my mind, but some of the meaning was difficult to capture. I know it is about a little bear (ein kleiner Bär)  and a little tiger (win kleiner Tiger). It was interesting to see how German publication represents dialogue as well because instead of the " " marks the use a different double arrow symbol. At the same time, I liked how the grammar was similar with the punctuation (i.e. use of commas). Since we have just learned about the verb essen in class, I was able to understand the way it was used in relation to Möchten. I was also able to know what food the author was referring to without looking at the picture (der Fisch). Doing this also helped me solidify my knowledge of the use of "nicht" vs "kein" which I know is an important concept for me to conquer. A lot of the vocabulary we have learned in Kapitel 3 was evident, for example die Brücke, or a bridge, is a word we recently learned. It's so nice being able to understand so many different concepts in Deutsch!

AMD 3

This week, I thought it would be useful to practice the German I have learned so far. As it so happens, several members of the clarinet section in the MMB who either are pursuing German as a minor, or as a part of a double major- most of whom are upperclassmen with several semesters of German study completed. We practiced having conversations, of course. Additionally, we would refer to parts of our pregame and half time show in German. For example, when we would play "Varsity", we would call it "Schulauswahl", or when our director would tell us to go to "Five in Front" (before we play the first "Hail to the Victors valiant") we would say "fünf davor". We played "Eye of the Tiger" during our half time show, so naturally we called it "Tigerauge", despite the fact that it wasn't the best translation. Overall, these small injections of German made an intense 3 day practice week in preparation of the most important home game of the year a bit less menacing. 

On an unrelated note, we beat die Spartaner. So that was great!

AMD 3

For my activity, I decided to search up a few German dubbed "How I Met Your Mother" episodes.  I started watching the series a few weeks ago so I was familiar with the content.  The show's pace proved to be too fast for me to keep up with.  However, there were a few instances where I could recognize vocabulary we used in class.  Colors were brought up a lot.  The first few episodes had objects like the blue french horn and the purple giraffe.  I also noticed that a few of the words were not completely translated.  There is a part in the first episode where the character Barney Stinson introduces Ted to a girl at the bar by saying "Haaaaaaaaaaaave you met Ted?"  I would have thought the direct translation would be "Haben Sie trafen Ted?"  However, the episode in German said "Haaaaaaaaaaaave Sie trafen Ted?"  I thought it was funny that they still use a bit of English for the show's more prominent catchphrases.

AMD3

I read the article about the language study and whether different languages have impacts on how one thinks. I found this pretty interesting because I have thought about this question a fair amount in the past. For instance, there are some eskimo languages that have over 50 words to describe the snow, and some tribal languages that do not have a word or adjectives for time. The two differing opinions here were that language changed the way people could think, and that everyone is capable thinking about the same information, but choose not to. However, I agree with both these ideas and consider the later view as a special case of the first statement. Firstly, I do not think that knowing a certain language will deprive someone of a specific piece of knowledge, therefore I would agree with the second school of thought. However, if my brain was trained in such a manner as to use certain senses or specific schools of thought right immediately then I would say that the way I think has been altered by my language. Therefore, I would agree that everyone can talk about a certain piece of information and understand it, but how one comes to this realization of the object or intellect is a path dictated by the constraints of the language. Thus, if my thought process to arrive at the same idea has been altered then I would say, strictly speaking by definition, that a person's thought process was altered by the language and thus his thoughts are influenced by the language. 

AMD 3

As it turns out my hall as an obsession with the cartoon South Park. So I found it only fitting to sit down on youtube and watch a few of the episodes in German and see how much of it I could actually understand. I was somewhat surprised as to how much i could understand and what I waste sure i could see what it meant from what they were doing in the cartoon. Of course one of the most famous lines in the episodes was " Oh main Gott! Sie haben kenny getötet." which of course means " Oh my god they killed Kenny! I thought it was kind of funny when it came to the theme song because it sounds nothing like the original and was way off key. Id have to say that Cartman has the best voice in German and by best of course I mean the funniest. He sounds even more nasally. Overall I could tolerate watching it in German because most of the shows on US tv that other countries take and turn into there own it never is close to as good.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bui9EACljC4&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8gVrILwdxSM&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqGR4JSHrUY&feature=relmfu

AMD 3

I decided since the cable I get in my dorm has a German channel to watch that. I watched a German home improvement show called Do It Yourself S.O.S. (don't get way it has an English name when the people in it only spoke/wrote in German). They were making a pillar, that could be in a house, that had water flow down the sides.  I'm not really sure what it would be called. The show also had a small table with a rectangular hole, with a fabric on it, in the center for putting books and magazines in. Its a neat design, I must say. Interestingly, the music the show played was mainly American music like Footloose and Green Day's American Idiot. They only played one or two German songs. I could understand a fair amount of words they were saying and also could infer some words general meaning from knowing what they were referring too.

Arielle, Die Meerjungfrau

This weekend, I learned that there was a TV show called, "Arielle, Die Meerjungfrau".  It is a TV version of the Little Mermaid in German.  The first episode is called, "Hilfe für das Walfischbaby", "Help for the baby whale".
In the episode, Flounder and Arielle find a baby whale and decide to take care of him.  He is hiding, so, to get him out, Arielle says, "Komm her zu mir", which means, "come to me".  She calls him, "Du bist das kleinest Baby."  It means "you are the littlest baby", which is funny because he is still pretty big.
They spend the episode hiding the whale from Sebastian and King Triton.  But he comes out when hears a great concert happening.  His singing voice is too loud for the theater and breaks the stage.  King Triton is very upset when he realizes that Arielle was hiding this from him, "Was hast du sagen?", "What do you have to say?"  She replies that she is his mother, "Er hat mich zu seine Mutter."
Later on, Arielle is attacked by sharks, and the little whale saves her.  Everybody is thankful and helps him find his pod.  They all live happily ever after.

AMD3

 Being that it is October for this blog I chose to base my activity on Oktoberfest. Over the weekend I went to shake and steak and ordered a Oktoberfest burger. It consisted of a beef patty with black forest ham, swiss cheese and tangy mustard all enclosed by a toasted pretzel bun. I've ate german food before, but this burger has been by far the best I've had, specially because of the bun. Apart from eating the burger I also watched you tube videos relating to Oktoberfest. I ran into one called "Das Beer Boot," which is a German/English parody song, with a cool beat and some German vocabulary. I also watched   videos that talked about what you will find if you went to Oktoberfest. Dozens of breweries, variation of food, and large parades. Oktoberfest is now one more reason why I want to go to Germany.

AMD3

For my AMD3 I decided to watch all the Harry Potter Trailers in German and then watch them in English with German Subtitles. Through out all the trailers I recognized a few words such as Schule, Guten Tag, and other vocabulary words we have covered. I noticed though that the magical words such as Hogwarts and Spells like Petrificus Totalus were the same. As the trailers progressed it was interesting hearing the German voice overs, towards the more recent movies it sounds as if the voice actor for Harry hadn't quite hit puberty yet, and it didn't quite match. Other times the trailers were narrator and I didn't get to hear the actors voices. I have to admit that German did make the trailers seem much more intense. During the first trailer when Quirrell screams "Troll im den Kerker!!!" I laughed so hard! One thing I found very interesting was how the names of the movies were translated, for example Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets was Harry potter und die Kummer des Schreckens. One thing that watch the trailers really made me wonder was how they managed to translate Tom Marvolo Riddle into the anagram I AM LORD VOLDEMORT. It turns out that they changed Tom's name to Tom Vorlost Riddle which would understandably anagram to Ist Lord Voldemort. I find this extremely clever because I would have never thought about how difficult it would be to make all the anagrams work for every language the Harry Potter Books have been translated into.

AMD 3

For my AMD, I watched the movie Europa Europa with English subtitles. It is the story of a young Jewish boy's survival during WWII. His name is Solomon Perel, nicknamed Solek. Early in the movie, he becomes separated from his family and ends up in a communist orphanage in the Soviet Union. When the Nazis invade the Soviet Union, Solek is captured, but he says that his name is Joseph Peters and was captured by the Nazis. He speaks German and Russia and becomes a translator for the Nazi army. He earns the nickname "Jupp" and is called a good luck charm after several victories by the Nazi infantry that he is with. The Nazi commander decides to adopt Jupp because he is childless himself and sends Jupp to the the Nazi Youth school in Berlin. There, Jupp is hailed as a hero. A girl, Leni, becomes close to Jupp, but he rejects her after she makes an extremely anti-semitic remark. Jupp soon fears for his life when a Nazi official comes in who specializes in detecting Jews. The official uses Jupp as a demonstration and after measuring him, claims that Jupp is a perfect Aryan. Jupp then again is fearful when the Gestapo calls him in looking for his papers. He buys some time by saying that the papers are in Grodno, where the orphanage in the Soviet Union was. The building where the Gestapo was is then bombed by the Allied forces and Jupp is safe. Towards the end of the war, Jupp surrenders himself to the Soviet Union during a battle. He tells them his story, but they do not believe him because they claim that he does not look like a Jew. Just as he is about to be executed, Jupp's long-lost brother recognizes him and saves his life. Jupp then moves to the new state of Israel. The movie ends with real Solomon Perel in old age singing a Jewish folk song.
I enjoyed this movie a lot because I like movies about WWII. I thought Solek's life was fascinating because of the lengths that he went to survive the Nazis and Soviet Union. I would definitely recommend it to other people.

AMD 3

For my third AMD post, I watched the German movie "Goodbye Lenin!," which was played on a Sunday night at my residence hall.  The movie tells a story about how a young man named Alex who

in 1990, to protect his fragile mother from a fatal shock after an eight month-long coma, must keep her from learning that her beloved nation of East Germany as she knew it has disappeared.  Taking place during the reunification of East and West Germany, the young man, Alex, tries to portray the world around his mother as one that is still in the control of the Socialist (although there are giant Coca-Cola build boards outside her house).  In the end, she tells her son that she always wanted to go to West Germany with her husband, who left due to harassment by the Socialists, but stayed to keep the remainder of her family safe from "The Party."  As a history buff, I really enjoyed the historical aspect of this movie and its portrayal of a communist world vs. a capitalist one.

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!