Kultur 6

This articles were pretty boring to me. The article on garbage didn't surprise me. Germans seemed to like things very exact and precise from previous articles we had to read. It was nice to see though that they like to be environmentally friendly (though I remember learning about this in high school).
German culture is definitely different than here in America. I would feel uncomfortable just knocking once and opening the door. Then again I wouldn't feel this way if I grew up in Germany and was accustom to it.
It seems like every major country has tabloids that stretch the truth. The Bild article was informative but not that interesting. "We will destroy you at the World Cup." is exactly what I would expect a German to say.

AMD 6

For this AMD I looked up Simpsons episodes on YouTube in German. The video didn't say the episode's name, just Die Simpsons Deutsch. The very beginning was interesting. They showed Die Simpsons but the choir (its the very opening scene) said "The Simpsons". The episode was telling Homer and Marge's life before they have kids and Marge going to Springfield University. I could pick out a decent amount of vocab but it was hard to understand what the characters were saying sometimes because they spoke fast.

Kultur 5

I was pretty surprised that Germans don't say Entschuldigung that often. To me, that seems very rude since in America we are taught to be polite to people and not just jab someone in the ribs and not say sorry or excuse me. Flirting in Germany seems so strange. It seems kinda creepy to just stare at her for a moment and that's it. I always thought that Germany was similar to America but the more articles I read, I realize that has some big differences.As for the article on German sex shops, this is the first thing that popped into my mind was...

...and I'll just leave it at that.

AMD 5

For this AMD I decided to change my phone's language to Deutsch. It got very annoying since when I tried to text, the auto correct change everything to German. Needless to say, my friends didn't understand what I would text. Most of the words were easy to infer what they meant. Such as Telefon, Kontakte, and Kamera. I was surprised how many words are in English like Bluetooth, GPS, and Display. For some reason those stayed in English. I could understand most words like Mobilfunkdaten is mobile data or Flugmodus is airplane mode. It was easy to change the language back to English so that was good.

AMD 4

For this AMD I decided to change the language for one of the video games I play from English to Deutsch. A lot of the words we haven't learned yet like Kampagne (campaign), Kämpfe (battles), and Mehrspieler (multiplayer). There were some that we had covered in class like zurück. There is a mission called Colditz Castle, and in German its Schloss Colditz. I learned what Schlacht means from Schlacht um Monte Cassino, which is Battle of Monte Cassino. The characters that are American and British sounded weird speaking German but it sounded much more natural to hear Germans speaking German.

Kultur Texte 4

The articles were quite informative on how things work in Germany. It would be very helpful to know if going to Germany. I see why Germans would be so logical when buying a train ticket but that would get annoying after awhile. Although I think I would fit in well, I always do that to my parents to annoy them. For example, my mom asked if I could take the vacuum out (implying for me to vacuum the house). I was feeling lazy that day, so I did exactly what she said and pulled the vacuum out. An hour or so later she asked why I wasn't vacuuming and I replied that you only asked for me to pull it out and didn't say anything about vacuuming (needless to say, she wasn't happy, but I was). In the end, I still had the vacuum though. I found it funny how drivers will try to speed up when you're crossing when you shouldn't be just to scare you, seems like something Germans would get enjoyment out of. It mentioned a lot of people get hit by bikers each year, I don't understand why bikers can't brake or go around the person. If there is time to react (not like the person steps right in front of the biker) why don't they try not to run over the person? Even with the right of way, they don't have to hit people.

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.

Kultur 3

The beer article was interesting. The stereotype of Germans walking around with a beer in their hand has always been what I thought Germany would look like. I never knew that Germany made so many types of beer. 5,000 different types seems insane. Its funny how the first food quality act passed in Germany (or the Holy Roman Empire since that included the German states in 1516) was to make sure the quality of beer was good. Even then they appear to be obsessed with beer!
It seems like tightening public drinking laws would be a good idea. Is there a drinking age in Germany like here in America? I've always been curious about this.
I now see why Germans complain so much. They are so pessimistic that the it would make anyone think their country bad. They need to lighten up and be a little bit happier,

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.

Kapitel 2 Kultur

These articles were surprisingly interesting to read. I don't get why the Germans complain so much. Their country is doing well (considering how badly other countries in Europe are doing) and it seems like Germany's government gets things done, unlike here. I think they should really lighten up and see the positives of their country (especially since if I visit Germany, I don't want to listen to people complain all the time).
I like the German honesty in conversations. It seems like what they would say to people there would be rude but its not. I wish here you could say you don't like the food and not offend the person or get in trouble for it. I hated having to lie when I didn't want certain food in order to not offend the person.
What's up with the Germans and staring?!? Do they really need to watch someone or see what they are doing all the time? I get maybe glancing over at someone for a second or look out the window for a moment to see what is going on outside but to stare at someone for awhile seems weird.
The statistics article was neat to read. I didn't realize that Germans are obsessed with stats. It is a good way to learn about other places but it seems like asking "How many square kilometers is your city of country?" would really put someone on the spot. I don't think many people in the US know the answer to that question. I really want to fly over to Germany now to test this statement, "To be fair, Germans are totally on top of their own statistics" and see if Germans truly are on top of their own statistics because I have my doubts.

AMD 1

Since I was home for the weekend, I was able to watch some of my dad's World War 2 movies. I watched "The Longest Day" where each nationality spoke their language (germans spoke german, french spoke french). It had subtitles in english so I could still understand what the characters were saying. Obviously the french went right over my head but I managed to pick out some words in german that I knew. I maybe only understood 5-10% of the german in the movie, but when I was able to pick a word out I feel so accomplished and happy. I want to rewatch the movie at the end of the year and see how much more I understand.

I found it interesting how German immigrants moved to the northern states and that they went to forested/wooded areas like those in Europe. Also it was kinda cool to see my dad's side of my family came with the surge of German immigrants in the 1800's. I didn't realize how important land was to immigrants, espically German ones. I wasn't surprised to read that many communites in the US and Canada took up Oktoberfest though. Its disappointing how German culture has slowly faded or been forgotten in America when other nationalitites still hold onto their cultural heritage. Although, I'm sure it didn't help that we fought two world wars with germany and that increased distrust of Germans during the wartime period.

Mein Lieblingswort ist Elektrizitatswerk.