AMD 6

For this weeks AMD I did something a little off the beaten path and that is because technically I didnt do anything. I was at the gym last night and had my phone on an app called 8tracks which is similar to pandora but it allows anyone to create there own playlist with any type of music imaginable. I was scrolling through various playlists when I finally found one that looked like it would get the job done until I hit the play button. The very first song that came on was Du Hast by Rammstein. I have listened to this song many times before and have grown rather fond of it especially when working out. Since you are only allowed 3 skips per hour i decided that I would go with the flow. Well the flow led me right to a guy from Berlin who decided he was going to make a playlist of strictly German Death Metal and Rock. So I spent the remainder of my time in the weight room listening to music which made me question if there was any happiness in the world. As it turns out I actually found that I like a song or two and they are currently on my ipod.

Kultur 6

Out of these articles I found the one about the German Privacy by far the most interesting. Here in America and even other countries that I have traveled to when a door is shut you usually just leave whoever is behind the door alone. They obviously don't want to be bothered. If you knock once and nobody answers you assume that nobody is there and you come back at a later time. Just the opposite is true also. If the door is open then its insinuated that its ok to "come on in". I found it quite funny that the Germans will knock as loudly as possible and keep knocking the walk right on in. I also found it odd that there doors are normally closed. In America and especially here at college you meet more people and come off as being much more approachable just by leaving your door open.

Kultur 5

As you are well aware these articles are pretty up front and don't beat around the bush however this one takes the cake so far. I had absolutely no idea that Germany had so many sex shops throughout the cities. I always have known about the beer and the open air markets and even some of there department stores but never this. I also find it weird that Germans will use sex shops as a point of reference.Another thing that I found quite interesting was the Kolfrau. At some of the very upscale places in the US you have bathroom attendants its rare but they do exsist, but they don't even expect a tip. I found it weird that they expect a 30-50 cent tip whether your at a formal place or informal. When I was in Germany I also noticed that they do tend to avoid saying sorry and or excuse me. These articles help enforce the fact that Germans are a touch off kilter.

AMD 5

For this weeks AMD assignment i decided to watch one of the most famous German movies of all time. There was only one problem though the whole movie was in German which means i retained about 30-45% of everything that was said. The name of the movie is Das Boot which directly translates to the boat. The main plot of the movie was easy to follow. It is told from the viewpoint of Lt. Werner who has just been assigned war correspondent on the German Submarine U-96. To make a long story short the boat just rips around the ocean and sinks convoys. Allied forces bomb the submarine while it was stopping to rearm and refuel with a German merchant ship the SS Wesser. To be completely honest I wasnt a big fan of this movie even if it was in english I dont think I would care for it. However it was a good experience to see what normal german dialogue is truly like.

AMD 4

For this weeks AMD i decided to change the text settings of my phone while i was having a conversation so that they all read in german. At first it was hard because I had multiple conversations going on. Once i got really into them I started to notice that more and more words seemed to be familiar to me and I could easily understand about 60% of the messages that were coming in. And when i would send messages they were noticeably shorter than usual but I was able to get my message across. The people I was talking to was impressed at how well i could convey what I was saying once I told them that I was doing it for my German class. I only did this for 45 min or so before it was to hard when trying to send a long text talking about someone else in the future. I wasn't sure about the conjugation of all the verbs for the prescence tense.

Kultur 4

I found all of the articles interesting. However the thing that shocked me the most and made me think about how cool it would be to visit a big city in Germany was the street pong. It is a ingenious idea to get people to not jay walk. I mean who doesn't want to sit there and play a video game basically while they are waiting for the traffic to switch directions. I also found it interesting that cars in Germany will speed up if they see someone jay walking. I also found it kind of weird that they have the "honor system" when it comes to using the buses and whatnot. In the US you have to pay because most people wouldn't even think about paying if we had an honor system. I want to go to Germany and see how what it is like to ride on the ICE trains. All the trains where I come from go like 20mph and i usually are carrying freight. Also I have never ridden on a passenger train so i think it would be a good experience.

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

Kultur 3

There is such  large difference when it comes to Germany and America and the way that they view drinking whether that be underage or public drinking. It is not unusual to see parents ok with their children drinking at a much younger age than most parents here would even dream of there kids drinking at. This does however have a positive affect it reached children to have respect for it and not take advantage of it when they are older like a good majority of kids in the US do which leads to alcohol poisoning, and MIP's...etc. When they said that Germany has 1,274 breweries it kind of blew my mind thinking about the size of Germany. When I was in Germany it was apparent that they are much more comfortable with there alcohol consumption you would see people drinking out in public and kids much younger than me were also drinking as they mentioned in an Obsession Expressed. I did find it a little weird, however, how they are trying to buckle down on the public drinking.

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.

Kultur Kapitel 2

Diese kapitel isnt ein teil interessant. Mein Oma ist ein typisch Deutsche Mädchen. Sie kochen gern und auch sie starren gern. Jeden tag mein Oma starren am Fenster. Wann im Deutschland Ich bemerkt wie die Deutschen beschweren sich immer. Mein Vater sagt "IS THERE SOMETHING WRONG WITH ME?!?!?" dann sie schauen weg. Mein Vater hat kein Idee und auch ich nicht.

I also notice while i was in Germany that they complain a lot. When we were getting on the same train where my dad yelled at the man for staring people were complaining that it was five minutes late which i thought was funny considering that our plane to Germany had been delayed 6 hours. The only place i noticed that people didn't complain as much was in the bars or places i went to eat. Maybe this had to do with the fact that i could only understand about half of the words that came out of there mouth because they were talking so fast. I can't even begin to explain how many questions I got asked that were totally out of the blue and had no rhyme or reason...i guess for them it did. Eventually i figured out thats just how they are and to get used to it and it is also true when you say they are interested in statistics i must have gotten asked my weight and height about six or seven times. All in all i enjoyed myself there even if the trains are "late".

AMD1

For the first ADM assignment I listened to some various types of germanic music. I have always been a fan of classical music i.e Bach and Mozart I tend to listen to it when I'm on those never ending plane rides or what not or when I'm studying. However I also listened to some Rammstein to get the "total Germanic experience" Since many germans enjoy listening to death metal i decided to listen to Du Hast and Feuer Frei! To be brutally honest I'm not a big fan of metal so the classical music was much better my favorite being Mozart's "Eine Kleine Nacht Musik" I also enjoy the song "Morgenstimmug aus" by Peer Gynt. It does make sense however why the Germans get the stereotype of being so angry! All in all I think ill just stick to the classical music for relaxation.

Kapitel 1 Ian Stevens

Dieser Artikel ist sehr interessant!  Es hat viele information uber Deutsche-Amerikaner und Amerikanerin. Ich auch hat ein Deutsche Hintergrund. Die information von Kultur-Text ist nicht so interessant aber Ich verstehe viele  Worte. Mein Oma und Opa kommt aus Deutschland mit keine geld. Alpena hat viele person aus Deutschland.

Where I come from a majority of the people are german or come from an area around Germany. Like it said in the article The midwest was a hotbed for activity in the late 1800's and into the 1900's. For example if you go to Gaylord its themed after an old Bavarian city. How can you leave out the Oscar Meyer wiener mobile I doubt there is any other car quite as unique with a german background like it has.