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!

Kultur-texte 3

It was very nice to get more of an understanding of the food culture within Germany. The most interesting part of these reading was first reading the article about the many types of German fast food that seem to be prevalent around the country then reading the article about the growing obsession over organic foods. I guess this shows the two sides of the coin: the tourist side and the resident side. I assume that for those visitors looking for the "authentic" German experience, the fried sausage and stale bread route is the way to go. The Currywurst description is my favorite....

Currywurst

Don’t get your hopes up too much -- this is no Tikka Massala and it doesn’t taste anything like curry. Basically, it's a Bratwurst (see above) which has been sliced up in a special machine with a dollop of luke-warm so-called curry ketchup ladled over it, and if your lucky with a dusting of mild curry powder and the obligatory half slice of dried out white bread.

It is also cool to read about the different taste in humor across the country, yet with all these reading Berlin is starting to sound like a rather heavy city.

Kultur 3

The article that really caught my interest was the Spiegel article "Teutonic Humor". I thought it was incredibly interesting to have a "stereotypical sense of humor" based upon the region of the country. I have not come across this kind of stereotype before. American humor is incredibly diverse, there really aren't stereotypes. Furthermore, when someone says "British humor", I have a fairly good idea of what they mean; however, I don't necessarily recognize that there is a difference between the humor of London and Liverpool. I was able to see many parallels between the humor of the different parts of Germany presented and humor that we recognize in America. The Berliner's humor seems to me most like that of American "city-folk", while the humor of the Bavarian reminds me of what traditional (traditionally rural) Americans would view as funny. One could argue that slapstick, obvious humor is traditional humor, and as such it doesn't surprise me that the Bavarian has this sense of humor. 

After reading the article, I feel like I would most enjoy the humor of The Hamburger. I have been told that I have an incredibly dry sense of humor, and I think it's pretty obvious. My "jokes" (I hate using the word joke because I don't ever have a traditional punchline) are usually based on blunt, sarcastic, or ironic observations that I point out to others in deadpan. This may be the reason why shows like Seinfeld and The Office are some of my favorite, because they are grounded in observational comedy. For me, the most subtle "jokes" are the ones that make me laugh the most. 

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!

Kultur 3

I found the articles about German humor the most interesting. I like to think that I have a good sense of humor, I find mostly everything humorous. I never have gotten the appeal of Marcell the Shell however. Anyways, a lot of people don't even get my humor. For example, whenever my brother and I get into a hot car we always yell "Flames!!" because, you know, it's so hot that it's like fire. It's hilarious, we crack up every time. But whenever I try to explain that to someone else I get the occasional courtesy chuckle, but it's never amusing to them. Maybe it's because I love TV. So much of my humor has been influenced by Jerry Seinfeld, Tina Fey, Louis C.K., etc. I shouldn't even begin to talk about this, I'll never stop. I wish we had Karneval here. That would literally be a dream come true for me. I love jokes. I like to think that I have an extensive repertoire. So extensive that I'd be able to go to Germany and get laughs in any region? Probably not. But I know I have better stuff than that hunting joke.

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.

Kulture 3 James Murphy

For my Kulture 3 assignement i read the article "Beer, Brewskies and Liquid Bread", I found this article both amusing and insightful. Having visited Germany in the past i have seen first hand just how big 'Bier' culture and production is, however i was still shocked to read that that Germany was home to 1,274 breweries, constituting about three quarters of all the breweries in the European Union!! Despite the big drinking culture in Germany it is interesting to note that they do not have much of a problem with underage drinking. In an article i read in the mail online, Germany registered very low on underage binge drinking figures, in my opinion this is because German children learn to handle their alcohol more responsibly at a younger age due to the social, friendly, relaxed nature of Germanys 'Bier' drinking culture.

AMD 3 James Murphy

For my third AMD assigment i did some delving into popular German cuisine. Germany certainly has some 'verrückt' dishes, the most unusal dishes i could find were, blood dumplings and tatar! (raw meat spread on toast) and egg butter! Neither of which sounded paticulary appitizing! The main staple foods of a common German diet tend to be meats, cheeses, vegatables, and fish, similar to the the US. Different regions in Germany often have 'Spezialität' dishes, this is especially prominent in the south of the country in regions such as Bavaria and Swabia where foods such as Sauerkraut and pretzels are paticulary popular. The national dish for Germany is currywurst and sauerbraten.

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.

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

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.

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.

AMD1

I am very interesting in cars, and since Germany has a very good history of car engineering I watched some videos on car history in Germany, as well as cars on the autobahn. It was interesting to find out that German car companies became famous soon after WWII since they were the most developed in car manufacturing. The biggest of these early companies were VW, BMW, Porsche, and Mercedes. It was around that time that VW came out with what was nicknamed the beatle. Still today, the beatle is the most sold car in history and has a huge following of people who remake old beatles and just mess with them in general. Additionally, in the 50s BMW came out with the 3 series which today is BMW's best selling car and an enjoyable drive. Also in the 50s, Mercedes made the first production super car, which was iconic for it's gull wing doors that have been implemented in some of Mercedes newer models as a tribute to that car. Around this time Porsche as well came out with the 911 which today is one of Porsche's flagships and very popular among car enthusiasts. I am not entirely sure however about the fact that a German invented the first car because I have heard different stories about the invention and whereabouts of the invention of the first car. As for videos about the autobahn, they were not terribly interesting because it was just some cars driving around. So it appears that in order to truly experience it, one must actually go there. Below is one of the videos I watched, I skipped from video to video so I do not have them all.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKpw5YvGjEQ

Kultur3

I read the articles "Capping the bottle" "German Fast Food" and "Yo dude what about the Turks?"
The first article surprised me, since drinking is a big part of German culture I figured it was a natural habit that did not cause problems to society, From the reading I learn that isn't quite the situation. Now that I am aware of the consequences of drinking heavily in Germany I agree that regulations should be established. Limits should be set on how much is fine to drink in public, like the occasional beer and what is just unacceptable, and leads to misconduct. I'm not a big fan of American fast food and after reading the second article I doubt I'll be a fan of German food, Fried sausage does not seem appealing to me and neither do vinegar fries. The third article demonstrated the type of Turkish food there is and Germany and how to order it. Turkish food consisted of large amounts of meat and also did not seem something I'd look forward to trying. Well maybe just a Doner.

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.

Kulture 3

I read "An Obsession Explained," "Capping the Bottle," und "German Fast Food."  I thought the two articles about drinking were particularly interesting because they took ideas I already had about German culture and either reinforced or modified them.  For example, I knew that Germans prized their beer, but I wasn't aware of a lot of the subtleties in production and in consumption that the articles pointed out.  I'm not a huge expert on different types of beer either, so it was interesting to read their tongue in cheek descriptions of the German varieties.  I found it pretty amusing to read their description of Berliner Weisse in particular, because that was the drink I zeroed in on when I was in Berlin (hey, it was cheap) and now I'm a little embarrassed at having ordered it (repeatedly).

Kultur 3

For the 3 Kultur articles I decided to read An Obsession Explained, Capping the Bottle, and Illogical Logic. I thought that it was interesting reading about the Bier culture in Germany. I knew that the German stereotype of drinking is existed but I never realized how many breweries they had; 1,274 breweries churning out over 5,000 beers? Sign me up please! It was also fun to read about how lax the German law are in regards to public drinking and the resistance the public had to regulating public drinking. As someone who enjoys drinking Bier it was baffling to read how liberally the German's take drinking, even allowing for drinking in public. The final article, Illogical Logic really amused me. It seemed to really fit into the previously learned stereotype that German's take everything seriously and at face value. I couldn't help but think of the YouTube video of the Party Pooper we were shown in class when I read that German's would tell you the literal next train, not the next train that your ticket was valid for.

Kapital 3-Kultur-Texte

The readings are presenting the eating and drinking habits of th Germans. I really like the sentences how it describes Germans waddling around with a glass of beer. Only after I read the articles, have I realized how much Germans love beers. They take it nearly as a substitution of Wasser. The first article also mentioned how FIFA attrats Germans but also gives a wrong information to visitors that es gibt merely a couple of beers in Germany. Honestly, I don't like the feeling with hangover so my favorite beer must be Kölsch. However it is risky as well since it is usually served in small size cups, which, to some extent, is encouraging people to drink more by substituting cups more frequently.
And I really like the fourth article which is talking about "fast food culture" of the Germans. I would love to try Bratwurst if I go to Germany for World Cups. Pommes looks interesting to me. It's equivalent to the fries in U.S. But no Essig is offered and we pay for the ketchup and mayonnaise if we want, which is quite different from here. I would love to try Zigeuner Schnitzel und Spätzle too. It makes me feel hungry to read these articles in the morning.
From the article "Official! World's funniest joke", I did not get it why people would rate "very funny" for the joke in the beginning...But the Europeans do laugh for this joke? It's sound understandable when the article claims that they more enjoy jokes with serious topics such as death... I think I should go there at least once to see how different their "laugh points" are from mine. :)

Kulture 3

Reading these articles was much more exciting than the previous articles because I could relate much more from my trip to Munich. Firstly, the beer in Munich is phenomenal and the biergartens are possibly one of my favorite things in the world. I don't mind that eating half a rotisserie chicken is probably twice my daily allowance of salt, it is delicious and simply makes me crave more delicious beer. Unfortunately I did not have a chance to experience many types of beer, but my first impressions left me wanting to go back. Moreover, I really enjoyed the article about the kabobs because they are everywhere in Europe and one of my favorite fast foods. The doner kabob is essentially the same as the shawarma in Egypt and other middle eastern countries  but I was very excited to see them around Europe with better quality ingredients. I preferred the spicy sauce on mine every time and would usually take two of them down very happily. I was also pleased with the article about German humor. I can see how their humor would be like the article described it, and I personally prefer sarcasm as my first language. I hope that after learning a few years of German I will be proficient enough to get some of their humor. I also see how this article tied into the previous article about German complaining. Not only do they complain about their buildings, but they use insults to each other as jokes and give their buildings insulting names to add to the humor. 

Kapital 3 Kultur

For the three articles of choice I decided to read an Obsession Explained, Capping the Bottle, and Eco-Centric Germans. I knew Bier played a big part in Deutsch Kultur but I had no idea there were certain niceties to be observed before drinking or so many different breweries and types of Bier in Deutschland. I skimmed of the list of Biers since I do not plan on drinking any. After reading the first article I thought it would be interesting to see how they could possibly be trying to ban public drinking. It seems impossible since Bier plays such a big part in the Kultur, but it was interesting to discover that not everyone in Deutschland drinks. A stereotype got to me there! The last article I actually found the most interesting because I believe that the Germans have this right. I wish that America was set up more like Deutschland and that organic foods were readily available and eaten by everyone. Actually I'm quite jealous of them, though it was sad finding out the other options are often moldy. Yuck!

Kapitel 3 Kultur

The three articles I chose to read were "An Obsession Explained: Beer, Brewskies and Liquid Bread", "Eco-Centric Germans: Organic Food Obsessions", and "German Fast Food: Forget the "Mett," Try a "Frikadelle." 

From these articles, plus the information from "Mealtimes in German-speaking countries", it's pretty obvious to me that I'd have a hard time eating much in Germany as a vegetarian. However, since the Germans are also so into organic food and sustainable eating, I feel like I'd have less of a moral struggle giving up my vegetarianism for German eating than I would for meat eating in America.

I love how much the Germans love organic food. Here, I still get eye rolls and scoffs for my organic preference, although since moving to Ann Arbor I have way more people on my side than I did at home. I've often dreamed of living somewhere where everyone else shares my love of all things organic and where organic is the norm. It seems Germany is the place of my dreams!

I also know how the Germans must feel, having people think they're not funny just because their humor is missed. I, much like the people in north Germany, love dry wit and deadpan humor. I appreciate understated humor, and I know what a disappointment it is when its missed and mistaken for a lack of funny bone.

Kulture 3

It was interesting to learn that a high majority of the German population would much rather have organic food than processed. With all that we here about their love for beer, it was kind of surprising. But then we learn that they take their consumption of beer seriously, and that most of it is made with natural ingredients and has few byproducts. It also probably helps they they have the organic food readily available within their supermarkets, where as here we can only find organic food priced way more than than regular stuff, or in fancy expensive organic stores.
On the other hand, apparently not everyone is so health conscience. They have many types of fast food available in Deutschland. They have like 5 different types of hot dogs. Whats sounds most appealing is the Zigeuner, Schnitzel, Krakauer, und Hähnchen with  a side of Pommes. I don't think I'd ever willingly eat Mett, I rarely eat meat that is under medium well. Completely raw meat sounds sickening... The Döner sounds good though, topped with Knoblauch and a side of Salat Komplett. I thought it was funny for them to describe the salad as a sniper, in order to get people to eat healthy. I burst out in laghter when I saw the title of this article "Vee Have Vays of Making You Laugh". But it was a nice read. It was good to find out they're not 100% serious all the time, and that they have a sense of humor.

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,