AMD 4

I decided that I was going to re-watch Das Boot ("The Boat") in German with English subtitles.  Das Boot is about a German Lieutenant in World War II and his time with his crew in a German U-boat.  The movie does not have much plot, but it served to portray the harsh and often monotonous life of a soldier in the German Navy.  The film uses lengthy scenes to help the audience understand the days that the crew would have to wait for a sighting of an enemy vessel.  The life of the movie comes from its battle scenes.  Das Boot also delves into Nazi history a bit.  I've read a book called "The Wave" by Todd Strasser that was written as a metaphor to the rise of the Nazi Party.  The book tends to explain that the Nazi party gained momentum through strong promises from an enigmatic leader, resulting in the emergence of zealous followers who blindly swore allegiance to the party's ideals.  However, Das Boot suggests differently; the crew members including the lieutenant often ridiculed their Fuhrer.  As the audience, we are innately opposed to the idea of supporting the soldiers of the Nazi Party.  We realize that quite a few of the soldiers were not loyal to Hilter, but to their country and continued to follow orders.  I definitely felt sympathy towards the crew of the submarine, considering their long hours of labor and cramped living space.  

Kapitel 4 Kultur-Texte

My first thought after reading this Kulture-Texte was "Endlish! Jemand versteht die Bedeutung von die Fahrräder!" I'm a big bike fan myself, so I was excited to learn about the Germans' love 
biking, too. My favorite part is how much they cater to bikers. My home town doesn't have much traffic, so 
even though it wasn't particularly bike friendly (we didn't have our own lanes, and the designated "bike path"
was equally as welcoming to pedestrians) there weren't many other that were there sharing the road. Since
moving too Ann Arbor I've had to learn to share the road with a lot of people. I've been spoiled, and I don't
like it, so I've taken to walking a lot more. In a dream world, bikes would have their own road. Deutschland
ist das Land meiner Träume!

I also found it interesting how closely followed the pedestrian cross signs are. I've lived in both Ann Arbor
and Chicago, spending the majority of my time as a pedestrian, and in both cities jaywalking is not only
common but almost expected (to my irritation as a driver, but I love it when I'm on foot).

Kultur 4

Once again I believe the Germans have a few things right that many other places in the world do not. For example having a huge network of bike lanes that most people use. It is so amazing and green that so many people take part in it, just like here in Ann Arbor in a certain sense. The main difference is that bike riders have the right-of-way. Another thing Germans have right is their views that jaywalking is socially unacceptable. I came from a very busy tourist town and many of the people who would around downtown were terrible. Driving in that area was already bad enough with the traffic with out having to worry about hitting people so I really like the way German drivers speed up and narrowly avoid hitting jaywalkers. That'll teach 'em! Anyways, as for the other articles I found them not nearly as interesting, though I did like how German works on the honor system for trains and are usually very organized.

Kultur 4

I found reading about the different laws and cultural aspects of Germany very interesting. Growing up close to NYC, I traveled there often, and there would be, and still are, many times where I would cross the street while the stop sign was still up. Had I traveled to Germany without reading this article, I most certainly would have done the same thing. As for the bike lane article, I find it awesome how 'green' German cities are. I know in most of the cities I've been to if you travel by bicycle, you either get out of the cars' ways or you get run over, which seems to be quite the opposite of how things work in German cities. It really just surprises me how different things are in German cities than cities like New York or Chicago. In order to even get through to the trains in New York, you have to buy a Metro Card and swipe it, and thats for every time you enter a new subway station! I guess though it's like that in New York because people would not be as honorable about traveling as in German cities. I never really considered the issue of logical answers not always being the right ones either. Being around a German family a lot, I never ran into issues like that, but it is definitely a good thing to know about before visiting Germany and asking for help. Finally, I was unaware it is a stereotype for some Germans to be unorganized/messy. I found that article too short to really understand what it was talking about.

AMD 4

This weekend was actually quite interesting because I had originally planned to watch a movie with the German Club, that is until the malfunctioning DVD-Spieler attacked! Instead I ended up going to the Heidelberg with a friend to eat, and I have to say I was thoroughly impressed! The atmosphere of the restaurant was very rustic and from the moment you stepped in the door it was completely different from any place I had been to. I was very thrilled when the waitor sat us in front of the big Bavarain crest. At first I was a little iffy since truthfully the descriptions under the food didn't sound too appealing, but it was actually turned out to be very good. I had the Wurstwich with the Boar and Apple wurst and Spaetzle on the side and it was delicious! My friend let me sample her Rouladen and potato cakes which were both amazing. Overall I was very pleased with my experience at the Heidelburg and I can't wait to go back for more yummy German food!

AMD4

For the AMD4 assignment, I watched an episode of the show "Scrubs" in German. The episode I watched "My Nightingale". For the previous AMD, I also watched an episode of Scrubs in German. I definitely understood more of the dialogue this time and was able to follow what was happening more of the time. I was able to recognize some of the vocabulary we have learned so far, and guess at what some of the other phrases meant from the context in which they were said.

Kultur 4

From the Brennpunkt Kultur, I think its a really great thing that schools in Germany place such a high importance on being multi-lingual and studying abroad in order to make their citizens more well-rounded. I found it interesting that it is such a hassle in Germany to own a car, but it is probably good since it encourages people to walk/ride a bicycle. I have heard before that the German railway is an excellent form of transportation and that it is quite popular/well used. From the articles, I was surprised to see how popular bicycle transportation is. Also, the roadways in Germany seem to be have more strict rules that are actually enforced compared to the USA. It also seems that taking the German underground subway can be rather tricky. I think that its a great quality of the Germans that they are so organized in every aspect of their lives, so I thought it was funny that the disorganization of the street signs in one city was so significant.

AMD 4 James Murphy

For my fourth AMD assignment i watched some videos of one of Germany best and most famous soccer players, Michael Ballack. Ballack is one of Germanys greatest ever players representing his national team on 98 occasions scoring 42 times, as well as captaining them in both European Championships and World Cups. Ballack is from Görlitz, a town on the eastern most point of the country sharing a boarder with Poland. Ballack started his carrer at Chemnitzer FC a German third division club before moving on to a glittering carrer making apperences for FC Kaiserslautern, Bayern Leverkusen, Bayern Munich and Chelsea, clocking up a total of 421 appearences and scoring 104 goals. Ballack has always been a fans favourite at both club and national level constantly provding high levels of performance and professionalism. Ballack announced his retirement from soccer in October of 2012. I have attached a video of his top 10 goals, definatley worth a watch!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EJ-eIcjDpbo&feature=related

AMD 4

For my AMD, I decided to turn my Facebook language to Deutsch for the whole day. I was actually surprised to see that many of the words were the same as they are in English, like "status" or "chat". I am assuming that these are new words that were incorporated into the German language like "Overheadprojektor." However, I have learned a lot simply from knowing how to navigate Facebook, but with different words for my activities. For example, when writing a status, instead of it asking "What's on your mind", it asks "Was machst du gerade?" which means "What are you doing?".  There are a few of these little differences on the Facebook page that now helps me understand German culture a little bit better. Also, I learned a lot of new vocabulary, like "Nachrichten", "Orte", and "Gesponsert". I think that I may keep my Facebook language to German for a few more days. It is pretty fun.

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.

Kultur 3

I thought that "An Obsession Explained: Beer, Brewskies and Liquid Bread", was a very interesting and informative article that explained the different stereotypes about Germans and their beer. I was not too surprised to learn how important eye contact during a toast is to German's or that there are so many breweries in Germany, but I found it interesting that it takes so long to serve a drink. For the article, "Capping the Bottle: Germany Looks to Tighten Up Public Drinking Rules", I would have to agree that a ban on public drinking may not be the best solution and I think the idea of establishing a room for public drinking is by far the best solution they have come up with so far for this problem. For the article "Eco-Centric Germans: Organic Food Obsessions", I think that it is a good thing that Germans are so health-conscious. I have heard before that Germans' much preferred organic to anything else, but I did not realize that this obsession was so wide spread through out the country. For the two articles on German humor, I found it interesting that happiness is seen as a sign of being less intelligent. I was not too surprised too learn that there are differences in the humor of different regions in Germany, since this seems like something that might occur in most countries, but I thought it was interesting that the regions differ so greatly. I think that the Germans are very smart to use the metric system, since overall its ranges of values make more sense and the conversions are much nicer!

AMD4

For this AMD, I watched a few clips from "Friends" in German.  I was surprised at how much I was able to pick up, actually.  Even when I wasn't entirely sure what specific words meant, I could get the gist pretty well from context.  To completely understand, I had to watch the clips a few times through.  But even on the first watch through, I picked out a bunch of phrases that I was familiar with from class. For example, when Chandler first walks in Ross asks, "Was hast du?"  In another clip, Monica tries to get Chandler to smile for a photo by saying, "Du hast immer ein wunderbares lächeln."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCoNSZV--z0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nLHwkNqNhoo&feature=related

Kultur 4

I thought the articles were interesting because of how they highlighted the contrast between daily life in Germany and in America.  The jaywalking thing in particular stuck out to me.  After all, in Ann Arbor jaywalking is a simple fact of life--in fact, I've been yelled at more times for NOT jaywalking than not.  The other articles also pointed out some differences.  For example, the bicycle lane one also showed an essential difference: in America, the pedestrian always has the right of way, but in German bike lanes it's the cyclist who has it.

I think a lot of these differences point to the fundamental mind-sets of the citizens.  Germans seem to have more faith in the system--the laws are there and must be there for a reason.  Americans, however, tend to think that they are "smarter" than the laws, and that they don't have to follow them for that reason.  It seems as if Germans view the rules in black and white, whereas Americans see the gray in every situation and try to work it to their advantage.

Aimée and Jaguar

     For my AMD I decided to watch the film "Aimée and Jaguar". It's a love story destined to be tragic. Set in Berlin during World War II, the wife of a Nazi officer falls in love with another girl, a girl she does not know is Jewish. The story is true, based on the real life love affair between Lilly Wust and Felice Schragenheim. This film is very emotional and many scenes are very beautiful, but it's incredibly depressing. It's a fantastic insight to the prejudice and fears Jewish people faced in that time. Also, because people are so scared all the time they use a lot of imperatives! Everything seems to be life or death so imperatives were not uncommon. I think this film also captures how beautiful all sounds of the German language are. For example, when the characters are panicked  their speech is harsh and sounds scary, typical German. But for every intense perilous scene, there is a love scene and the language in that is absolutely beautiful. The speech is so tender and seems almost a different language from the scene just before it. This film makes the variety of German very apparent. Also, if you're looking for something gushy to say to a beloved you may want to take a few quotes from this movie. Some of the lines are based on real life letters exchanged between Lilly and Felice, they're so sappy. This film is risque at some points, and very very sad so it may not be for the faint of heart, but I believe it is valuable both historically and linguistically.

Zum Beispiel: Here is a scene of Felice and her friends receiving food stamps and prejudice at a party.

Kultur 4

     The Kaptiel 4 articles made me even more fond of Germany. I'm horrible at jaywalking, and I can't stand the guilt I feel with it. It's so risky, right? Not really I guess, but it's just one of those things my parents discouraged in my youth. I still haven't gotten used to it here in Ann Arbor, I always wait for the red hand to go away. Anyhow, it'd be comforting for me to be in a place with like-minded people who don't mind waiting just a moment to cross the street. I really don't think jaywalking is that bad, I'm just not a fan. I find it humorous that Germans will speed up if you disobey. I guess I did experience that when I was in Germany a couple years ago. My friends and I waited for what seemed like several minutes to cross the street because every time we put a foot in the road it seemed a car zoomed out of nowhere. We were all flabbergasted, especially since we were standing very close to a 40 km/hour sign. It's kind of strange to think that was one of the first culture shocks we had. I suppose pedestrian life really is quite different there.

Kultur 4

I found the article about the German's obedience to the crosswalk light to be pretty funny. I usually never actually pay attention to those lights so it is comical that a whole nation obeys the little red man as though he were a dictator. I guess that it does make sense though that in Germany the people would have this attitude towards how to cross the street since the German people are obsessed with structure and law. It is especially funny that not only will you receive dirty looks if you cross the street illegally, but if a young child is present, you are in a lot of trouble. Not only will the mothers yell at you, but the child might even try to teach you a lesson about the law and safety. I found the article fascinating that a whole nation would adhere to and put so much importance on something that is so trivial to us.
I did find the pong game that you can play while waiting for the light to change colors pretty cool. It's awesome that the city would pay extra money so that people will be entertained while waiting for a light to change. That would never happen in the states. The pong game would definitely help my habit of crossing the street illegally.

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.

AMD4

For this weeks AMD, I changed the language on my phone to German when I went to bed last night and left it that way until tonight.  A lot of the words from class appeared.  Telefon, Wetter, Musik and Kalendar were some I had seen before.  New words I learned were Nachrichten, which means messages, and Einstellungen, which means settings.
In order to write an email, I had to first Entsperren (unlock) my phone.  Then select the Mail app and open my Eingang (inbox) and open an email.  I then chose antworten (to reply) to the email.  After ich schriebe sie, I chose senden (to send) it.
I had to change my Startseit (homepage) to dict.cc to look up words I didn't recognize so I could use everything, like the Rechner (calculator) or Aktien (stocks) apps.
It was an interesting experience having my phone like this and its good to know that I can figure it out in the case that someone ever pulled a prank on me by changing the language to German.

Kultur 4

  Reading the article made me not want to take a train in Germany, it's crazy how specific you have to be when purchasing a train ticket. I will find it very frustrating to give every detail about my trip. Also how they have different prices for specific stuff is weird. Since Germany has so many specifics in choosing a train ticket I can see myself easily getting lost because of a missed detail or being charged extra for something I didn't want but didn't specify. Although I wasn't fond of the train specifics, I however did like how Germany has wider sidewalks for bikers and how they have the right of way and not the pedestrians. If Ann Arbor had similar rules I wouldn't hesitate to ride my bike to class and of course it would be easier to, because of the wide sidewalks. This article made me want to bike all across Germany.

Kultur Vier

I would love it if we had similar bicycle paths here in Ann Arbor.  The bike routes on the side of the road always feel dangerous when I'm on my bike and aren't always there.  When I'm driving its even worse, always worrying about hitting a biker.  "Share the Road" never feels like a good solution.  The pedestrian walkways are no better for bicyclists, I never take my bike on the sidewalk.  First, because I know how annoying bikers are to me as a pedestrian, and second, because it doesn't even get you, held up by walkers, there any faster.
It would be great to see a German family in Ann Arbor with little impressionable children, as the crosswalk signs are generally ignored.  German personal injury lawyers must have a lot less work than their American counterparts.
Dealing with the person at the train station counter sounds infuriating.  This sounds similar to the way you have to talk with customer service agents at overseas call centers.  You must be very precise in saying what you want.
I wonder if there are agents on every train.  Last time I was in Chicago, I took four train rides, and purchased one ticket.  Fortunately, the only time that there was an agent in my car was the only time I bought a ticket.  Here the mentality is to risk it if you can get away with it, and no stigma attached to taking that risk. It is a game, and the train operators fault for setting it up in this way.
Einbahnstraße means "one-way street", that's pretty funny.

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.

AMD4

For this blog I watched a fifteen min clip of The Six Servants (Die Sechs Diener). I found it to be very funny because the clip had many of the vocabulary from chapter 4 and I was able to pick some of it up. Since the prince is trying to rescue the princess, he says his the love of her life Leibe meines lebens.  He uses schön to describe the princess. Also the verb kommen mit was used a lot since along the way the prince found friends to accompany him through his journey. Words such as Vater, Bitte, Socke, groß, and many more!

AMD 4

Well I remember when I was little my best friend Guillermo use to listen to a band called Tokio Hotel. When I was looking for german music I ran across an article talking about a german band and as I kept reading it was the same band my friend would listen to. I remember my favorite song being Monsoon. the link is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Le_IyYLrUtQ  Although that is an english song I listened to the german version. The link is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_Sy5-sOodA I picked up some words such as laufen und kann. It is really nice listening to songs and at least understand some of the words. What I find helpful is looking up the lyrics so I can follow along and see how it is written.

Kapitel 4 Kultur Text

As I read these articles I found it interesting how specific you have to be when purchasing a train ticket. Seems so logical when I was reading the article, but I guess they have a different view on it. The fact that they have different fees and stuff also reminds me off when I was in Italy and you had to pay to use the bathroom and there was a fee for using silverware. Another one of the articles I found interesting was the dwindling numbers of the nudists. I guess it has to do because of the cold that they have been receiving and it started also to dwindle in number after the fall of the Berlin Wall. They also found Angela Merkel, which could be referred as the president of Germany, naked sun tanning. The picture was released last month. I feel as if if that happened here Barrack Obama would not even keep trying to campaign. With that picture his whole career could have ended. These are major social differences because nudity is not accepted. Nudity is not viewed as an okay thing, not yet anyways. I think there will be a time when it once again will be similar to the hippie era.

AMD 4

For my 4th AMD, I chose to play the game "Call of Duty: World at War," more specifically a level within the game that had sequences with German speakers.  At the beginning of the level, your Russian character is a prisoner being held by German soldiers in a house during the Battle of Seelow in Eastern Germany in 1945.  After waking up, your character tries to go for a nearby gun before a German sargent kicks him in the face threatens to kill him.  Within 15 seconds later, your Russian comrades punch a hole through the house, kill the German captors and rescue you.

Why I chose this video game is because now knowing a bit of German, I wanted to go back and play a game in which I could now understand the enemy, and as in most video games set during WW2, the Germans tend to be the enemy.  Something that I recognized was when I reached for the gun, I heard "Nein! Du Russisches Schwein!  Du hättest lieber tot bleiben sollen," which translates to "No!  Russian Pig!  You should have rather remained dead.  I enjoyed actually being able to understand my enemies for once.

Kapital 4 Kultur-Texte

When I read the articles of Kapital 4, I found a Germany that not only traveled in various ways, but also had various rules, whether written or not, and how they followed them.  Knowing already that Germany was a biker-friendly country, I was surprised to see not only how friendly but also what seems to be a bias against all non-riders.  For instance, the sidewalks in Germany are made wider than in other places around the world and they also have the right of way, meaning that if you are walking down a path and you aren't paying attention, you will either get yelled at or possibly ran over.

I also found it entertaining, the differences between American and German citizens in regards to the obedience of traffic signals.  In Germany, the little red "dictator" who tells people to stop, even when it is the dead of night and no traffic, is strictly obeyed.  However, while they are waiting to cross the street, they can help themselves with a game of "Street Pong" that shows up at the intersections.  As opposed to Germany, in America if one has the chance to make it across the street without getting hit, they will take that risk.