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.

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 my third AMD I decided to listen to several songs by Nena because I always liked the song 99 Red balloons. I started by listening to 99 Luftballoons (my favorite favorite song bythem) and continued to listen to Du Kennst Die Liebe Nicht, Was Hast Du in Meienem Traum Gemacht, and Rette Mich. It was very fun being able to listen ot these songs in German and get a feel for how German music was constructed and how similar many of the songs were musically to rock music in America. Other than 99 Luftbaloons, which I had already listened to before, my favorite song was Was Hast DU in Meinem Traum Gemacht. Ihad some trouble piecing together some of the lyrics but from what Iwas able to gather I thought it was hilariously creepy. Unless my translation was completely off, the song was about Nena asking how someone got into their dreams, and stuck themselves into their heads. What were you doing in my Dream? Why were you in it? Those lyrics are creepy, absurd, and even a little dark. I was very entertained. Additionally I also looked into the lyrics of 99 Luftballoons a little more and never realized how dark it was, very befitting of German stereotype. The song sounds so happy and up beat but the lyrics talk a bit about war and standing in the Dust of a City. I'm surprised that I never paid more attention to the lyrics... I guess that I just enjoyed the beat and music and never paid attention to the lyrics. All in all, I enjoyed listening to the Nena songs and I think Imight look into listening to more German Rock in my free time.

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

When I took German last year at my high school we had to sing a nursery rhyme that was called A,B,C Die Katz lief I'm Schnee. It was a cute German song. It was about a cat in the snow. I have provided the youtube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y1IKa3TsOuY 

This is actually from Kinderlied which is an album of most of the german nursery rhymes. It was funny hearing what they were singing about and being able to pick out some of the words. 

Bruder Jacob was another one of the songs we had to learn. It has a good tune and it is from the same tune as Farashaka, a french nursery rhyme. The link for this one is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qv1rS-1GB30&feature=related

The last one I remember listening to was Grün, Grün, Grün sind Alles Meine Kleide. This was a color song to learnt the colors and it came in handy for pronunciation. The link to this song is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysrNgpicP44

Hope you enjoy them!

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.