Gina Chen - AMD 1

For my first AMD assignment, I decided to do something that I do often in English: watch South Park! I love all  the Studenten and catching up on all of their adventures, and for the better part of an hour, I watched zwei episodes.

There are vier main characters: Kyle, Stan, Cartman und Kenny. Kyle ist Jude und acht Jahre alt. Stan ist auch acht Jahre alt und hat eine Freundin, Wendy. Cartman ist klein und sehr, sehr mollig; er ist the most ridiculous character! Kenny ist fantastisch; er ist always dying and coming back to life. Die vier Studenten kommen aus South Park, Colorado. Sie gehen auf many adventures. Kenny ist mein Favorit!

This is a clip from one of the episodes I watched. I lesen the word "Hasselhoff," thought of Hartmut, and had to watch the whole episode!

Geil auf Miss Ellen!

Willkommen!!

Welcome to our class blog!

We will be using this blog throughout the semester for two kinds of assignments:

1. Once per chapter, the homework plan will direct you to post a response to the culture readings for the chapter on the blog.

2. Roughly every other week, the homework plan will direct you to post here for your Abenteuer mit Deutsch (AMD) assignment. First you do a fun activity that involves German, then you post about it. You should spend an hour total on this (maybe 45-55 minutes doing something, 5-15 minutes posting about it). See Was ist ein AMD, AMD Ideen and Beispiele for ideas. This should get you excited about the kinds of things you can do!

Whenever you post something, please include your name and the name of the assignment (e.g. AMD2, Kultur5) as labels. See "Blog: How To" for more details!

AMD 1: Deutsch Talk with eine Deutsche

Coming into die Universität von Michigan, I knew that there was going to be a decent amount of diversity. It didn't particularly scare me because my hometown was highly diverse. Growing up, I had Freunde that were many different Nationalitäten. How fitting it was to end up living with zwei Deutschers und eins Israelischer for my freshman year. Needless to say, it's been an interesting year, thus far. Which brings me to the point of this piece. This afternoon, I decided to have a completely random chat with one of my roommates, Vannessa die Frau aus Stuttgart. Oh, and I tried my best to impress her with my developing Deutsch skills. It would be an understatement if I said there were laughs during our conversation, regardless of the fact that I was probably butchering a good deal of things that I said to this native Deutsche Frau. We discussed many things but the majority of our eins hour break concerned Vanessa’s experience transitioning over to die USA and her time over in Deustchland, of which we have brought up periodically in the past.

Vanessa’s family has lived in Deustchland for many generations. In fact, her family used to live in the same house that’s been in her family for over einhundert Jahre. Surprisingly, Vanessa has very little Deustch in her blood. She’s mostly Italian, with Französisch und Schewedisch sprinkled in. Go figure. Anyway, after we talked about her home in Deutschland for gut zwanzig minutes, I asked Vanessa about her transition to Amerika. The Frau moved hier when she was in 5th grade and did not speak any Englisch. You would never be able to tell, either. She speaks Englisch sehr gut. She told me how she had to learn to speak Englisch while her classmates took a normal Englisch class that students normally take in the States. Being a distracted and overall spacey Fräulein, Vanessa’s attention span didn’t last very long during her private lessons. From there on, Vanessa continued to joke about some of the things that she had to get used to. For instance, she said one of the first things she had to understand was forming a line in class and staying in your spot. The klein Amerikanen children would cut in front of her and she claims she had no idea what that meant. Sad, but true, I suppose. Anyway, it was an interesting discussion with my lovely roommate and I was able to practice some Deutsch on her, what more could you ask for?

Below are some pictures that go along with this reading. Also provided is a link to a rather common German song for Christmas that Vanessa tried to teach me. One might think that it’s a bit late for this. However, tis not too late. Tis simply early for next Christmas.

Yay Deustchland!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6guVKTsmmBs

AMD1 Planet Z

   For my first AMD I decided it would be nice to find a comic that I could try to understand. The comic I choice is called "Planet Z" and what I read can be found at this site. At first I was trying to look up every word I didn't know but that started to get pretty tedious. Instead, I just started reading and making the most of the drawings the words that I did know. The comic seems to have a pretty typical funny comic tone but the use of swearwords make me wonder "Ist fluchen tabu in Deutsch?" There two astronauts and they are exploring new planets (erforschen neues Planeten) and when they get to Planeten nummer sechsundzwanzig their spaceship (Raumschiff) explodes somehow. After being stranded for zwei stunden the co-pilot says to the captain that he is hungry, "Captain, Ich habe Hunger." And the captain comically replies that he has forgotten that he has food and an entire spaceship in his ass. Maybe this isn't a little kid's comic strip but it still got me to wondering "Ist fluchen tabu in Deutsch?" Another thing I noticed was that the characters threw the word "ja" when I didn't expect to see it. I'm exactly sure how it is being used in the context of the dialogue here. My experience doing this little adventure was really enjoyable and I must say I've forgotten how much fun it can be to learn a new language using an entertainment medium like comics or TV shows.

Facebook in German

Ok, let's be honest. Ich genieße facebook. Eigentlic, Ich liebe Facebook. So for this assignment, I switched my facebook settings to Deutsch on Thursday (Donnerstag), and proceeded to kill two Vögel (thank you for that vocab word Magic Flute) with eins stone. After a weekend of Facebooking in Deutsch, here below are my thoughts.

Overall, I think I handled the transition pretty well. True, I knew the facebook layout and the things my friends posted were still in English, but I was taken by surprise and just how much I read on fb without realizing it. I have been able, for the most part, to figure out words without looking them up-- and have been getting by just by using context clues. This has plusses and minuses: for example, I think "freundschaftsanfragen" means something like friend requests. I recognize the word freund (friend), but am not hip on what the "schaftsanfragen" translates to.

Some words are extremely easy to identify, Fotos means (you guessed it) Photos and Profil means Profile (but you already knew that). Some are more difficult, when I got a notice that my friend Zoe "gefällt" my status, I had to use wordreference.com to find out that she liked what I said. And It took me another trip on the internet-rollercoaster to find out that my "Neuigkeiten" was my news. Perhaps the opening Neu is some kind of cognate to New?

The attached photo is a screenshot of my facebook in German! Take a look! And happy MLK day to all.

AMD 1 - Downfall

Movie : Downfall

Watched in German with English Subtitles.

Movie Depicts the final 12 Days of Hitler's life and is set mostly in his bunker.

The very beginning of the movie opens up with an interview with one of Hitler's Secretaries (in present day). The movie then proceeds to when she was first hired.

Hitler asks : Wie heisen sie?
Ich bin Traudl, Ich komme aus Munich.

I was pleased to recognize at least some conversational German!

The interesting part about this movie is that it shows Hitler as more than just the evil man we recognize him as in the history books.
He is given a more complex personality with some shades of grey. He is nice to the young girl, she replies she is zweiundzawnzig and gives her a job as his secretary. She is Traudl Junge. (Traudl Junge is the one whose memoirs the movie is based off of.. )

Fast Forward 2.5 Years ahead.

Russians begin invade the city on Hitler's 56th Birthday. Awaken in the Führerbunker (his bunker in the center of Berlin) to the sound of Soviet artillery.
They make their way towards the bunker and panic breaks out between the ranks. The Nazi's being to burn everything and "pack" to leave the Wehrmacht offices in Berlin. (I heard counting in the background as they burn things.. vier funf!)

Ein Professor Doktor Schenck worries about the soliders and civillains finding food after the evacuation. His worries fall on deaf ears as the other generals have chosen not to care. Hitler tells Himmler to leave now saying - gehts.

Hitler says he will even defeat them in berlin or meet his downfall. This is a writer's liberty at foreshadowing in the movie, even though we know, in the present that his downfall is inevitable. It is revealed at this time, that Himmler plans to negotiate with the Allies behing Hitler's back.

(Interestingly enough: Hitler's Models for his ideal German City in the Third Reich, include many centers of Art and Culture).

Hitler youth in the streets think they can fend off the Russians. This is where me meet a young boy named Peter. His father pleads with him to come home saying : You won't even be able to hold them off for - fünf Minuten!! Peter runs off from his father.

Hitler refused to evacuate civilians saying they deserve it, the others ask will happen to the Frauen und Kinder.

The Berlin Youth meet the Führer, who congratulates them on tank hunting and presents them with a medal (the iron cross)
Falsely telling them they will be German's heroes when this ends. He tells Peter that he wishes his generals were as brave as he is.

The women talk about where they would go if the flee, Traudl dejectedly states that she came for the job out of curiosity (she says in the
opening as old woman as well) - here she admits her family warned her not to go and fears they would not take her back if she fled there now.

At a party held above the bunker, Hitler's lady friend (Eventually Wife). Traudl talks about how right now everything feels like an Albtraum.
Right after a bomb explodes into the room - Gerda (traudl's friend) pleads with her to be Kalm, Kalm.

Schenck (ein Professor Doktor) is called to bring penicillin and morphine to the government district.

A general goes to see the führer because he is told he is to be shot for moving his command post
which he did not. Upon going to see the führer the guard stops him and tells him to Machen sie hier.

Meanwhile Schenck makes it to the hospital, they tell him it is now in Russian territory and there is nothing there
any longer, he proceeds anyway. Schenck enters the hospital and sees that in fact it does look empty. He enters a
room and sees a pile or corpses obviously killed and left by the germans, entering another room in the basment
he finds old civillian and infirm patients left to fend for themselves, sick and weak in bed -the Nazi's leaving them rather than worrying about them.

Meanwhile the general is promoted to commander of German's defense, he says he would have rather have been shot.

Peter, the hitler youth is with the soliders as they are getting killed in the streets, civillian women and children are dying
and the solider with Peter is soon shot in the head. Everyone around him is dying and he is watching people suffer.
He is probably only around 10 years old, soon all his friends in the Hitler Youth are killed as well.

Schenck finally makes it to the army hospital and finds doctors literally just sawing off limb after limb, watching them drop into a bucket.

Hitler discusses how to kill themselves. He talks about a cyanide pill, the girls ask for one as well.
Hitler obliges, saying he is sorry he couldn't give them a better present.

All this being said, this is about up into the halfway point of the movie. The rest you should probably watch. It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Film in 2004. It was truly riveting and I actually enjoyed watching it.

Furthermore, it was truly exciting to realize how much of conversational German I understood and how I could pick out words we've already been using in class! And it's only week three! If you want to watch the movie Youtube has the entire thing uploaded online with English Subtitles you can find it here:

It is about 2.5 Hours long and is better watched uninterrupted.

It's sehr gut (which you will actually hear said in the movie) and will definitely help you hear vocab you already know, and Vocab you can't believe you already know!

Happy Friday the 13th.

Chrissy

AMD 1

For this assignment, I looked for and listened to as much German music as I could. I looked within my favorite genre of music (electronic) and found a few songs I enjoyed, but not very many songs that I would actually want to listen to on my iPod. My favorite song that I found was called "Zieg mir wie du tanzt" and is actually remixed by an artist who I like a lot, Skrillex. All of the lyrics are German, even though Skrillex is from California. I wonder how he found the song and how he decided he wanted to sample it. I also found a song that apparently was pretty popular when it came out. This song is called "Ich lebe" is pretty good by my standards, but it really isn't my kind of music. The artist, Christina Sturmer however is a great singer. The last song I found before I decided to end my search is more of a childrens song. It is called "Schnappi das kleine Krokodil" and is sung by a child named Joy Gutterman. There is a popular video on youtube where this crocodile is singing about life in Egypt. I simply don't get it, but apparently a lot of people think it is a very catchy song. Silly Europeans!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5QKO3SSViX8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQ9S-y5UcA8&feature=fvst
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oe3FG4EOgyU