Learning Language

Hi Guys....

I think I owe y'all a blog, and when I saw this I just knew I had to post it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_yhnWnR1g7M

Take 20 minutes out of your day to watch it.

It talks about how we learn language and it's an awesome video. For me, personally, German is my third [and by far most successful] try at learning a language. In Grammer School and Junior High I took Latin, and after 6 years of struggling through the class I was still clueless about how to conjugate verbs and decline nouns. So, I moved onto Italian. Took two years of that [mi chiamo Jonny] and was absolutely miserable, and after all that time was [and am] still clueless about how to speak the language-- But not for lack of trying. I used to go over to my friend Tony's house twice a week and try to speak to his Italian father. I used to watch the news in Italian streamed live on the internet. In High School I failed Freshman French twice and dropped the class before I could fail a third time. Nothing worked.

And so I made a decision: basically the way the neurons in my brain fire makes it very very difficult to learn foreign language. The way my brain is wired though makes it very good at some other things. For example, I am very good at math. I am very good at science (in High School I was extremely good in Physics). I'm a fairly good pianist with excellent sight-reading chops. I just always assumed I didn't have the magic language gene that some people are born with.

However, this semester is the first time that I think perhaps the guy in this video is right: Some people have an easier time learning language, but that doesn't mean everybody is not capable. If you go to 4:33 in the video he says what I think has made me more successful this semester... This semester I have just started speaking German. It's hard to explain. But, here's an example. Over the spring break I went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art [kunsthaus] with my family and in the entire museum I spoke German. Even when it was pretty crappy pidgeon German.

I think that's the key... I cannot just "study" german... I need to SPEAK it. I need to form sentences. I now see that in Italian and French and Latin I would do flashcards. I would fill out charts. I would do word for word translations. And it was all a waste, because I never actually lived in the language. I never actually spoke it.

So, when studying for this next test [on wednesday...ahhhh] I'm not just going to study Wollen...ich will... to want to. But rather, i'll form a sentence ich will ice essen.

Ok. TTFN

German in American cinema

Struggling on what to write about for this AMD I resorted to that which I do best, watching movies. In this case I got to watch one of my favorite movies around. I find the film Inglorious Basterds to be an extremely well made film which makes the viewer feel as though he or she is in the middle of Nazi occupied France. This movie takes the setting as realistically as possible, having Germans speak german, French speak french, and the Americans speak english. This movie gives viewers the opportunity to indulge themselves with the German language without getting overwhelmed by that which they don't understand. Having an education in German only up to this point in 101, I was able to understand the gist of nearly every german conversation throughout the movie. Luckily for me, much of the german throughout the movie was spoken very clearly and formally so that I was able to understand. Examples of some of these dialogues in the film are:

When Adolf Hitler expresses is dismay at the knowledge that the Basterds are ravaging the ranks of German soldiers.

When the fictitious war hero Fredrick Zoller convinces Josef Goebbels to use a different movie theater for the premiere of Goebbels' new film. This dialogue was especially fun to listen to since they described how many people fit in the movie theater, who works at the theater, and why they should use that theater. Since we have learned many different descriptive words in German it was easy to understand the entirety of this dialogue.

When the Basterds describe their plans to kill Hitler at the movie premiere. This scene is 20 minutes of mostly understandable german. I watched the scene twice through. Once without subtitles and again with them. What I understood from the time without subtitles was actually rather close to the actual meaning of the scene.

It is really entertaining and enjoyable to listen to german and understand it. It makes me realize how much we have actually learned in this class, and it makes me more excited to eventually reach fluency. I find that watching movies in german helps one realize how much german they actually know.

Dodgin' Dodgin' Dodgin'

As a native New Yorker I have the bad habit of turn-style jumping. It's not something I'm proud of, but late at night when I know I won't get caught, my metrocard has the bad habit of not sliding through the opening and the $2.50 (!) for the subway ride does not come off my card. Often you see an undercover cop [read: police officer in uniform wearing sunglasses-- great disguise] watching the ternstyle. But it's so obvious and only at certain stations and at certain times.

I've never been caught. I suppose if I ever am (and pay the $100 fine) I will go back to always paying. I did some research and the MTA estimates that riders entered the subway without paying 18.5 million times in 2009 (an average of 50,684 a day).

Also, as a New Yorker i am always amazed how in some cities the subway closes. How do people get around very late/in the wee hours of the morning. I vividly remember one time my sister and I were on Holiday in Montreal-- we were out very late [read: very early in the AM] and couldn't get back to our hotel. My pitiful French certainly didn't help [Bonjour. Je m'appelle Jonny].

Oh well- When I go to Germany, I'll have to keep in mind to play by the rules

Der Weihnactskot singt

  For this AMD I thought I would try to watch an episode of South Park. It seemed like a lame idea but I was also interested to see how much of the dialogue I could follow. The answer, I came to find, is not all that much. Since I have not actually watched any new episodes of South Park in quite a while I figured it would be best not to watch a new one in Deutsch. I went for a classic for a classic episode of which I was pretty familiar with the plot. When I was eleven or twelve years old I was ripe for appreciating potty humor. I found a great deal of entertainment in 'Mr. Hankey, der Weihnachtskot.'

Hiya Hallo!

  As I said earlier, I didn't follow much of the dialogue but I could pick up a few words here and there. I think if I spent more time listening and interacting in German I could probably understand half the dialogue. It seemed pretty simple but the characters sprechen sehr schnell, ich verstehe wenig worte. Some things that I noticed that entertained me was how the nuances were translated. For example, Mr Hankey does not say 'Hidy-ho,' instead it was translated to 'Hiya Hallo.' I figured the people doing the German dialogue would leave it as is since it is a nonsense phrase anyway. And Mr. Mackey has a classic 'mmkay' that he adds to a majority of his sentences in English but in Deutsch he prefers a different pronunciation of the 'a' vowel and elects to say 'mmkah.' I wanted to find a transcript of the deutsch dialogue but I was unsuccessful in doing so. There are probably quite a few little changes in the words here and there just so it makes a little more sense in deutsch.

AMD 4: Prinzessin Horst

For this post, I decided to do the recommended reading option. Thus, I managed to get through reading Prinzessin Horst, which did prove to test my vocabulary. Oh, and the added bonus came into play when my German roommates came in, only finding me completely enthralled in a children's book. What can I say? We're just that cool in German 101.

The plan was to read through it without stopping the first time, then go through it again and take in the pictures to try and figure out the story. Lastly, I did my best to translate the text with a German dictionary that I have on hand. I think I have the gist of it. It was a very cute story and I did enjoy feeling like I was sieben Jahre alt again. It explore an issue that couples deal with universally: naming their offspring. Yes, this is one tough situation. Obviously, King Helmut didn't get the memo that it was a joint decision, as he named his daughter Horst without consulting Queen Antje! Though this could have been a really bad move, it turns out that the uniqueness of her name saved King Helmut from ending up in the dog house. Lucky guy. Though there are a few more surprises, I do not want to be the one responsible for giving away the ending! You'll just have to read it yourself!

AMD 4 - Apfelkuchen

Hallo Freunde!

Ich koche aber ich liebe backen! For this blog I decided early this morning when already feeling the onsets of a sweets craving to bake from a German Recipe. I decided on an Apple Cake, or as the recipe listed Apfelkuchen. If you search German Apple Cake there are about ein hundert recipes to choose from and they vary by region and difficulty! There was one recipe that called for a kugelhopf - which I think is some kind of bundt cake pan ( I actually do own one of those thanks to meine Großmutter, however I didn't really want to experiment with it!) Luckily my glass measuring cup is in both metric measurements and regular cups and quarter cups, so the varying recipe was not a big deal. As I write this the kuchen is currently backen and smells, well.. delicious! I've taken some pictures of my journey from nothing to cake and have decided to share them with you, as well as the super easy english version of the recipe (and to be honest I checked a lot of this, and found it posted online the same way in English before I finalized anything because I was fearful of it tasting poorly!)


First I went to the store and bought Granny Smith Apples, I figured the tart taste would be nice with the sweeter cake mix.

Next I first mixed together 2 Eggs, and what came out to a 3/4 cup of vegetable oil. Once that was mixed thoroughly I added 2 tablespoons of cinnamon, 1 tablespoon of Vanilla, 1 tablespoon of baking soda, 1/4 teaspoon of salt, and 2 cups of Flour.

I started to peel and chop the apples now and was a little nervous because you needed VIER cups of them! That was 4 whole Äpfel!

A Lovely cup of apples, which you are supposed to "fold" into the mixture, here is where I thought that the best course of action would be to use my hands, little did I know that the batter was incredibly sticky and it would literally stick completely to my hands.


Luckily my roommate got home just as I was struggling and with a quick holler of "Helf mir!". Stephanie had used a spatula to get the mixture off of my hands and into the baking dish, well as much of it as we could. I mean, don't try this alone my friends.


Next I put in the oven - the directions called for it to be baked at 350 degrees für fünfundfünfzig minuten! I have at this point checked it at a half hour and although the top looked golden brown the inside is still a little raw!

.. Waiting is hard, very very hard.

Out of the oven now, waiting for it to cool enough to eat.


Okay it didn't look so great on a plate but it did taste fantastic no icing needed!

YUM YUM.

It was so so so so SO easy.

So please please ask me, should you feel the want to bake - Apfelkuchen!

Miss you all already! Enjoy your break, eat well!

Chrissy

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!