AMD 5

Hi Friends,

I came across this picture on facebook, and when I saw it I just knew I had to post a blog about it. Basically, it pokes fun at the length and aggressive nature of German words.

For example, the word butterfly--

In Italian: Farfalla; French: Papillon; in Spanish: Mariposa; in German SCHMERTTERLING!!!!!

The word Daisy:

In Italian: Margherita;in French: Marguerite; in Spanish: Margarita, in German: GÄNSEBLÜMCHEN.

But the word that takes the cake as my favorite overly long, obnoxious, yet hilarious German word: Umweltverschmutzung- meaning Pollution [the dirtying of the world].

So post below, what is your favorite funny German word??!?!

Jonny

Mein kleines Reh

  For this installment of AMD I read some German poetry by Johann Wolfgang van Goethe. I needed inspiration to complete my love story so what better way to be inspired for love than to read some poetry? The literary community seems to love Goethe. Ich kenn Goethe nicht aber seine Poesie ist schon.
  I liked finding that you can express different ideas and end up with a nice little rhyme that you wouldn't be able to pull off in the same way if you were writing in English or another language. It helps put into better perspective the concept of thinking differently if you think in a different language. I didn't think anything I read of Goethe's seemed crazy or anything but certainly he came to different ideas and diction than he would have if he'd written in English. I don't currently know enough German to send my mind down a different path than it would normally be on but we will see what happens as we all learn more together. Perhaps our minds will overflow with German poetry.


 Here is a shorter poem of his called 'Found'

Ich ging im Walde

I was walking in the woods

So für mich hin,

Just on a whim of mine,

Und nichts zu suchen,

And seeking nothing,

Das war mein Sinn.

That was my intention.

Im Schatten sah ich

In the shade I saw

Ein Blümchen stehn,

A little flower standing

Wie Sterne leuchtend

Like stars glittering

Wie Äuglein schön.

Like beautiful little eyes.

Ich wollt es brechen,

I wanted to pick it

Da sagt' es fein:

When it said delicately:

Soll ich zum Welken,

Should I just to wilt

Gebrochen sein?

Be picked?

Ich grubs mit allen

I dug it out with all

Den Würzeln aus,

Its little roots.

Zum Garten trug ichs

To the garden I carried it

Am hübschen Haus.

By the lovely house.

Und pflanzt es wieder

And replanted it

Am stillen Ort;

In this quiet spot;

Nun zweigt es immer

Now it keeps branching out

Und blüht so fort.

And blossoms ever forth.

AMD 5- Denglish

After having taken this course for a few months, I think it is obvious to us all that the German and English languages have many similarities. This is due to the fact that they both came from Germanic languages, which has origins in Western Europe thousands of years ago. I thought it was interesting how these roots are very apparent when comparing the two languages, and how as time goes on, they both influence each other in certain ways. English words may be valid words in German as well, but they do not necessarily mean the same thing. For example, a "timer" to an English speaker will mean something like a clock or stopwatch, that keeps time. But to a German speaker, this means calendar or appointment book. Another interesting thing was the influence of pop culture on both languages in creating bridges between the two. "Test it" means "try it out" to Germans, so in advertising for West cigarettes, the phrase Test the West would translate similarly in both languages. I think that general globalization creates bridges that makes these differences much less vast over time.

Amd 5 Sarah Davis

For my AMD 5, Chrissy and I decided to make Beef Stroganoff!

While Beef stroganoff did not originate as a German dish, it is very popular in Germany now, and available in many German restaurants, particularly those which cater to American clientele. The dish originated in Russia, and has slowly gained popularity worldwide.
When people think of German food, a widespread stereotype is that German food is meat-and-potatoes, boring, basic, etc. However, Germans consume approximately 60 POUNDS less meat than the average American each year.

First: Marinate the steak in red wine for a few hours- yum

Then, cook steak, onion, and garlic in a pan.

Add two cups of beef broth, 2 tbsp flour, and 1 tsp mustard, then allow it to simmer for an hour. It should look delicious like THIS:

Boil some noodles (some Spätzle), and enjoy your delicious pseudo-German meal!

Yum.

German Indie music

One thing I am really good at is listening to music. Whenever I do homework, I listen to music. Whenever I walk to class, I listen to music. So for this AMD I thought I would look into the German music scene. I really like to listen to electronic music and I found a list of good German indie bands on wikipedia so I listened to a few of them. One of my favorites that I found was a band called Klee. My favorite song is called "Ich vermiss dich" which was all about relationships so the vocal we learned for Kapital fünf was very useful. With other songs like "für immer" and "die Stadt" it is easy to pick up a bunch of different sections of the song, but it is still difficult to understand as a whole. One section of "die Stadt"goes like:

Du brauchst mich um zu bleiben

Ich brauch dich um zu gehen

Du brauchst meine Augen

Um Dich selber zu sehen

Which is completely translatable with our knowledge. This translates to:

You need me to stay

I need you to go

You need my eyes

For you to see yourself

This band Klee was started in 2002 in Cologne and has a name that means "Clover"

Yet another band that I found worth listening to is called Wir sind Helden. They were started in 2000 in Hamburg and got very big in German with the introduction of their song "Guten Tag" which I am listening to while writing this and actually find kind of obnoxious. Other songs like "Denkmal" and "Darf ich das behalten" are much better. What I learned while searching for German bands was that it wasn't until around 2000 that many German-speaking bands became popular in the reunified Germany. I believe that this implies that many Germans listened to American music until then. Either way, many German bands that exist today I find really quite good and worth listening to frequently (Definitely not Rammstein!)

AMD 5:

For this post, I decided to read the recommended reading, "Denglisch." This wiki article talks about the different ways in which English and German flavors are combined to make new words in the German language. There really isn't a concrete answer as to why this phenomenon exists, however, it holds true that English culture has and will continue to have an increasing effect on the German language. Der Computer, das Lamp, das Handy- these are all examples of this strange but intriguing paradox. Anyway, I'm not going to write a novel about this topic, but it really did have an impact on how I know view the German language and the effects that English culture can have on it. Any kind of assimilation of cultures has always been a topic of interest for me, as this phenomenon has been on my mind for a while now. If you haven't read the article, you should do so!

Here are a few additional examples that are listed in the article! (German to English)

Drive-In = drive-through

Fitnessstudio = gym/fitness club

Oldtimer = vintage/classic car or aircraft

Dresman = male model

Auch, das Wetter ist sehr schön!

Bis Morgen!

AMD 5 - Baptism by Fire

Hallo!

This week I've been privy to a variety of German things, mostly by being in the right place at the right time. I work for UMS (please ask me about ticket things if you are curious) and worked the Show last weekend of Max Raabe, it was phenomenal! For a little back story on him his real name is Matthias Otto, he originally went to school for practically the same thing as me! He wanted to be a Baritone Opera singer, while there he used to go to flea markets and find old 1920's arrangements of pieces and wanted to perform them, thus he and his friends created the Palast Orchestra. They do old German pop songs, new german pop songs, old english pop songs and even some Britney Spears (no really). Not only was the performance an exposure in German culture itself. but working it in the beginning really helped me stretch my Deutsch skills! A lot of the people who attended were German, people from the German newspaper attended and people who spoke very little English were in attendance as well. As a result I picked up a lto of words from German conversations (though the diction was mushy sometimes and I didn't really understand all of it) and was spoken to in Denglish, having to decipher what their intent was. I t was really helpful to have german, and the few words I could speak I hoped brightened their day a little!



My Second experience with German is currently happening right now, although I am working in the league today under UMS I am experiencing a lot of German day first hand, watching the students prep their skits, music ensembles, practice their conversation skills and so forth. Some of them are years ahead of me and I marvel at their comprehension, it really does make me want to study more.

Things I think I should learn to say in German now?
MOHAWK - der Mohawk? (for apparently a lot of students had one for a skit)


Words to describe what I am witnessing?

Sie tragen schwarz hosen. Sie sind laut. Sie hören gern Rockmusik.

BUT NOT REALLY IT IS SO LOUD HERE WITH SO MANY LANGUAGES.

I hope all the patrons are ready to hear : "Laute BITTE!"

I'll update later if I find more interesting German things from today!

Tschüss!

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!