Kultur 5

For this assignment, I read two articles; the one about Germans saying "exuse me" and the one discussing how to flirt in Germany. I thought these two were related by the fact that they both hold a focus over mannerisms in Germany revolving around politeness. I thought it was ironic that German men seem much more polite than Americans when seeking out a women, but when walking down the street they can be ruthless. I thought the "hey baby" pick up line was a little over steriotyped to depict most Americans, but I suppose the general idea is effective. Maybe Americans just let their emotions get the better of them when trying to impress a girl, or maybe we just can't hold our liquer as well as the Germans so we come off like drunken assholes that holler "you are looking FINE" and expect it to come off as a compliment. I won't go into my personal experience too much with women, but I personally feel like the German men are depicted as too subtle to be ladies men. Yes, I know that it is rude to "holler" at girls the way many Americans do, but the author brings up the very important point that girls are way more interested in guys if they think he's interested in her. I digress. I thought it was interesting that a young German man will give up his seat to an old woman, but there is no sympathy on the street when walking past eachother "unless blood is drawn". This again seems ironic, like the Germans care about some acts of chivilry more than others. It definitely seems like it could come off as awkward, a German guy hitting on a girl, but if ain't broke, don't fix it.

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.

Kultur 4

Compulsive organization is stressed in all of these articles. The authors talk about how locals are always playing by the rules, which are rather elaborate. This complex set of rules, some being unspoken, apparently makes it a little difficult for foreigners to keep up with whats going on. Whether you're walking across the street or just walking down the sidewalk, there are dangers that someone from the states may not even think about, like cars and bikes that probably won't brake if you're in the way. These articles describe how the Germans kind of stand their ground when they have the right of way, which is what we do too in a lot of cases. We have laws that protect pedestrians by giving them the right of way, which makes driving around campus very frustrating, while walking is much less stressful. I also thought it was interesting how people may take the liberty to scold you if you break any of these German rules. I don't know if Americans are more passive in this sense (I personally don't think we are), or maybe we just don't care about things like that. Perhaps we just think of those rules or laws as guidelines that can be manipulated depending on certain circumstances. Like the German punks who are waiting to cross the street when the red man goes away at 3 in the morning, while any American wouldn't think twice before casually walking to the other side. I guess you could say that we tend to bend the rules while Germans generally try to maintain the order provided by these systems. As a true 'Merrcan, I believe that this indicates our obsession with freedom, which is definitely liberating although it leaves the risk of relying on the good judgement of everyone. Based on these articles, it sounds like the Germans want to take judgement out of the equation, again, reflecting their pursuit of perfect order. I think breaking the rules is kind of fun :) but I am an American, not a German.

AMD 3- German Football

If there's one thing to note about German sports, football (or American soccer) is by far the most popular of anything else. In the US, we have our own kind of football, which is vastly different from their football, and it could be argued that it is the most popular sport in the States. While we do play soccer on the international level just as Germany does, the sport gets much more attention overseas where everyone takes the sport to a whole different meaning. It is played on a competitive level that outweighs almost every sport we have in the US, as far as professional involvement goes. People come from all over the world to play in Germany because of the players that come from the country, and the prestige given to the teams within. I grew up playing football (American obviously), and so my interests as far as sports go are focused much more locally. I decided to do some research into the tradition of German football for this AMD to gain some appreciation for the country's accomplishments within this realm.

The German Football Association (Deutscher Fussball-Bund, or DFB) governs the sport nationally. This overseas all professional tiers, with the highest being the Bundesliga. The winner of this league is the German Football Champion. There are additional national cup competitions in the second Bundesliga. Both of these divisions consist of 18 teams. In 2008, the third Bundesliga was established with 20 teams, which pushed the semi-pro league to the fourth tier. This division is called Regionalliga, and consists of 3 groups of 18 teams. Each group is categorized by their home region in Germany.

On the international level, Germany has become known as a dominant force in the world of football. The German National Football Team has won 3 Wolrd Cups, and 3 European Championships, as the Women's National Football Team has also had success having won the Women's World Cup twice. This makes Germany the only country to have won both World Cups. Germany hosted the World Cup in 1974 and 2006, the European Cup in 1988, and most recently, the 2011 Women's World Cup. Germany has also proven its dominance by hosting many foreign players, which means that they are some of the best in the world because of how selective the teams are. I don't know if America will ever become as involved in the world of international football as Germany is, but it is always a possibility. However, I personally think the possibilities of American football making its way to Germany are quite slim, due to the fact that the Germans have had so much success in another kind of football.

Kulur 3

For this assignment I read the Spiegel online article "Beer, Brewskies and Liquid Bread". At first I thought that "liquid bread" was just a figure of speech refering to the commonality of beer, comparing it to bread, something that can be served at every meal. I learned by the end of the article that I was looking into it in a completely wrong way, as common as beer may be in Germany. It turns out that there are certain kinds of beer that actually have many of the same ingredients that bread has. Ingredients vary depending on what kind of beer you are making, and also depends on where it is being brewed. Nearly every region of German has a specific type of beer that is native to that part of the country. Some types of beers, like Helles, or Lager Hell, is prodominatly served in the southern Bavaria, but is so popular that it is exported all over the world, therefore you can find it almost anywhere. There are other beers however, such as Berliner Weisse, which is almost exclusively served around Berlin (hense the name, who would have thought!) which is supposed to be embarrassing to drink due to the sweet nature of the drink, low alcohol content, and the fact that it is often served with a straw doesn't help its case. I feel like it would be a great adventure going all over Germany and to taste beers from all of the different regions. There are so many different breweries and types of beer in Germany (a third of the breweries on the European Union are in Germany) that I imagine it is easy to find something you have never heard of before that is actually quite good. It has me wondering, if America had the same laws regarding beer as Germany, would we brew local quality like the Germans, or would giant corporations like Budweiser try to take over and put their vending machines everywhere? I suppose it would be a mixture of the "Wal-mart effect" and the pride in quality that many Germans feel regarding their own local breweries.

AMD 2- The Awful German Language

This was quite an interesting read, which would be good reasoning for why Hartmut recommended it. I thought Mark Twains approach to the essay was brilliant in his attack of the dative, accusative, and nominative cases and how they effect different words in different ways. He also uses great examples for ways in which the German language is generally illogical. The biggest exception for him seemed to be the capitalization of nouns because it is unmistakable for what it is, unless it is a persons name.

I think my favorite part of the essay is about the separable verb. The example for this was especially good in my opinion:

"The trunks being now ready, he DE- after kissing his mother and sisters, and once more pressing to his bosom his adored Gretchen, who, dressed in simple white muslin, with a single tuberose in the ample folds of her rich brown hair, had tottered feebly down the stairs, still pale from the terror and excitement of the past evening, but longing to lay her poor aching head yet once again upon the breast of him whom she loved more dearly than life itself, PARTED."

Given that all of his examples are a bit over the top in illustrating his point, I think this one is the best because of its length and clarity in describing a situation to the "T" and using some of the most eloquent wording. It is hard to picture this in the English language. Clearly we just have very different structures for our sentences.

I also like the way he talks about the language in the way that you can combine words together to make very complex looking and sounding words that are much longer than most. I guess we have something like this in the English language too, but it is definitely more extreme in German. I feel like they do it a little bit more often than we do and they end up with much longer words than we do in these cases.

I studied German for four years in high school in what I considered to be a very kind, but terrible teacher. He just didn't care as much about our learning than other teachers do. But from those four years, I did get a good feel for the language just through general exposure and repetition. Based on this understanding of the material, I felt like I could agree with Mark Twain on multiple levels within this essay. I don't have a knowledge base nearly as thorough as he does, but it is still moderate, and I felt like it helped me understand a lot of what he was saying pretty well. I think this made the essay a little bit easier, and definitely more interesting to read.

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