Hunting Herren

  It had been my experience that America is home to a more uptight culture. Maybe it's because of our Puritan roots or something. I think if we loosened up a little bit we would enjoy ourselves a little more. Having sex stores be taboo doesn't make any sense to me. Wir lieben Sex. I've not known anyone to say "Sex, es ist nicht fur mich." So why pretend to be shy about it.

  I was surprised to learn about the German flirting habits. I've never tried flirting in Germany but I've been out partying in different countries. Maybe I was just culturally oblivious at the time. It seemed to me that women in other countries were more open to being approached than in America. Perhaps they were drawn to my sexy American accent though. I know an Australian woman could say anything to me and I'd be sold. But I would like to try out this German flirting thing, it seems like less work for me. I'm capable of making eye contact all day long so maybe I could land a sweet Frau. Wenn ist die Reise nach Deutschland?

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.

I want to ride my bicycle, I want to ride my bike.

  The articles regarding crossing the street and staying off the bike path may have saved my life. The types of actions talked about in the articles are exactly the types of things I would be caught doing like an ignorant fool. I've lived in Chicago for a while and have grown quite accustomed to disregarding the crosswalk lights. Those lights are generally safe suggestions but I've got places to go and naps to take. I actually pride myself on my real-life frogger technique and expedient motorway crossing. The train ticket thing seems like it could be a little obnoxious. Is the act of buying the correct ticket and getting on the appropriate train really all that complicated? Personally, I wouldn't be the person that doesn't buy a ticket and tries to ride black. I'm too paranoid about getting fined for things that are easy to not get fined for. Incidentally, I've received one driving ticket and I think I learned my lesson there because I haven't gotten any since then. I prefer not to spend my money on needless moving violations.

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.

Kultur2

   While reading the article about the complaining Germans I thought about this guy I met at MSU a few months ago. A friend of mine works at the physics lab at MSU and I was in there talking to some guys I had met previously about what their experience was like working in the lab and in the scientific community. Two of the guys were German but the one who did that most talking was one of the most negative guys I had spoken with in a long time. He must have complained to me for a good half-hour about things ranging from salary, choice of research, the grant process, the types of students he had, to the future of science in general. After he got himself all worked up over everything he complained about (it seemed like this stuff had been boiling inside him just waiting for someone to ask him the right questions) he trotted off to his office. Another, less bitter, German physicist proceeded to tell me about how much he enjoyed his work and how he was enjoying pursuing new interests in the field of materials science. Oddly, these two guys share an office. Maybe Germans have a greater tendency to complain but the nice German physicist in my little story goes to show you that sometimes they are happy people as well.
    The staring Germans sounded like they might be interesting people. I admit to enjoying a good people watching session, you never know what you might catch. Do German creep on peoples' facebook pages more than we do? That might be hard to do. Going to the airport is the best for some staring action. I bet the old ladies who watch out the window to keep an eye on things would love a good making a little trip to the airport or train station to enjoy a nice coffee and get some watching done. Sometimes it is hard to tell whether or not someone is gawking at you or what is going on in their head when they're staring at you. Based on what I read in the articles for the Kultur2 I think I'm going to conclude that Germans are just people that are interested in things and analyzing them. People everywhere are interesting to watch and sometimes what you see makes you laugh, sometimes it can make you sick, and sometimes you just like what you see. This recent talk about Obama and reading these articles caused me to have a pretty good laugh when I saw this photo:

Sie haben einen schönen Hintern

AMD2

   For this activity I read Mark Twain's essay "The Awful German Language." In the essay Twain points out a lot of the same problems I imagine most of us are having. The one that sticks out to me as the most difficult problem is knowing which form of a word to use in the nominative, dative, accusative, and genitive cases. This is tough especially considering I'm still not completely sure how to identify each of these cases. Twain also complains out the gender assignment of words at great length. He is pretty funny in doing so. Actually, he tries to be funny throughout the whole essay. At one point he mentions that he tried to kill any stranger who says 'sie' to him. Anyway, the gender assignment thing doesn't bother me as much because I've just accepted it in my head. Things are assigned a gender and there is really no good way of being able to tell what gender a thing might be. I imagine that through repetition these grammar issues can be resolved. Oh, reading this essay also helped me identify some things that I should work on in order to develop a better understanding of the language. Or at the very least develop a better base of knowledge that I can use to pass future German tests. I'd recommend skimming over Twain's essay to any classmate who is interested in reading something that's humorous, informative, and pertains to an English-speaker's perspective on the German language.

Kartoffelkopf Kultur1

    After reading the pdf I was left feeling a little disappointed in myself for not knowing much about my German heritage. It's a shame that a good deal of German culture has been forgotten in America. But it is awesome that some German culture has been absorbed unconsciously by our own American culture. Who doesn't love eating some hot dogs or, better yet, some bratwursts? I actually lived in one of the towns mentioned (Oak Park) and have been to that very Oktoberfest. It didn't seem super German but they did have some German attractions. The attractions were mainly beer and food. It seems like what always stands out to me about German culture is the food, I love it. Kartoffelsuppe is one of my favorite foods.

Kartoffelsuppe ist sehr gut. 

    What other cultural things in America can be traced back to German tradition? I found that many of the traditions related to Christmas are German. Gingerbread houses and nutcrackers are examples of German traditions. I'd always wondered why my mom wanted me to make a house out of candy. Would it be weird to make a gingerbread house now? It would be beautiful and delicious. Here is a link to a site that has a lot of good information about German culture and heritage in America: Bitte hier klicken!

Mein Hexenhaus. Er ist nicht sehr gut.

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.