AMD6 Joe Oliver

Diese Woche habe ich reddit.com auf Deutsch gelesen. I habe gelernt, dass reddit "subreddits" für Deutsch studentin hat, und auch gelernt, dass There is an entire series of German subreddit pages. 

Erste habe ich diese Artikel, heisst "Common words and phrases they didn't teach me in German class," gelesen. Viele Menschen habe geschrieben, dass sie haben unique things gelernt. I was glad to see many things I already knew, namlich the different connotation of the word Freund/Freundin. 


That Artikel ist auf Englisch geschrieben, so I wanted to spend the rest of my time delving into the actual Deutsch subreddits as a challenge. So ich habe "reddit.com/r/fernsehen" gefunden. Dann habe ich für gegen dreissig minuten diese Artikel gelesen. From the title (Fernsehr vs. mediathek) I guessed it had something to do with debating if TVs were better than some other type of media technology, perhaps something wie Netflix oder Hulu, if they have that in Deutschland.



It was a little bit hard to read because, like most people on the internet, the author didn't seem to use perfect grammar/spelling. I did gather that he/she doesn't have time to watch TV and doesn't miss it, because the best shoes "seltsame timeslots haben" = have strange timeslots. Then it's a bit fuzzy because I had to look up several things, but I think this sentence: " ich hab mich an dieses on-demand glaub ich einfach gewoehnt und kann dem normalen fernsehn relativ wenig abgewinnen, abgesehen von dumpfem hirn-ausschalten." means that the author is used to watching things on demand (a la Netfilx), and can't get into regular TV aside from (abgesehen von)  "dumpfern him-ausschalten." 


Then I saw a comment that seemed to be talking about online TV, because I caught a full sentence nearly "dass man aktuelle Programme nur eine Woche lang sehen kann," i.e. you can only watch programs for a week. 


I can see that I still have a lot to learn but it's really cool to be able to sort of understand actual conversations between German people. The cooler part is that if I interpreted those parts of the conversation right, then they are just like lot of things I've seen/said on reddit in English, z.b. how TV is hard and sort of lame to watch regularly after you are used to watching whatever you want whenever you want online.



Oh, and I also found this image on the subreddit for students of German. There's a bad word in it though. 

Kultur5 - Joe Oliver

The thing that stuck out to me the most was the article about sex shops, weil ich ein Klasse in "Sociology of Sexuality" gehabt hat. We talked about the Safe Sex Shop in Ann Arbor, which ist wie sex shops in Deutschland: open about what they have inside, well lit, clean looking, right next to normal shops. Die Frau who owns the store knew meine Lehrerin. She tries to get rid of the stigma around those types of shops, an encourages people not to be ashamed about that stuff.

The other thing that really stood out to me was the contrast between the sex shop article and the flirting article. Es ist sehr interessant, dass German people aren't phased by sex shops out in the open, aber sie hat viele Angst für flirting. I suppose both the German and American views don't make much sense. Germans are open minded about sex shops but sound almost prudish when it comes to flirting, and Americans are the exact opposite.

I also really enjoyed the extra article about Kneipen und Bars. From the perspective of somebody in a relationship, I like the sound of German Cliques. I would prefer having a Kneipe to go and hang out and have a good time rather than going to an American bar, i.e. "Meat market." However Ich auch denke, dass it is unfair to the couple for a group/clique to expect their friend to always prefer going with them when their boyfriend/girlfriend doesn't want to. I would like to do both, have time with just my friends und just meine Freundin, und some mit beide. It seems that German cliques expect their friends to always hang out with them the same way they criticize American couples for always being together.

AMD5 South Park auf Deutsch

Für this AMD, ich habe "South Park" auf Deutsch gesehen. Ich wanted to see how much more ich habe verstehen gekonnt. Ich habe versteht viele Worte, I won't list them here because there are so many. Most notably, I heard the words "tot" and "gestorben," as well as "scheiss." Ich habe nicht gewusst sie dürfen "scheiss" sagen.
Ich auch versteht viele Sätze using modal verbs, imperative, and past tense. z.b.:
"Kenny ist im Dezember gestorben" => Kenny died in December.
"Was hast du gesagt?" => What did you say?
"Komm mit" => Kyle telling Cartman to come with him and Stan.
Ich habe auch viele "ich muss" oder "wir müssen" gehört.

Auch ich habe "halt die Schnauze" gehört. From Lola Rennt. The thing ich habe gelernt is that even though ich habe viele Worte und kleine Sätze versteht, ich habe viel zu lernen. i.e. I understood a lot more stuff than last time I tried this but I still barely understood what was happening aside from the overall plot of the episode.

P.S. Fun fact: Meine Freundin in another section read Deutsch recipes for her AMD. She said that she found a ton of recipes for "Amerikanisch cookies" which are just chocolate cookies.

Kultur4 - Joe Oliver

Ich finde die Kultur articles für transportation/public transportation sehr interessant. Ich komme aus ein Stadt mit nur Autos, aber in Ann Arbor ich fahre Rad und Bus. So going between these zwei Städte, ich notice the differences in the way die Städte operate. Ich liebe Ann Arbor am Redford (mein hometown) denn it is easier, "greener," and actually sometimes faster to get around. When I'm home, it's shocking how far away things are because it is assumed wir haben ein Auto. In Ann Arbor, everything is very close together because fewer people drive. But that ends basically as soon as you are out of the downtown areas. Even in meinen Wohnung (which is almost in Ypsilanti), more people have cars and stuff is farther apart. When I walk through the lot to the bus stop, Ich muss walk down a car path in the parking lot und avoid cars. There are still problems mit the public transport in Ann Arbor but I find it much preferable. Reading the Kultur articles, it seems Deutschland has it more figured out than we do here.

The bike baths in die Straße in Ann Arbor are inconsistent and not clearly marked, so ich liebe hören that the ones in Deutschland are color coded or otherwise differentiated from footpaths/roads. I even looked it up to see what the article meant and found this. Another petty problem with getting around Ann Arbor is the so called "Zebra crosswalks" (as the Deutsch Kultur article sagt). They're pretty decent here aber it is sometimes frustrating both when walking and when driving. Significantly fewer than "999/1000" drivers seem committed to slamming on breaks and giving pedestrians the right of way. And pedestrians, aware of this and unsure if the car will let them go,  end up playing a de facto game of chicken sometimes with cars. I wonder if this is a result of Deutschland making it less easy to get your Führerschein. I'm not sure about other states but meine Fahrschule was sehr easy and did not explain many traffic laws.

The "honor code" on trains seems intimidating but I sort of like it. It reminds me of the busses in Ann Arbor. The AATA busses make you scan your MCard to get on (for Universität Studenten) but Blue busses don't check at all. I've been on many an AATA bus that gets behind when a lot of people are getting on and there are problems scanning the MCards. The blue busses run wie clockwork, often they are ahead of schedule. It seems more efficient to set up the honor system, even if it's intimidating for people new to it. All you have to do is follow the rules and you're fine.

AMD 4: German conversations on Spring Break

Meine Freundin stayed over meine Wohnung für viele Nächte over Spring Break. Wir decided to try to speak Deutsch as viel as possible while wir were together. It helped me realize how important it is to speak Deutsch in order to learn it. It challenged us to think of new ways to combine vocabulary und phrases that wir kennen. As a result, ich denke that wir became quicker with it after a few hours practice.

One good example was when we were talking about mein Vater driving out to pick us up and take us back to our home town (wir kommen aus Redford, Michigan). Sie fragt "Wann kommt deinen Vater?" und ich antworte "Er kommt mit meinen Bruder nach Arbeit, um neun Uhr." I remember this in detail because I was pretty happy to spout off what is probably the longest sentence I've ever said auf Deutsch so far.

Anyway, it was a really good idea und ich denke wir will continue to practice together from now on.

AMD 3: Eine Deutsches Requiem (Joe Oliver)

This Woche, ich decided ich would höre "Eine Deutsches Requiem" von Johannes Brahms. Es ist a sehr long composition from the neunzehnte century which heute ich learned  uses Bible verses for lyrics. It is sehr langsam, so it is difficult to listen to if ihr höret classical Musik nicht gern. Luckily ich habe a soft spot for this song because ich performed a version of it in mein High School band.

Because it is langsam und musical (i.e. holding out a single syllable for several seconds, sometimes it sounds like several lines are being sang at once), the words were hard to pick out, so ich decided lesen the verses as ich listened. The song repeated many of the lines over and over but with the text in front of me it was easy verstehen what sie said. Ich versteht viele phrases (whole sentences or most of) from the song. For example, "alles Fleisch es ist wie Gras." Ich just learned what Fleisch means und I guessed (correctly) that "Gras" means grass, so that phrase is roughly "All flesh is as grass." I also learned that Freuden looks a lot like Freunden but they are not the same word. I kept thinking a bunch of phrases meant "something something mit friends," but Freuden means joy. E.G. "und kommen mit Freuden" means "and come with joy," not "and come with friends"

There were a bunch of other smaller or easier phrases ich auch versteht, zum Bespiel "Gottes Hand" = God's hand, "Ich habe eine kleine Zeit" means "I have a little time" und "Ja, der Geist spricht" means "Yes, the spirit says"

Finally, the text ich read from has all of the verses in the order in which they were sung in die Musik, aber they were only written once even though they were sang multiple times. However, there were annotations where the songs changed speed, some were in Deutsch (etwas bewegter = some moving (i.e. faster)) und some were the same phrases used in Musik in Amerika (Allegro non troppo = not too fast, I think it comes from Italian). I think it is sehr interessant to see how music vocabulary translates to different languages.

Kultur3 - Joe Oliver

I picked the zwei articles about alkohol in Deutschland und the article about organic food for meine Kultur Hausaufgaben this Woche.

First, ich found viele similarities between die Deutsche people und meine Familie. Mein Vater is very interested in Biers und the different types of Bier. Ich bin used to just hearing Bier vocabulary words thrown around in Bier commercials in Amerika. Germans really seem to know all about it and be somewhat snobbish about was ist in their Bier, or how it was made, much like mein Vater.

The pessimism part definitely auch reminded me of meine Familie. A certain relative of mine likes to cut the rest of us down any time we are happy about something, much like the article says people do in Deutschland. Also, meine Mutter is sehr skeptical of anything modern und new, such as genetically modified food, und auch intelligent Handi.

I found it sehr interessant to see how the attitudes of food are similar/different in other countries. For example, wir always say that "Breakfast IS the most important meal of the day," whereas the Kultur on Seite neunzig says that "SOME Germans think it is." That struck me because something ich have always accepted as fact without really thinking about it is now clearly more of an opinion.  But we also have the trend towards organic food in Deutschland, much like we see in Amerika in places like Ann Arbor.

The last thing that was sehr interessant to me was the article about banning Alkohol in public. (Yet another example of a different social attitude about food (oder drinks) in Deutschland. It's considered normal to drink in public and to drink much more than wir consider normal in Amerika.) Anyway, there was a quote towards the end where Schulz said "Prohibition is not a lasting and peaceful solution. It requires too many police officers. Anyway, drinkers are citizens too, with the same rights we all have." It reminds me of an argument against the large war on drugs in Amerika; namely that so viel Geld, so viele lives und so viel effort are spent prohibiting drugs. Ich watched a documentary about this once, (ich might fit in in Deutschland after all), and viele people said that the cost of the war in people's lives, in manpower, und in money is more than the damage it would do if there was no prohibition. It seems to be the more popular opinion in Deutschland that prohibiting a drug (i.e. Alkohol) that sometimes leads to violence is not worth it. It seems like sie haben a more laissez-faire attitude about what people do to themselves and in their spare Zeit in that case. Ich am curious about how other hot political issues in America translate to German, und how their general opinion differs from ours. 

Kultur2 - Joe Oliver

I was kind of worried when I read the disclaimer about these articles having negative information about Deutschland. I actually liked or felt neutral about a lot of it.

I really liked the straightforwardness sie haben. Perhaps being straightforward with comments wir as Amerikaners consider rude would take getting used to but the general ja means ja, nein means nein attitude seems sehr awesome. I remember feeling that people had a very "no nonsense" attitude when I visited New York, and liking it. Also, the idea that Deutsche people are open to discussing honest disagreements is pretty cool to me too.

I feel pretty neutral about the national past-time of complaining. I feel like Amerikaners complain a lot as well, and I also feel that a number of people im Amerika think that the country isn't what it used to be.

For the rest I feel pretty neutral. I think it's interessant and kind of funny that Germans sind obsessed with facts and statistics but at the same time they are prone to oversimplifying things, like the article said the think all Americans essen hamburgers all the time. Again, with the staring I feel that people around here stare a lot too, I relate to the public transportation Bespiel; I see people staring on the bus every day.

Part of the reason ich studiere Deutsch is because I want to eventually visit or possibly live im Deutschland, so I'm happy that the "negative" facets of Deutsch Kultur seem pretty manageable to me.

For the text readings, I wish I would've read Seite 50 the other day. I was trying to look up how to say "Biomedical Engineering" im Deutsch for the schedule assignment und I couldn't figure it out. I thought to check a Deutsch Tech Univ. website to see if they had it listed as a major, and today I found out what German Tech schools are actually called - die technische Hochschule. I remember reading in European how Universities are based on the original colleges started in Europe during the Enlightenment and I find it sehr interessant that the Deutsch schools were somewhat late in modernizing.

AMD 2: South Park

For my AMD this Woche ich watched South Park in Deutsch. I watched the Episoden "All About Mormons," und "Cartmanland." Ich picked die Episoden sort of at random aber also because ich have seen them many times and figured ich verstehe most of them. It turned out to be a gut choice because there were a lot of conversations in die Episoden that showed Wortschatz wir learn im Deutschklasse.

Im die ersten Episode ich verstehe Die Familie Wortschatz zum Bespiel "Vater," "Mutter," "Schwester," etc. Im die zweiten, Cartman bought a theme park and had to figure out wie viele people to let in his park and wie viel to charge them. There were a lot of numbers through the episode and it was challenging to keep up with the pace that Deutsch is actually spoken but I did manage. Finally, ich verstehe some common phrases we have learned, zum Bespiel "Was ist das?" "wie Bitte?" und especially commands as well, zum Bespiel "setzen Sie sich" und "schrieben Sie."

The characters sprechen sehr schnell, so it was hard verstehen sometimes. I noticed that when there were larger periods that I understood well, it seemed to slow down, like during the part where somebody was introducing seine Familie. This is probably because ich was able to pick out full phrases and sentences rather than single words. I think I might try to do this again once ich lerne more Deutsch and can verstehe better.