Kultur 6- Amanda Knop

I can't believe that Bild Zeitung is the primary source of news for millions of Germans. In America, I  we have tabloids (which most people understand to be fake), and real news magazines. It seems really weird to me that a magazine would try and combine both. A lot of the topics that they cover are really inappropriate for a source that so many people look to for news.

I think it would be really awkward trying to visit an official in their office in Germany. In America, doors tend to be left open when you are allowed in the room. In Germany, the door is always closed.

In Germany, it is difficult to just throw away trash. They have many different trash receptacles. Although this would be really confusing, I think its a good idea. This way, Germans get rid of their trash in an environmentally friendly way.

I think its interesting that German universities do not provide a lot of dorm rooms for students. I feel like that is a part of the college experience here in America. However, I think its really cool that the dorm rooms they do have have a kitchen for students to use. I would love to be able to cook my own meals in the dorms. It's also cool that they offer a free-housing service for students.

Tübingen seems like a city I would like to visit. I would love to see the Schloss Hohentübingen. I've never seen a castle before. I think its so cool that the city of Tübingen has a partnership with Ann Arbor.

AMD 6- Amanda Knop

For this AMD, I decided to watch some German newscasts. I used the website www.tagesschau.de. This is the website that we used in class when we watched the "Taggeschau in 100 Sekunden" video.

First, I watched one of these "100 Sekunden" videos. I did not understand much of it, but there were a few things that I was able to pick up. The only story that I was able to understand was that there was a protest in Portugal. I also could understand the weather portion at the end. Morgen, it is going to "regen" or rain. I was able to understand a few key words such as wilkommen, jahren, gegen, and Mittwoch. I was also able to understand every number the reporter said.


After watching the video, I decided to look at some written articles on the website. I found it kind of difficult to navigate the site, but I did find some interesting articles. The Kultur section was my favorite because it had a lot of interesting articles about movies and music. I found an article about a performance by a band named "Bastille", which is a band that is gaining in popularity here in the US. I also found an article about Detroit. The article was called "Unternehmerin gibt Obdachlosen eine Chance", which means "Businesswomen gives the homeless a chance". A young woman is working to bring the homeless off the streets, and happened to have worked in Detroit.

I thought it was kind of fun to try and navigate the German news site. Although difficult to understand, I think its a good website to look at every once and a while to improve my German.

Kultur 5- Amanda Knop

I think its kind of rude that Germans don't say excuse me when they run into someone in the street. I understand that they have to deal with a lot more people walking around them then most Americans, but I can't imagine running into someone and not apologizing. I guess it's different if no one around you apologizes and that is considered normal.

I actually think its quite funny that Germans have sex shops in common places. I can't imagine going to an airport, for example, and seeing one. I think its kind of inappropriate for children to be seeing those things alongside the street when they're walking with their parents, however.

I'm really surprised that Germans hire women to work in the bathrooms all day. However, I would be willing to pay someone to make sure the bathroom is always clean. I don't think its that bad of an idea.

I think it would be really difficult to try to find someone to date in Germany. It doesn't seem like they are really open with flirting, and I don't think it would be easy to know if someone is interested in you or not. Also, a lot of meanings get misconstrued.

Women are not a minority in Germany. I wonder if women in Germany tend to have more power than women in America because of this. The rates of women working are rising in Germany, also. According to the statistics of women in Germany, it seems like their living conditions are constantly improving.

I didn't know that Germany had city-states. Hamburg is one of these city-states, and seems like a cool place to visit. It's a hub of international trade. It's also the birthplace of many famous Germans, such as Johannes Brahms and Angela Merkel.

In the US, we tend to refer to a lot of people as our friends. In Germany, however, Freundin are only close relationships. I think it's interesting that they designate people into these groups. It does make sense though, acquaintances are very different from close friends.

AMD 5- Amanda Knop

For AMD 5, I decided to read the Wikipedia article that Hartmut provided about Denglisch.

Denglisch is the introduction of English words into the German vocabulary. Many German linguists are against the idea, because they do not believe the language is sophisticated enough. However, many Germans still speak in this way.

After the end of World War II, there was an influx of English words into the German language. An example of these are Jeep, Quiz, Show, Western, Rock, Hippie, and Groupie.

German pseudo-anglicisms are words that seem to be English, but are actually German. Some examples of these words are Beamer, City, Handy, Peeling, Smoking, and Sprayer.

Advertisers tend to use Denglisch in order to appeal to a larger audience. An example of this is an ad that says "Oil Control Waschgel" or "Color Waschmittel".

Before reading this article, I did not know that Germans used English words in their vocabulary on occasion. I knew that German and English were similar languages, but did not realize that this was a practice in Germany. I can agree with those in Germany who do not think it is proper. I think it's a cool concept, however. Occasionally we use words from other languages in our English vocabulary. The difference with Denglisch, however, is that they often combine English and German words to make new words. I can't think of any English cases where we do this.

AMD 4- Amanda Knop

For my AMD, I decided to watch the "Lernen to Talk Show" that we watched in class. I really enjoyed watching the video in class and thought it would be enjoyable to watch.

The first episode made me feel a lot better about the way I speak German. It was really difficult for him to form sentences, and I feel like he knew the same amount of vocabulary that I currently do. It was funny to watch, because it seemed really relatable. I know that if I had to speak with someone who was fluent in German, that is how I would speak. He was trying to say his birthday and started speaking Spanish by accident. I thought that was funny because I took French in high school, and sometimes I throw in French words by accident too.

By the second episode, he was already better at speaking. At this point, he could have a full conversation with someone. I still feel like I'm unable to do that. It gives me hope though, knowing where he started and where he ended up. I went ahead and skipped a few episodes, and it was amazing how much German he learned. I hope that I can learn German to the degree that he has. I think its awesome how dedicated he was, moving to Germany to learn the language. It's really cool that he was able to learn the language in one year. Overall, I would recommend other people to watch the videos. They're really interesting and I think it provides an opportunity to learn more German.

Kultur 4- Amanda Knop

I thought that "Two-Wheel Teutons: Stay off the Bike Path!" was an interesting article. I know that in America, we always yield to the walking pedestrian. I did not realize how dangerous it was to be near bicyclists in Germany, and if I ever do go there I will keep that in mind. I can't believe that they would not stop for a person walking near them.
"The Red Dictator: Crossing the Strasse" was also interesting, especially because I live in Ann Arbor. Here, we don't really pay attention to the stop lights. We just assume that cars will stop, and we tend to walk across the street. In Germany, however, they take the stop lights extremely seriously. I also would have to remember this if I ever went to Germany.
"Fare Dodgers Beware: There's no such thing as a free ride" was enlightening for me. Honestly, if I found out that the subway was based on the honors system, I would not purchase a ticket... I'm glad that I read this article though. I would have been the person who would be looked down upon by all of the people on the subway when they close the doors.
I found some of the Kultur articles in the book interesting too. I did not know that you had to be 17 to begin driving lessons in Germany. I started when I was exactly 14 and 8 months because I wanted to drive so badly. I could not  have waited that long. On the contrary, however, I really admire the fact that if Germans have to go a short distance, they do not drive. It makes a lot more sense to ride a bike or walk somewhere that is not that far, rather than drive a car. It is also a lot better for the environment. I wish Americans were more like this.

AMD 3- Amanda Knop

I saw that a lot of people switched their Facebook language to German for previous AMD's. I thought it would be interesting to experience Twitter in German too.

I was actually surprised at how easily I could navigate twitter in German. The home page is called "startseite" which literally means "start page". To connect, you click the button that says "@Verbinden".To view your profile you click on a link that says "Mein Profil ansehen". To write a tweet you click on a link that says "Verfasse einen neuen Tweet". Using my knowledge of the twitter website, as well as my knowledge of German, it was pretty easy for me to translate what these sentences meant.

To reply you click "Antworten", which means answer. This is a little different from the English twitter website. To learn more about the company you click "Über uns", which means about us. A lot of people use the word Über in English to mean very. In German, however, it actually means about.

Overall, I did not find it that difficult to navigate Twitter in German. I thought it was very interesting how much of it I could understand. Most of the translations were pretty similar to the English version of Twitter. Because I can understand it, I think I am going to keep my Twitter in German.

Kapitel 3- Amanda Knop

I chose to read the article titled "An Obsession Explained: Beer, Brewskies and Liquid Bread". I knew that there was a stereotype about Germans and beer, but I didn't realize how true it really was. I was shocked that you could purchase beer at McDonalds. I also thought it was funny that Germans would lie to you in order to get you to drink more beer (saying that it has no preservatives or ingredients that will give you a hangover).

I also chose to read "Eco-centric Germans: Organic Food Obsessions". I think that its a good idea to stay away from genetically-modified food. In America, a lot of people are health conscious, but not to that degree. I think its great that they want to eat organically. I, however, cannot afford to do that.
I read the fast food article also. I found it funny that most of the foods that were discussed in the article related to sausage- another German stereotype.
I thought it was interesting that Germans are viewed as so negative. I agree with the fact that they have a realist perspective, and tend to be just blatantly honest. I don't think that it would be very enjoyable to talk to a German person if they were so negative, but I would appreciate their honesty. It would take a while to get used to.

Amanda Knop- AMD 2

I decided to read Mark Twain's, "The Awful German Language" because I remembered Hartmut mentioning it in one of the video lectures. He stated that Twain studied the German language extensively, so he had the right to make fun of the language. Even though I've only taken German for a month now, I have already noticed some of the aspects of the language that he writes about in his essay.

One of the main points that Twain makes is that a lot of rules in the German language have a long list of exceptions. So much so, that there are enough exceptions to completely disprove the rule completely.
Reading his explanation made me kind of nervous to study more German because it did sound so confusing. However, I know that Twain was most likely exaggerating for humor.

I thought that Twain's explanation of separable verbs was very funny. Because the second half of the verb comes at the very end of the sentence, it is easy to exaggerate the silliness of this rule. Twain writes a sentence that is three lines long and emphasizes the space between the first and second part of the verb. The rule seems rather silly when put in this context.

Also humorous was Twain's account of the masculine/feminine/neutral gender given to words. It is completely at random. He states that it makes no sense why a female would be neutral, but a turnip would be feminine. He also states that because the parts of the human body are so mixed in their genders of the German language, someone might think he or she is a man or a woman, only to end up confused. I thought that Twain's view of this was entertaining to read.

Overall, I would recommend that other German students read this, because it is humorous and relatable.  Luckily, Twain's "frustration" with the language didn't make me want to stop learning the language, but introduced me to some of the funny quirks of German.

Amanda Knop- Kultur 2

I found these articles about German life very interesting.

I did not know that whining and complaining were a part of German culture. I found it funny that the author of the first article stated that they have nothing to complain of. The second author had an interesting point of view in saying that complaining is part of their culture because it simply leads to improvement of the things they find unsatisfactory. I wonder how true this statement is. I guess I will not know if Germans actually complain this much until I visit Germany, which is something I hope to do.

I also was unaware that staring was something that was normal. Here, in America, its considered really strange if someone is staring at you. If someone is looking at you, and you make eye contact, its usually an awkward situation. And if they don't look away, its considered creepy. The fact that its normal in Germany is strange to me.

I admire the fact that Germans are so honest. I don't really think its that rude. In Germany, you always know what and how a person is feeling. You're also able to share your own feelings without worrying that you are going to offend anyone. In America, we tend to "sugarcoat" a lot of what we're feeling. I wish that we were a little more like Germans in this way.

AMD 1- Amanda Knop

I decided that I would listen to some German music to get an idea of how their popular music differs from ours. Surprisingly, their music sounds pretty similar to ours (except for the change of language, obviously).
The first song I listened to was called "Weil Ich Wieder Zu Hause Bin" which means "Because I am Back Home Again" by Alexander Knappe. The song is about coming home after being away. I liked the song and thought it was kind of relatable, considering I just moved away from home.
Another song I listened to was called "Dieses Leben" which means "This Life" by Juli. I also liked this song. According to the description, Juli started out making music in English, but later switched to German in order to write songs more comfortably (German is their native language). The song is about loving life, even during dark times, and is also quite inspirational.
I also decided to check out the German version of MTV. The website has links to a lot of English songs, and English celebrities; it just happens to be in German. For example, there is an article about Beyonce that is titled "Beyonce: So Schon is sie ohno Make-Up!" Since I knew that Schon meant beautiful, I knew the article was about how Beyonce is still beautiful without makeup.
I also looked at the hitlist in Germany. The song "Wake Me Up" by Avicii is the number one song right now. I found this to be interesting because the song is popular in the United States too.

Overall I loved exploring German music, and I would recommend others to listen to some of it.

Mein Lieblingswort ist Kugelschreiber.