AMD 5

For AMD 5 I watched tv in German. I discovered a great website called www.zdf.de. It has a large variety of shows to watch. Unfortunately, the shows don't have subtitles, untertitles in Deutsch,  in English. However, with the German subtitles on it makes it easier to understand what is going on. On this website, I watch a documentary about Madagascar. I didn't understand most of what was said but I had a good idea of what was going on. Some words new words that I understood were kontinent, insel and forst. I understood these because of their resemblance to their English counterparts. Some new words I learned were Urkontinent = supercontinent, luftschiff = blimp/airship and baum = tree. Overall, this documentary resembled most of the documentaries I've seen. The only difference was it was in German. 

Kultur5

For Kultur 5 I learn that Germans can be rather rude. They will "accidentally" bump or push you on the street or in the train station. Almost none of them will say, "Entschuldigung" unless they really seemed to have hurt you. Most will go on their way as if nothing ever happened. Germans are also less... embarrassed about their sexy shops than Americans. Instead of being on the "bad side" of the city, they are in malls and airports. They feature their product prominently as any other store would. I found that the way Germans flirt is very strange compared to the way Americans flirt. Instead of man walking up to the woman with a cheesy pick up line or some other way of breaking the ice, the will give a woman "the look" and if the woman is interested she will come over and talk to him. All of the power is in the woman's hands. If a man goes over and tries talking to the woman he will seem very forward and scare her way. Finally, Germans have two kinds of friends. One, called Bekannte, is someone you know superficially or a coworker. It is someone you know but not extremely well. The other type, called Freund or Freundin, is a true, best friend. I would say that these people are even closer than that. They are more like brothers or sisters. A Freund is a life long bond with someone.   

Kultur 5

I want to talk about the sex article. Honestly I have been told many times that America was "founded by a bunch of prudes" and this article confirmed that belief. Sex is looked upon very differently here as well as the naked body. In foreign countries I feel like it is normal to come across a topless girl but here it is considered as obscene. I remember when I went to France I saw a girl topless in a commercial on a kids television station. Could you imagine the soccer mom's reactions here? Anyway, the only drawback is that the sex shops aren't available 24/7 like they are in America and I feel like a majority of sex takes place at night so I guess we have a little advantage over Deutschland in that aspect.

AMD 5

I possibly did the most boring thing ever for my AMD; I looked through a German-English dictionary. Here are some of the words I learned:

Porcupine- Stachelschwein
Rainbow- Regenbogen
Plow- Pflug
Indigo- Indigo
Sailboat- Segelboot
Orangutan- Orang-Utan
Angel- Engel
Misery- Elend
Blood- Blut
Organ- Ordel
Shower- Dusche
Van- Transporter

Kultur 5 Luyi Chen

I learnt some interesting German cultural facts after reading the artical of 'No blood, No entschuldigung', which means no blood, no sorry in English. German people always appear to be polite and humid to me.  It is shocking to know that Germans tend to act more aggressively. For example, they will pretend no one else is there while boarding a subway according to the article. The auther also stressed that Germans will go looking for physical contact. The images of perfect gentlemen are not what Germans really represent. This article offers me a more diversed image of Germans.

Another interesting article of Flirting with Fräuleins, Hunting for Herren discuss about German style flirting, which sounds interesting to me. The auther of this article define Gernman women as a special group, which enjoyed a much more subtle style of coquetry instead of obvious and direct flirting. German women seem even a little bit more conservative than Chinese women, since saying 'hi' to Geman woman is already considered as overly forward. As a foreign women in German, flirting with natives can be problematic since they may misunderstand your flirting or even worse, they may not know how to react to your flirting when you are. I am awared of how serious flirting is in Germany. It is always exciting to prepare for an unknown romance and subtle flirting may happen sometime between me and a German boy. Just kdding.

AMD 5 Luyi Chen

I decided to watch The Lernen to Talk Show again since I enjoyed it very much last time. For week three episode, the host Mickey was just chatting with his German friend, Kate, casually. Mickey tried his best to communicate with his friend in German fluently but it seemed that there is still language barrier existing. I could catch up with some familiar sentences such as 'Was hast du heute gemacht', which means 'what did you do today' in English. Also, Mickey said that 'Meine Lehrerin ist sehr gut', which means my teacher is very good in English. What's more, 'Sie ist eine sehr nette Frau', which means she is a very nice lady in English. From the video, I could tell that he was spending a great time learning German in Deutschland. The best way to improve one's foreign language skill is to live in the environment and try to talk as much as possible. Communicating with natives fluently, however, still seemed challenging for Mickey at tht time and he should practice more in order to overcome those embarrassments.

Mickey invited his teacher, a nice lady called Carmen Glocke to the show. He was more talktive this time and felt easier to hold a conversation in German. He also introduced his brother's band called Piston Hurricane to audience, which sounds fun and interesting to me. Gut gemacht, Mickey! I also catch up with several interesting sentences. For example, 'Heute Ich trage ein Hemd', which means I wear a shirt today. 'Sie kommen zusammen', which means they come together. Let's keep watching the Lernen to Talk Show and improve our German skill with Mickey together! After all, Ohne Fleiß kein Preis! No pain, no gain!

AMD Fünf Zech Attar

For my AMD fünf I decided to try something new. It was immer einfach to look up words then text it through whatsapp to my uncle; however, this time I decided to call my uncle and talk to him. Immediately, I was laughed at. My "English accent" was apparent. I was confused because I felt as though I talked like a real Deutschman. "Hallo, Wie gehts?!?! Ich habe keine Angst Deutsch sprechen!!" was how I started my convo. It went on to be a 20 minute conversation full of Lachen. I spoke to meine Cousin about sports and what I did, saying things like: Detroit Pistons sollte gut dies Jahr! Ich Basketball gestern gespielt. It was a pretty interesting conversation full of Spaß!

Kultur 5 - Gabrielle Spickard

     This week's Kultur articles were very interesting for me and covered a wide variety of topics, which I liked very much. The first article, "Rules of the Street: No Blood, No Entschuldigung" was pretty surprising to me. Had I not read about this cultural practice in the article and not been informed of it prior to going to Germany, I would find it to be pretty rude, honestly. But within German culture and society's overall love of efficiency and order, I can see how it (kind of) strangely fits into those ideals. The second article, "German Erotica: The Land of Beer, Sausage and Sex Shops" was interesting as well. It's actually refreshing to see an attitude towards this subject material as is demonstrated in German culture, in contrast to the often prudish attitudes of American culture, which can get ridiculous at times in my opinion. The third article, "The Loneliness of the Klofrau: Toilet Training for Visitors", was a bit strange to me subject-material wise. I really can't imagine privatized bathrooms in restaurants, shops, and other public places being such a big thing, and I imagine that would be quite a shock transitioning to this aspect of German culture from its very different American counterpart. The job of a Klofrau seems pretty miserable as well. For the fourth article, "Scoring a German: Flirting with Fräuleins, Hunting for Herren", German flirting seems extremely confusing. A lot of the behaviors that apparently constitute flirting in Germany seem like platonic interactions between acquaintances or friends in my view. On the other hand, I do agree with the view of the article that people in other nations can overcompensate on the other end of the spectrum a bit too much as well. I was very interested by the fifth article, "Excerpts from "Women in Germany"." While it can be a little dry at points since it mainly comprises statistics and conclusions from research studies, I found it fascinating to use that data to compare Germany with other nations in terms of demographics and measured gender equality. 

Kapitel 5 Kultur - Carsten

These articles were weird. I have no problem with sex stores being so obvious and apparent; I hate stores that hide what they're selling anyway. The language in this article was pretty alarming, but I think the author is just trying to be vulgar to prepare the reader for what he/she will see. So it's fine.
The article about bumping into people on the street and such reminds me a lot of the east coast. I've been to Boston (or rather Cambridge) a lot, and I get a similar feeling about Germany. I have been to Germany before and I can't say that anyone was especially "rude" to me or my family, but that could also be because the people we encountered (because of where we were) were probably tourists as well. In a store in Germany when we were there, a man was walking toward the checkout line at about the same time as my mom, and he stepped back and smiled and offered her the spot. He did so in German, so she didn't understand. This seemed to defy the inter-gender relations talked about in the flirting article, but then he noticed that she couldn't understand and he spoke perfect American English from then on. So I guess he was also a tourist.
Weird articles.

Kultur 5

Rule of the Street: No Blood, No Entschuldigung
For me, it was not at all surprising to read that Germans don't apologize after they bump into each other. While in Berlin, l was bumped into multiple times and not a single person apologized. However, I knew to expect this because Marie warned me that people almost never apologize for bumping into people.  I found it not surprising that young men get up for an elderly person.

German Erotica: The Land of Beer, Sausage, and Sex Shops
I thought it was interesting how this article compared yet another facet of German culture to American culture to show just how different the Germans are from Americans. In America, it's severely frowned upon to go to these stores while in Germany, it's completely normal to go to them. For me, this articles explains the question I had while in Germany as to while a sex store was in the middle of a shopping district in Berlin.

The Loneliness of the Klofrau: Toilet Training for Visitors 
I thought it was interesting to learn about the people who work as sanitary assistants. This article was right when they said you would be frowned at if you didn't put some change in the little white bowl. In Germany, they may make fun of the sanitary assistants, but all of the Germans make sure to give some spare change upon entering the bathroom.

Scoring a German: Flirting with Fräuleins, Hunting for Herren
I thought it was interesting to see how yet another aspect of German culture is different from American culture (even from the rest of the wordl!), and how unique this aspect is. I thought the German way of flirting was slightly amusing because when I see someone staring at me, I think "What? Is something wrong with my hair?" It would also make sense why so many guys turned Bailey, a friend of mine, down because she flirted with them in the good ole American way. 

Excerpts from "Women in Germany"
Personally, I found all of these statistics to be fascinating because they show how women are increasingly developing a larger role in the workforce of Germany. I also find it interesting that they allowed women to serve voluntarily in the army after previously only allowing them to serve in restricted positions. 

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.

Kultur 5

"Rules of the Street" actually made sense to me. While I do understand the benefits of being polite and kind to one another, I think that it can sometimes be a waste of time. Maybe it's because of my own German blood, but I'm definitely not afraid to shove someone a little bit in order to get a seat on the Bursley-Baits bus. I agree that if you really hurt someone then you should definitely say something. Besides that, I don't think that it's really necessary.

I really respect the openness of Germans when it comes to their sex shops. I think that they're taboo here because we've gone about it making them that way. I think that adults wouldn't feel so awkward going to one if they were more prominently displayed, like in Germany. I don't think it would do any harm to our values as a society and maybe help us stray away from the creepy "traditional conservative American values" that I have come to loathe.

I think that the Klofrau position is kind of weird. I don't know if I would feel comfortable tipping him/her (even though I would do it anyway). It's just odd because the only places that we have bathroom attendants in the U.S. is in very fancy places.

I don't think I'd like to try to find someone in Germany. It seems too hard! There are so many awkward instances that I would like to completely avoid.

Parts of me wish that I could live in Germany because of their progressive legislation towards women. The fact that we don't have a constitutional amendment cementing rights for women really makes me ashamed of my country.

AMD5- Dylan Koschtial

For my AMD 5 i have decided to further my adventure on changing the sites that I frequently visit to see how well I am able to interpret the pages. For this AMD I have decided to changed my espn account to the German language. It was very interesting because first of all the names of players do not change as the points and statistics that they post in each game is easy to decipher. I also found that the tabs for each news type was easily translated and navigated. I found no trouble in finding my way through the espn articles and I was even able to update my fantasy teams with ease. It might be because espn is largely statistic based, or it could also be because I am learning more in German through each AMD, but I am understanding more through each week. I am much more able to tell what is happening even in the articles describing games and issues that teams are having. I find it very interesting that each AMD I am able to understand more and it encourages me to learn more so that I will be able to understand fully the articles.

AMD 5 Nina Muller

Denglisch, according to Wikipedia, is a mash-up of the words Deutsch and English that alludes to the heavy influence of English vocabulary on the German language. Personally, I prefer the mash-up Gerglish over Denglisch, but they're synonyms so I guess it doesn't really matter. Although Denglisch generally refers to the broad incorporation of English vocabulary, originally it was coined to refer to the use of English business terminology in German that started in the 1990s and 2000s. Wikipedia provided a list of example Denglish words--I recognized der Beamer, der Handy, das City...simply vocabularly words that I've already learned in my first couple chapters of learning German. Clearly, the impact of Denglish is widespread and really has infiltrated the German language.

Kultur 5- Andrea Rousseau

The article, "Rules of the Street: No Blood, No Entschuldigung," talks about how Germans are not intrinsically rude, but they are rather just used to running into people, and people running into them,  while walking on the streets.

"The Loneliness of the Klofrau: Toilet Training for Visitors" explains that in public restrooms there is typically a Klofrau, or 'toilet lady.' In exchange for keeping the bathroom presentable, she accepts small tips. It is encouraged to tip these cleaning ladies, seeing as many of them are poorly paid immigrants, doing unenjoyable jobs. "You won't land in jail for not paying the Klofrau, but you are likely to solicit grunts of displeasure."

"Scoring a German: Flirting with Fräuleins, Hunting for Herren" explains that in Germany, the man makes the 'first move' by simply staring at the woman. Then, it is up to her to initiate a conversation. It is viewed as overly aggressive for the man to walk up and spark the conversation. As for foreign women traveling to Germany, flirting with the natives can be problematic. Gestures are often misconstructed, misinterpreted, or just plain out missed. ""Flirting" in Germany is not nearly as fun, meaningless, or flattering as it is elsewhere."

In the Vorsprung "Brennpunkt Kultur" section on page 189, I learned that Germans make distinctions between their two types of friends, calling acquaintances 'Bekannte' and using the term 'Freund/Freundin' only with those whom with they share a special, permanent, rare, and treasured bond. Pals or buddies can also be referred to as 'Kumpel.'

AMD 5

For this AMD, I read the Wikipedia article that describes "Denglish," a mixture of English and Deutsch. Many English words that made their way into German vocabulary did so because they became relevant in English first. For example, Fernsehen is an English loanword because we came out with the television. It seems odd to meet that "Fotoshooting" doesn't have anything to do with the English equivalent "photo shoot." The use of the apostrophe is another example of Denglish. A lot of hygienic care brands use English words in German ads. I think that this makes sense because many of the companies are American. I can see myself using my own form of Denglish!

AMD 5

For my assignment, I decided to watch four episodes of the TV show Castle in German with and without English subtitles. Instead of pausing the show every few seconds to write down something that I understood, I tried instead to see what I could understand just from watching the episodes. In the 2 episodes I watched with English subtitles, I obviously understood a lot more because they were there to help me. Instead of constantly looking at the subtitles, I tried to understand what they were saying, and then looked to them in guidance if I got a little confused. In the 2 episodes I watched without English subtitles, I was able to understand the gist of what was happening, and was able to pick out a couple of phrases that I understood.

AMD 5 Leah Mattfield

For this week's AMD, I decided to watch the Warner Brother's movie "Anastasia" in German with subtitles. I know this movie very well already and it was very interesting to watch it in German. I found it fun to hear how they translated the songs because it still had to match up with the music and make sense, but it also had to work musically and rhyme so it couldn't be a direct translation. I was also able to pick out more than I thought i could, even though the language didn't match up exactly with the animation. I love this movie in any language.

AMD 5 Spencer White

       For this AMD I decided to read the Wikipedia article provided by Hartmut. It was very interesting to see the similarities and differences between the two language of German and English. In the article they talked about the rise of Denglish in Germany and how it started to happen more as time went on. At first they made their own words for American invented things such as 20th century (Wolkenkratzer for "skyscraper", Kaugummi for "chewing gum", Flutlicht for "flood light", Fernsehen for "television")  It wasn't that popular in the beginning of the 20th century but as time went on and the world got more and more connected, Denglish seemed to be appearing a bit more. The article states some of the words that started to become Denglish.  "1960s to 1970s US counter culture. Jeep, Quiz, Show, Western;Rock ("rock music", homonymous with the German for "skirt, frock") Hippie, Groupie." This shows how the American culture influenced the language of Germany. This is probably as the world got more and more connected it was easier to just take that word that everybody as seen and knows and adopt it to your language instead of trying to force a new word onto people. I can see this getting very popular as we are even more connected and German people can see the English way of spelling something a lot easier.
       I think that the there is a slight resistance to it because it may feel like the German language is losing out to English. I could see how it would be scary if America started adopting more and more Chinese words instead of coming up with our own. This is shown by the little pop culture points made on the bottem of the article of bands singing "Oh, Herr, bitte gib mir meine Sprache zurück!" (Oh, lord, please give me my language back) and then at the end singing "Oh Lord, please gib mir meine Language back".

Kultur 5

"Rules of the Street: No Blood, No Entschuldigung"
This article wasn't that startling to me. Inferring from the former articles we've read, the Germans don't really care about you. This was about walking in public within large crowds. If they bump into you it's almost as if it's your fault for being in the way. Being American, I see this as really rude, but in Germany it's really not. It's just how they are, I suppose. I did chuckle when the author was discussing the drawing of blood and how an 'entschuldigung' might then be muttered.
"German Erotica: The Land of Beer, Sausage, and Sex Shops"
I found it sort of fascinating how open the Germans are about sex. Here in America, it's quite looked down upon to make it known that you've gone to a shop, or god-forbid, work there. In Germany, though, it seems as if it's pretty much an every day thing. They have normal operating hours and everything. It's just like any other store to them. For how much these articles make Germans seem uptight, they can't be that bad if they're alright with this.
"The Loneliness of the Klofrau: Toilet Training for Visitors"
First off, it would be so awesome if someone kept public restrooms in America clean all of the time. To be completely honest, I would have no problem giving a Klofrau some change to keep her job going. I can imagine that people do it begrudgingly. When you think about it, though, she's doing something really nice and respectful. Giving some change to a Klofrau is WAY better than having to go to the bathroom not knowing the last time it was sanitized. I'm sure I appreciate this so much because of how creeped out I get by public restrooms. Go Klofräuen!
"Scoring a German: Flirting with Fräuleins, Hunting for Herren"
Flirting with Germans would suck. How cryptic does one need to be? That would be so frustrating not knowing whether someone was interested in you or not. Not only would it be frustrating, but not to mention awkward. How can you hold a conversation with someone when you aren't sure if you're wasting your time or not? This article mostly just irked me. I guess it's because I cannot stand when people aren't straight-forward. I'd probably just give and be single if I lived there. That takes way too much energy for me. Phew.

AMD 5

For this AMD, I read the articles that Hartmut displayed as options. I like the article titled "How Do You Say 'Blog' In German?" more than I did the Wikipedia article on 'Denglisch'. The article I liked basically said that the English language donates a lot to the German language. Our language has helped simplify theirs, which I think is really staggering. It doesn't really seem like they would want something like that. It turns out, though, that most Germans appreciate it. The linguistic conservatives are the ones who oppose it. They believe that by adding English words to the German language, the German language will see a certain demise. I think they're nuts. There's nothing wrong with simplifying something so that it's easier for everyone. I understand where they're coming from, but I think they need a reality check. They are really opposed to globalization, but, honestly, it's probably the best thing for them.
The Wiki article on 'Denglisch" was sort of boring. It was really factual and not all about how Germans really feel about it. It was basically about how Germans use the English language, such as large companies, for simplification, and every-day words that they put to use.
Personally, I'd much rather say 'laptop', with a German accent, than 'Klapprechner', but that's just me.

AMD 5 Gabrielle Spickard

     For my fifth AMD, I took one of the suggestions from the course website and read the Wikipedia article on Denglisch. For me, this was a very interesting article, and I actually enjoyed reading it and learned a lot. The word 'Denglisch' refers to a surge of English or pseudo-English phases coming into prevalence in the language of German-speaking countries. However, oftentimes these words and phrases are German creations, and have either entirely different or no meanings in the English language. Examples include the phrase 'Fotoshooting', which refers to a photo shoot, and the word 'Sprayer', which refers to a graffiti artist, among many others. One of the most interesting parts of the article was how divided German culture seems to be over the rise of the partial anglicization of the German language: the pseudo-English phrases according to the article have become commonplace in German slang, but there is also a notable backlash against this cultural shift. It was also interesting to read how English phrases are starting to become prevalent in German advertising, although the article didn't really go into any theories or speculations as to why this happens so frequently. On a side note, I was also able to read and understand a lot of German words and phases in the article, so that was nice.

AMD 5

So I read the Wikepedia article about Denglisch. I thought it was interesting how Englisch Wörter are being used in Deutschland but there is no crossover of English using Deutsch Wörter. I can understand why people would be mad that Deutschland is switching over to using predominantly more Englisch with advertising. It would be like everyone started switching to Spanish in the USA. So many people would get mad but less people in Deutschland care because English is such a predominant language worldwide. I never knew the wort "Handy" was Denglisch, I just thought it was always like that. In the section labeled "Denglish in popular culture" I thought it was amusing about the songs that asked what is happening to my language [Deutsch] and as the song progresses the lyrics become more Englisch. I think its a good form of propaganda. I also never knew that Germans had different grammatical rules which makes sense but now I'm worried about my essays because I'm pretty sure I used apostrophes which just doesn't happen in Deutsch. Overall I think the article was interesting and I found some of the Denglisch Wörter lustig. Zum Beispiel dowloaden und gecrashen sing lustig Computer Wörter.

AMD 5

For my AMD 5, I watched the episode of South Park called "Scott Tenorman Must Die". I decided to do this because for my first AMD, I also watched South Park, and I wanted to see how many more words and phrases I could pick out now than I could back then. The episode was hilarious, completely twisted, and very inappropriate. It is often called one of the best episodes of South Park. Here is the episode if you're interested: Episode on YouTube - Part 1.
Here are some words and phrases I picked out (for some of the episode I forgot about writing things down because I was so into it):

• schnauze
• tanz und sing fur mich
• ich weiss
• Er ist ein kalt Mann 
• was hast du geplant
• letzen plan
• Du bist ein Idiot, Cartman
• Wow, ein Pony Riden
• Du bist ein Genie, Eric
• Ja, naturlich, Scott
• Feuerwerk
• Meine Eltern sind tot?
• Oh mein Gott

I recommend this episode.

AMD 5

This is just pure coincidence but who would have thought there would be two languages being used in a theme song: Japanese and German. And both languages are foreign to me, well at least Japanese since I'm in the learning process for German right now. There is a Japanese animation, more widely known as anime, that I'm watching right now called Attack on Titan(Shingeki no Kyojin) and the opening theme songs just happen to have German in them! The particular one I'm looking at is the second opening with its title translated "Wings of Freedom".  I was really surprised when I realized this, especially in the second season of the anime. In the beginning of the semester, I couldn't really tell if there were actual German phrases and words incorporated into the song, but later on, it became a lot clearer to me after being exposed to speaking and listening to more German. When listening to a song in Japanese, then finding a part of it to be something else completely confused the heck out of me. Because there are lyrics in a language I don't know coupled with a language that I'm learning, makes it harder to figure out what other lyrics were being thrown into the song. But listening more and more to it, I can actually make out some of the words the artist sings like 'O Mein Freund' or 'Flügel der Freiheit'(actual title of the song). The singer is Japanese and his ability to speak German, I couldn't understand his German at first, maybe because of an accent or something, but still I appreciate it! Now I'm really glad to be taking German, and it's exciting that I can make a connection between media and material I learn in class. Fair warning, Attack on Titan is really really sad and tragic and graphic. I believe it's based around an apocalyptic world and the weakening of humanity.


http://youtu.be/UTiEKQm7Hiw