Christmas in Germany

Since it's the holiday season, I thought it would be appropriate to read about Christmas in Germany. There weren't many differences at first while researching. For instance, they start preparing for Christmas in Dec. 6, which is normal. I hate it when people start preparing right after Thanksgiving. It needs to be right in December. Especially the Christmas music!!!

Anyways, I found one tradition that I found different from America. Germans do not just have Santa Claus. In a website that I read, one women said that there was an angel call Christkind, who would bring gifts during Christmas Eve. Weihnachtsmann, or Christmas Man, is Germany's version of Santa Claus and he also brings gifts during Christmas Eve. That is like double the gifts. I wish I had double gifts. :) There is a women also called Christkindl, who is the Christ Child's messenger and she also brings gifts.

Christmas here in America is like a corporate invention. It's all about shopping the best deal for gifts. Where is the tradition? I haven't felt it in a while. I wish that this Holiday break I find it, and also catch up on my sleep. I need it. Germans know where it's at.

Auf Wiedersehen!!!

Jonathon Parker

AMD6, Metropolis

In light of our class watching Lola Rennt, one of the famous German films, I decided to do a little research into another famous film hailing from Deutschland and I choose Fritz Lang's Metropolis. The film from 1927 is often cited as being one of the best silent films in history (hopping the language barrier issue) and is a landmark in film history. It focuses on themes of capitalism and the social conflicts it creates, and does so in a distinctly German expressionist style. The film is also science fiction in style, set in a futuristic city and Utopian society. To very basically summarize the plot, the son of the city head falls in love with a woman of the working class, who also acts as a prophet to the workers. She is later kidnapped by an inventor who uses her to create a robot in her image. The robot then stirs up trouble with the workers, who mistake it for her. The film centrally plays around some philosophical themes such expressed in the quote, "There can be no understanding between the hand and the brain unless the heart acts as mediator." The film really is quite the sight to behold, as it is also one of the highest budgeted silent films in history. According to IMDB, once the budget is adjusted for modern day inflation it is around $200 million, and it took two years to shot. However, edited and restored versions have since been released since its year of origin, and it still seems a masterpiece.

The Simpsons

I have to say, I've been very impressed by the topics for AMD postings. Any class that requires watching South Park and The Simpsons as homework, I have respect for. The Simpsons was funny as usual, but still hard to follow. It wasn't nearly as bad as my first AMD posting though, which is extremely encouraging. Understanding words like essen (to eat), verstehen (to understand), Schule (School), and Passieren (to happen) was extremely cool. I even understood a lot of the use of mir and other dative forms which shows awesome progress. Since the show was a German dub of an American show, there wasn't very much to do with German culture, but there was a nice French joke, which I thought was funny since everyone seems to make French jokes. The inverted grammar can still mess with me as I sometimes get confused by the conversational past and present, since it comes at the end of the sentence. It obviously costs a good amount of money to dub a show too, which means a German audience could relate to the material of The Simpsons. The fact that our humor and, to a certain degree, culture are so similar is what makes learning a foreign language so much fun.

German Slang

Germans have many colloquialisms that are actually quite funny.

For example:

the word saugen:

you can use it to say downloading something off of the internet, but it literally translates to " leech" or download music.

abrippen= is to steal or "rip" off people.

funzen= to function

These are just a few examples of local slangs in Germany!

Rammstein in Pandora

My friend Jeanne talked about how she knew how to count one to five in German. She said she heard it in a radio by a singer Rammstein. Because I never had much interest in German music, I didn't know who they were. So I opened Rammstein station in Pandora to hear who they were. And man, they sang some rock hard music. I've heard some American metal before, but wow German metal is in a different level. Perhaps it's the accent, but German metal sounds much more intense. It sounds like couple of demons scratching a blackboard and singing along with it.



I also played around with the music stations and also found different German music and that was still pleasant to the ear. And the only ones I liked was Mozart! Haha, but really, it shows the difference in modern German music and German classics. How much German music have changed. Why couldn't Germans continue to produce music enjoyable to the ear?

Family Guy! in Deutsche

So I am not a fan of The Simpsons, personally I feel that it has become rather tired about almost twenty seasons, thus I decided to watch Family Guy in German.

This clip is a compilation of the best moments from the German version of the show.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fMnagmjr44c

I did not understand a lot of it, because they talk so fast, but some there were some segments where I could understand most of what they were saying. I even thought some of them were pretty hilarious. Like when Peter was on the German version of Wheel of Fortune. Peter says, "Zett, Vier, Koo, zwei Koo, drei Koo, und Batman Symbol."

Another funny moment was when Peter sneaks into Megs room and shocks her when she is sleeping. Peter says, "Ich bin nicht dein Dad, ich bin elektrisch Mann!" Or "I am not your dad, I am Electric Man!"

Overall, I thought the show was still pretty funny.

AMD 6

Die Simpsons episode war lustig. Ich habe how it was connected to Lola rennt verstehen. Am Homer's Tag, at the end, the robot dies in Homer's Hande und Homer closes the robots Augen. This is just like the end of one scene in Lola rennt, wann Lola shuts Mannie's Augen after er hat gestorben. The other part of the Trilogie that was like Lola rennt was when Lisa ran around town. The same Musik from Lola rennt was playing and the viewpoint panning was just like in Lola rennt. Also, Lisa almost gets hit by a car, like Lola. In general, the whole Trilogie was like Lola rennt, in that it kept replaying ein Tag.

Ich möchte ein Deutsch Lied empfehlen!

This time I am going to recommend you Kate&Ben again! The name of this song is Schlaflied. It is a pretty soft song and really makes people want to Schlafen gehen. Here is the Youtube link for this song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9D8gVphlqDo Lyrics are shown in the video, but I suggest you close your eyes and just listen to this song. You can understand it:)


Here are the lyrics:
Jeder Mensch hat Sorgen Everyone has sorrow
Jedes Herz ein Stein Every heart has a story insisde
Hab doch keine Angst mehr Don't be nervous
Dass muss jetzt nicht mehr sein (What does this sentence mean?? Hilfst mir bitte!)
Find ein Hauch von Frieden Take it easy
Lass ein bisschen los
Morgen geht es weiter Tomorrow will be better
Schlaf jetzt in meinem Schoss Sleep in my arm
Denn ich halte dich
Bis du schlafen kannst I will think about you until you fall asleep
Und alles hier vergisst And forget all your sorrow(?)
Ich halte dich
Bis du irgendwann
Eingeschlafen bist
Jede kleine Seele Every sweet soul
Sucht ihren grossen Traum
Zwischen Sternenmeeren
in jedem leeren Raum
Wo ist deine Liebe Where is your love
Wo bist du heut Nacht Where are you tonight?
Bis gleich auf deiner Wolke In the cloud of your dream
Ich finde dich heut Nacht I found you tonight
Denn ich halte dich
Bis du schlafen kannst
Und alles hier vergisst
Ich halte dich
Bis du irgendwann
Eingeschlafen bist
Lass deine Seele fliegen Let your soul fly
Und alles Beose liegen Every dream come true
Ich halte dich
Bis du schlafen kannst
Und alles hier vergisst
Ich halte dich
Bis du irgendwann
Eingeschlafen bist
Ich halte dich
Bis du irgendwann
Eingeschlafen bist 

Willkommen!!

Welcome to our class blog!

Throughout the semester, you will be posting here roughly every other week for your Abenteuer mit Deutsch (AMD) assignment. First you do a fun activity that involves German, then you post about it. You should spend an hour total on this (maybe 45-55 minutes doing something, 5-15 minutes posting about it). And make sure to add your name as one of the "Labels." See the links on AMD Ideen and Beispiele for ideas! This should get you excited about the kinds of things you can do!