Recycling

I'm all for recycling and "saving the planet," but when do things like Germany's system of containers for trash become excessive? In America, we clearly don't care enough about the environment, but the German system definitely has flaws as well.Requiring too much effort sometimes has the opposite effect on participation than what is desired. If the trash system was easier, maybe more people would follow its rules since generally, people truly do what to help the environment. Another interesting point about German culture is how rules oriented it is. The rule systems are complex and seem to be adhered to very closely, yet the German people also value being assertive, as proven by their closed door policy. Americans often have a hard time being assertive and playing within the rules, but in Germany this seems to be the expectation. Americans are often timid , as not to be rude in social situations, and when asserting their will they often break minor rules to get what they desire. I have a hard time relating to the German ideas on strictly following rules, but I do approve of their assertive behavior. Too many times, trying to be polite ends up being a bigger pain to everyone than a help to anyone. Examples are traffic, holding the door open, and table manners. Overall Germany and America are different, but their systems both clearly work, although one may be more work than the other.

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.

AMD 5

The evolution of languages is a very interesting topic, but the mixing of two divergent languages and cultures may be even more interesting. The Denglisch article was extremely interesting and fun to read, as I recognized many of the words in both English and German. The influence of English words into the German language isn't surprising, especially amongst the youth due to their constant exposure to pop cultural and advertising. Also not surprising is the hostility the older generation feels toward Denglisch, but what I was very surprised about was the English grammar influences. German's don't use possessive commas and how they came into the language would interest me. I suppose English dubbed movies or TV could be the source, but pop culture also tends to be very liberal with its grammar usage. Another interesting part of the article was the actual Denglisch vocabulary. Words such as Beamer are clearly English, but their German equivalent is an interesting twist on the English version (digital projector). Other words like Handy (cell phone) are also English but mean something slightly odd to Germans. The inexactitude of language is really on full display here. Another cool vocabulary observation was the reflection in Denglisch of German's "word-mashing." In German two different words are put together all the time to make new words with meanings derived from the two parent words. This is reflected in the Denglisch words Showmaster (TV showhost) and Dressman (male model). These two words in English have nothing in common, but using the German vocab rules they are added together to make cool new Denglisch words. Vocab and grammar like this made Denglisch very interesting. I'll make sure to watch out for any new Denglisch words the rest of the semester.

Nude Germans?

The last few Wochen wir had been lesen articles about Deutsch stereotypes, yet these articles seemed to reinforce a lot of stereotypes ich had about Europeans in general. From an Amerikanisch perspective, Europe und more specifically Deutschland have extremely high quality public transportation. A few cities like New York City and Washington D.C. have fairly sophisticated subway systems, but nothing like the bahnofe of Deutschland or other major European metropolitan areas. Another great stereotype that was confirmed was Europeans free-spirited attitude wann it comes to nudity. In the US public nudity is a crime and though of as disgusting, yet in Deutschland people seem to be cool with it. I always thought of France and Switzerland for nudists, so picturing the more conservative Germans stripping nude made mich laugh. The last great stereotype was the extreme rule following of Germans wann it came to crossing the street or paying for a train ride. If that type of thing bothers Germans sollen sie avoid big cities and college campuses like Ann Arbor. Overall the aticles were informative yet funny, kind of like this picture.