GermanHeit » Fun German Language Learning

Im Westen nichts Neues ist mein Lieblingsbuch. Was ist dein Lieblingsbuch auf Deutsch?

Thu, 11 Mar 2010 16:28:59 -0500

I’ve never read “All quiet at the Western Front” (= Im Westen nichts neues). Maybe I should ;)

My favourite book (Lieblingsbuch) in German? Hmmm…. I’d say “Das Parfüm” (Perfume) by Patrick Süßkind.

As a student of languages at university, I enjoy your blog. I was wondering if you know of any in a similar style for the spanish and french languages?

Thu, 11 Mar 2010 16:26:54 -0500

Unfortunately, I don’t. Sorry!

Relative pronouns in #German - an overview

Thu, 11 Mar 2010 13:04:02 -0500

Relative pronouns in English are who, whom, which, that and whose. Example: The CD that I bought yesterday is great.
In German relative pronouns change depending on the gender, case and number of the noun that they substitute. This is a chart for you as an overview.

CASE MASK. FEM. NEUT. PL.

Nominative —- der die das die

Genitive ——- dessen deren dessen deren

Dative ———- dem der dem denen

Accusative —- den die das die

Examples:

Die CD, die ich gestern gekauft habe, ist super. The CD which I bought yesterday is great.

Der Typ, dem ich ein Geschenk gekauft habe, ist mein Bruder. The guy whom I bought a gift is my brother.

In reference to this: http://germanheit.com/post/439851034/what-kind-of-international-foods-are-popular-in

What about Döner?

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 22:59:01 -0500

Yeah - how could I forget this! Thx!

Döner (kebab) - verrry popular in Germany. It was introduced to Germany by Turkish immigrants and has become one of the most popular fast foods. Now that I’m thinking about it… I should totally dedicate a post to this snack ;)

What kind of international foods are popular in Germany? Like here in the US we have Chinese, Japanese, Mexican, Italian, etc etc. Is American food popular there?

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 18:27:00 -0500

I’d say the most popular international foods in Germany are Italian, Greek and Chinese. Of course we have all kinds of restaurants. Sushi has become more and more popular during the past couple of years, too. But I remember when I started eating sushi I really had a hard time finding places that made any good (and affordable ;)) rolls .

American fast food chains (e.g. Burger King, Subways, McDonalds) are popular, too. But we don’t have as many different fast food restaurants as you guys do. When I first visited the US I was amazed by how many different fast food restaurant chains there were!

There are also American Diner style restaurants where they serve massive burgers with cole slaw and fries. Yum. ;)

Germany’s national flag is officially black, red and gold...

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 13:23:46 -0500

Germany’s national flag is officially black, red and gold - schwarz, rot und gold. What do the colors actually mean? Well, in the war of liberation against Napolean, the uniforms where black, had golden buttons and red lapels.

“Aus der Schwärze (schwarz) der Knechtschaft durch blutige (rot) Schlachten ans goldene (gold) Licht der Freiheit.” (From the blackness of slavery through bloody battles to the golden light of freedom)

What are your thoughts on the film Inglorious Basterds? I've been showing clips of it to my students, not only for the fliessendes Deutsch, but also because it gives a pop culture avenue into Nazi discourse. It would be cool if you could post clips of the film with your commentary, as a German (Sie sind Deutsche/r, ne?)

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 00:11:27 -0500

If I can find any good clips that call for a commentary I’ll do it for sure! In general I really loved it a lot. And I’m excited that Christoph Waltz actually won an Oscar for his performance as Colonel Hans Lada. And yes, I’m a German girl ;)

Two days ago, the Austrian actor Christoph Waltz won an Oscar in...

Tue, 09 Mar 2010 18:39:35 -0500

Two days ago, the Austrian actor Christoph Waltz won an Oscar in the category Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role for his amazing performance in Quentin Tarantino’s “Inglourious Basterds”. It was his first nomination. Congratulations!!!

Your questions

Tue, 09 Mar 2010 16:58:26 -0500

Hey guys,

I just wanted to thank you for submitting all these interesting questions! I’m going to answer all of them, for sure. But I only post a few per day (that way I won’t overload your timelines here ;)), so it could take a while before yours is answered - thank you so much for your patience, and thank you for supporting my blog! :)

Babsi

I've always wondered how to say something along the lines of, "I plan to study so-and-so, because I'm quite good at that (/it)."

Could you help? :-)

Tue, 09 Mar 2010 14:05:51 -0500

“Ich plane / habe vor …. zu studieren, weil ich ziemlich gut darin bin.” :)

[‘ʔiç ‘pla:nɘ / ‘ha:bɘ ‘fo:ɐ … ‘͜tsu: ‘ʃtu:di:rɘn, v͜ail ‘ʔiç ‘͜tsi:mliç ‘gu:t ‘da:rin ‘bin]

hi. i need to write an official letter to my professor to appeal for 'bessere Note'. But i can't find the right heading for the letter. Can you help me out? Is this phrase 'um Begnadigung betteln' appropriate?

Tue, 09 Mar 2010 01:35:58 -0500

“um Begnadigung betteln” sounds more like somebody who was sentenced to death in the Middle Ages and is now begging the king for mercy ;)

Are you looking for the subject line? What about or “Bitte um erneute Überprüfung meiner Note” (request for reconsideration of my grade). Or “Bitte um Nachsicht” (request for lenience)?

I am learning german with Rosetta stone and I need some help to expand my german language skills and speaking. Any Ideas? Also I need to know how to say. My name is michael :)

Mon, 08 Mar 2010 19:59:54 -0500

o.O… it’s kinda shocking to hear that you’ve been learning with a language program that doesn’t teach you how to say “My name is…” etc.! You should probably learn with a different kind of program/course in addition. Anyway, I’m glad to help you, Michael :)

Mein Name ist…. [‘m͜ain ‘na:mɘ ‘ʔist]

Ich heiße…. [‘ʔiç ‘h͜aisɘ]

Also check out this previous post “First small talk - names”.

The Nuremberg castle (Nürnberger Burg) in Southern Germany...

Mon, 08 Mar 2010 13:24:12 -0500

The Nuremberg castle (Nürnberger Burg) in Southern Germany (Middle-Franconia in Bavaria) has been watching over the city for about 1000 years! It was build on a massive sandstone rock. In the panorama picture you can see, that the castle comprises three different parts.

The building on the right side of the picture is now Nuremberg’s youth hostel (= die Jugendherberge [‘di: ‘ju:ɡɘnthɛɐbɛrɡɘ])

(pic via wikipedia)

guten tag! Are there german children's books on the internet? Ich bin sicher wo ich finde ihnen nicht. I hope that made sense. haha Danke sehr!

Mon, 08 Mar 2010 01:10:09 -0500

Google Books has some stuff, but as far as I know only extracts of books by e.g. Erich Kästner or Michael Ende.

I also found this website, that provides some short stories for children. This one does, too. :)

Do you speak any other languages?

Sun, 07 Mar 2010 18:44:00 -0500

Yes, I do! :) Besides German I speak English, French, basic Swedish, and a bit Spanish and Russian.

I went to a language school for 2 years and got a degree as a Foreign Language Correspondent. My two main languages were English and French. During high school I also learned Latin for 5 years, which helped me a lot in terms of understanding languages better in general.

Some years ago I had many Russian speaking friends and picked up some stuff. Also learned how to read and write in kyrillic.

Swedish (and Sweden in general) is kind of a passion of mine. I’ve been to Sweden 5 times and just love everything about it! The language is just awesome in my opinion. I used to be way better at understanding and speaking it, but I wanna take courses at university again to refresh and improve my skills. This past semester I took a Spanish course, which was fun but I couldn’t really concentrate on it too much because of all the other courses I had to take and study for.

There are many more languages that I’m interested in learning at least on a basic level, e.g. Arabic or Japanese.

As you can see - I just LOVE languages! ;) I admire people who speak several fluently and I wish I had grown up bilingually ;)

This picture shows you how the school system in Germany works....

Sun, 07 Mar 2010 13:50:29 -0500

This picture shows you how the school system in Germany works. As you can see, it’s not simple, so I cannot write about this topic in just one post. This is just to give you a short overview. More detailed posts to explain it to you will follow soon. :)

(pic via wikipedia)

hi, ich bin Intan aus Indonesien.
Am April ich will nach Deutschland fliegen als AuPair werden.

Was finden Sie AuPair?

Sun, 07 Mar 2010 02:09:03 -0500

Hallo Intan!

Ich wünsche dir viel Erfolg bei deinem AuPair Aufenthalt in Deutschland. Als AuPair wirst du sicherlich viel erleben und deine Sprachkenntnisse verbessern. Viel Spaß!

Any good Kässespätzle recipe (when you've already bought spätzle)?

Sat, 06 Mar 2010 20:11:55 -0500

Hmmm…. don’t know any by heart. But I could ask my mom ;)

One of my readers, dashasv, asked me to share this video with...

Sat, 06 Mar 2010 14:29:30 -0500

One of my readers, dashasv, asked me to share this video with you guys. Thank you for bringing me attention to it!

“Blick nach vorn” (Look/View forward) by Max Herre, is a very nice song with a great message: Stay optimistic and fight despite all the doubt, failure and pain that you experience on your own personal journey.

dashasv also wanted to know where the videoclip was shot. I really don’t know. If any of you does, please let us know!

Hallo,
Ich sage das immer so: "Ich bin im 1990 geboren." aber bei der Jahren kann ich auch "Ich bin im Jahr 90 geboren." sagen ?

viele Grüße
Michael

Fri, 05 Mar 2010 20:18:41 -0500

Hey Michael,

“…im 1990 geboren” ist leider nicht richtig. “im” benutzt du nur in deinem zweiten Beispiel, nämlich “im Jahr (19)90”. “im” setzt sich zusammen aus “in” und “dem” und bezieht sich hier auf “das Jahr”. Wenn du nur die Jahreszahl verwendest wie in deinem ersten Beispiel, dann brauchst du keine Präposition! :) Also entweder:

Ich bin 1990 geboren.

oder: Ich bin im Jahr (19)90 geboren.