Deutsch lernen macht Spaß! (Learning German is fun!)

[Lareth]

[DanieMarie]

Und Schal umbinden! When I came back to Lower Saxony, I had to wear a scarf every day...

Yeah it's stupidly cold in Berlin right now. Screw this 9 grad crap...it was 28 a week ago!

This just popped into my Twitter feed...useful for other languages as well!

http://techland.time.com/2012/05/03/become-fluent-with-language-immersion-for-google-chrome/

I might switch it to French (I'm already immersed in German lol)

It'll be Google Translated I'm assuming, so it won't be -perfect-, but I find Google Translate isn't totally terrible.

[Lareth]

[Dumuzi]

When I lived in Germany, I listened to a lot of Tic Tac Toe, Peter Maffay and stuff like that. Some of it was influenced by my mother, lol.

I remember several girls in my class used to listen to Tic Tac Toe!

[Juniper]

[Jembru]

[Juniper]

@ Eisheth: Is your friend German? If so.. do it, do it do it!! Seriously, when you sing a song in your friend's native tongue, especially if it is not a language you are particularly proficient in, it provides them with so much amusement that denying them the fun would be little short of cruelty! That said, there is an Irish bar in Augsburg that I am pleased not to show my head in for a while! Tee hee. 'Sag mir Quando sag mir wann....lalala'

Nope. I am, though.

[Jembru]

Nope. I am, though.

I didn't realise ^^ Then it wouldn't be showing off either! What is wrong with singing in your mother tongue? I don't know the song, but it can't be more depressing than 90% of Celine Dion songs that we have to sit through during most karaoke sesions, so I STILL say go for it!

[Dumuzi]

[DanieMarie]

@ Danie: You should be really proud of how confident you are in German! Did you learn mainly through imitation (from family for example), or did you study German as a second language? Do you find that you speak quite accurately when you don't think about the grammar (ie. you just naturally use the right wording without thinking), but when you come to write it down? I can explain why I am asking if you want, but it's a bit long-winded.

I learned mainly through imitation...not even from my family really, because my mom grew up in Canada and they'd even phased into speaking English at home at some point so they'd all learn (my uncle was born in Canada and the logic of the 60s was that kids can't learn 2 languages at once....how wrong they were haha). She used to sometimes still speak German with my oma or her cousin, but they never taught me much. I learned a lot here though. I've just been here a long time, and I've tried to (and still try to) take steps to improve my language skills. I did take a beginner's course in uni, and learned the very, very basic stuff. I'd already learned French (most of which I've forgotten lol) so learning a language wasn't a big deal then. I took a couple of courses here, and I took private lessons as well. The private lessons were surprisingly cheap (most independent teachers charge about 15 Euros per hour) and it was really helpful because I got to focus on specific things I didn't know. I might do them again.

My grammar is my weak point...sometimes it's better than others...depends on how tired I am haha, or how much English I've been speaking or using. I do find I struggle more when I write, because I have to think about it and I second guess myself, and when I speak it's a bit more natural, but I still make lots of grammatical mistakes when I speak. I make fewer as the years go on though. I find I really don't care as much as well. It doesn't matter if I make some mistakes, because people understand me anyway.

Writing is also tough because it's different than speaking at times, and the grammar and word choice is different.

I actually wrote a blog post about this the other day if anyone is interested: http://daniellegriffin.com/2012/05/1...ps-for-expats/

---------- Post added at 10:51 AM ---------- Previous post was at 09:30 AM ----------

Heute habe ich gelernt, dass "Waffen" nicht nur "guns" bedeutet, sondern "weapons". Since I learned German in the 21st Century in pretty much a modern context, I've only ever heard the word used for guns. BUT I was watching a show about the origins of the Robin Hood stories and they were using the word for staffs and bows. Stuff like this is why TV and reading helps!

[Dumuzi]

Heute habe ich gelernt, dass "Waffen" nicht nur "guns" bedeutet, sondern "weapons".

Pistole kann man auch benutzen wenn man "gun" sagen will.

[DanieMarie]

[Jembru]

Heute habe ich gelernt, dass "Waffen" nicht nur "guns" bedeutet, sondern "weapons". Since I learned German in the 21st Century in pretty much a modern context, I've only ever heard the word used for guns. BUT I was watching a show about the origins of the Robin Hood stories and they were using the word for staffs and bows. Stuff like this is why TV and reading helps!

I'm not entirely sure why, but I have found in both German and Japanese, I know very

[Juniper]

Eisheth has a great voice, too!

You should totally pick a German song and record your singing for us, and then we will judge you like they do on American Idol, or rather German Idol

They used to call it "Deutschland sucht den Superstar" there, though.

Hmm.

Challenge Accepted!

[Dumuzi]

Aber Pistole bedeutet 'pistol'...which isn't the context most people use the word 'gun' here (context being strictly war and hunting lol). I do know the word, but as where I'm from people own guns for hunting and the only other time I really talk about them is when discussing a war (at least in German...there's the subject of Gun control in the US but I tend to only discuss that with expats in English), pistol isn't really the right word lol.

Ja, wenn man ueber Krieg spricht benutzen Leute sehr viele Begriffe. Und du hast Recht, Waffen bedeutet "weapons" auf Englisch. Oh, und "air force" bedeutet Luftwaffe auf Deutsch.