AMD 5

For this AMD, I watched an episode of The Bugs Bunny Show called "Lust auf fremde Federn". By my best guess, the title means something along the lines of 'The Desire for Other Feathers'. I was really glad to have stumbled across an episode of Looney Tunes auf Deutsch - I was looking for a Deutscher Looney Tunes episode for the last AMD, but to no avail (my last 2 or 3 AMDs and the majority of my essays have been about Dirk Nowitzki, so I'm glad Dirk will finally get this week off). I loved watching Looney Tunes as a kid (I still do, too), and I think it's a perfect subject for an AMD because of the cartoon's simplicity, entertainment value, and overall awesomeness.

There are two separate episodes in "Lust auf fremde Federn". In the first, Bugs and Daffy are in the mountains during winter. Daffy is, of course, trying to shoot Bugs with a 12-gauge shotgun, but Bugs has plenty of tricks of his sleeve to avoid this fate. Bugs Bunny always ends up tricking Daffy into injuring himself in some way. At one point, Bugs gets Daffy yell really loud and cause an avalanche to fall upon himself. There are also multiple instances in which Daffy comes face to face with a/some hungry Bear(s). In the second episode, Daffy Duck disguises himself as a rooster (there is a cash-prize contest for 'best rooster' somewhere), and ends up trying to escape an owl father and his son, who want to eat him for dinner.

At one point, Daffy Duck is blasted with his own shotgun due to Bugs Bunny's well-placed carrot in the barrel. Daffy then turns to the camera and shouts a very short, angry sentence. At first, all I could hear was "Ohhhh ich (something) ihn!" and the something sort of sounded like 'mag' (and if I know anything about Deutsch and Daffy Duck's general attitude towards Bugs Bunny, I highly doubt that 'er mag ihn.' So my first reaction was Daffy was saying 'I hate him!', so I looked up 'to hate' which is hassen. But after watching the scene again, it was obvious that he wasn't saying 'ich hass ihn!' After giving it some more thought, I figured he must be saying 'Ich mach ihn!' which would be the German idiomatic expression for 'I'll get him'! I think that it's important to keep in mind that every language has it's own set of idioms that cannot be translated literally. For example, when someone says 'I'll get him' they mean that they intend to harm him, rather than to literally receive him.

(The part where Daffy accidentally shoots himself and says 'Ich mach ihn!' is about 3 minutes into Part 1)

I was also encouraged that I was consistently able to recognize sentence forms, despite not always understanding the vocabulary used. I noticed the characters using the conversational past quite often, with the ge- prefix of the past participle at the end of the sentence being a giveaway. Though I was usually lost with the longer sentences, it was easy to pick out short, simple phrases such as 'schone traume!' meaning 'sweet dreams!'

I think it's important to watch television shows or movies when learning a foreign language. For one, it is comparable to practicing real-life listening comprehension. Also, I think it is essential to listen to as many different voices or accents as possible. Learning in a classroom environment where the teacher is purposely speaking slower and clearer to be understood can make it a bit of a shock when out in the real Deutsch-speaking world where there are all kinds of different speaking tones and speeds. Listening to all kinds of speakers is a huge benefit (especially in cartoons, where the voices and accents of the characters are often exaggerated and improper).

Here are parts 1 and 2:

Auf wiedersehen!