For AMD 6 I read “Cornerstones of Socialism” by Karl Marx where he mocks specific attempts to justify Socialism. One of his first complaints is the attempt of the socialist writer to portray Socialism as natural, and man is the only exception; Marx contends that rather nature is actually a capitalist competition. He criticizes the claim the claim that there is no dichotomy between life and happiness; he exposes the circular logic of the author and laments that it is referred to as development in Germany. The author he is criticizing has attempted to portray society as the totality of existence and the person as individual existence, while saying that these contradict each other. He compares society to nature and humans to the things in nature. Marx mocks this as saying that animals do not make demands of equality on nature, but on the contrary, are not allowed to make any demands at all. Furthermore, totality of existence is merely the sum of the individual existences, and the former is maximized by simply maximizing the latter.

AMD 6

For the last AMD I watched the Simpsons allusion to Lola Rennt. First of all, I love the Simpsons, even in German when I can't understand most of it. The parts I was able to understand most of was the breakfast scene and the grammar correcting robot, which I thought was especially funny because it corrected the grammar in German. I think that Lisa's part had the majority of references to Lola Rennt. I nearly died laughing when Lisa was running and the Lola Rennt music started playing. Also, her situations was the most similar to Lola's, because of the situation and the events that transpired on her way to school. It was difficult to understand most of the words because of the quality of the video, which is too bad because I couldn't properly test my knowledge of German.

Finally, when I tried to click the "Barts Tag" link, the video was not working, and I couldn't find any other videos on youtube. I do know how the episode ends because I have seen it in English. Well, I guess that's it for the last AMD. These assignments have been fun!

AMD- 6

For my final AMD assignment of the semester I watched the three part Simpsons episode as recommended by the AMD 6 page. As stated in the prompt the episode is a clear allusion to everyone's favorite movie Lola Rennt.

From what I can tell the three parts had loosely intersecting plot lines which eventually tied together to make more sense of exactly what was happening. The episode differed slightly from Lola Rennt, in that it does not have alternate plot lines. Instead the plot line is maintained but is shown from varying points of view. As can be expected, since my understanding of German is still relatively limited I did not fully understand the episode, but watching the cartoon closely gave me a greater understanding of exactly what was going on.

It is very interesting to see how a German production had such an influence on an American television program, but then again the Simpsons have done just about everything by now, so the fact that they produce an episode alluding to Lola Rennt is not all that surprising.

AMD 6

Für meine letzte AMD habe ich "Britt Deckt Auf" gesehen. Das ist ein TV show that I would equate to America's "Dr. Phil." Ich habe das gemacht, weil ich für meine erste AMD das gemacht haben, und I wanted to see if there was any improvement in mein Hörverständnis. Turns out there was a lot! Apparently Germans do, in fact, use the past tense! (Crazy, I know!) Needless to say, it was much easier to follow along.

This episode featured Christina, Monika, und Tomek. Monika ist Christinas (former) Tochter-in-Law, und wann Monikas Mann Tomek committed Selbstmord (=suicide) she blamed Christina for it. Monika war sehr traurig. Monika hat einen Brief zu Christina geschriben. Sie hat gesagt: "Ich weiβ nicht, warum du das gemacht hast." In the beginning of the episode, you only see Christina and get her viewpoint on the situation. She had no idea why Monika blamed her for everything. It turns out that Monika was upset because she had thought that Tomeks mother (Christina) had cheated on his father, und dass alle seine Geschwistern andere Väter gehabt haben.

Tomeks brother then came on the show and expressed his feelings towards his sister-in-law. He was very upset with how much she had hurt his mother, and said that Tomek was a Schläger (=Thug). Christinas kids ended up taking "Geschwister Tests" und they were 99.9% sure that they (they being Tomek, the brother, and other sister whose name I couldn't catch) all had the same father. The end of the show was pretty awkward, in that Monika didn't really know what to say. It made a pretty quick transition to a Gewinnspiele! Everyone could enter to win ein neue Sony Erickson Handy und 2.000 Euro! (I looked this up and it was filmed in 2009.)

I learned quite a few new words, such as:

Schläger - thug

Selbstmord - suicide

deckt auf - reveals

Gewinnspiele - sweepstakes

and quite a few more. It was a pretty interesting experience. It's also nice to feel like you're making some improvement!

AMD 6

Hallo!

Ich habe für diesen AMD eine Youtube Video gesehen. Der Video heißt "All German Scrubs Scenes." Scrubs ist ein sehr lustig Program. Sehen sie das video hier:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zfo1rjHUrKc

The video is a few scenes from an episode involving a German patient. Each scene features some very basic German which was easy to understand without subtitles for the most part. In one clip Deutsch gets made fun of for being an "ugly" language. I tend to agree with this. A lot of German phonetics are very throaty and sound very strange compared to English. German just doesn't sound quite as flattering as Romantic languages like French or Italian. With that being said, Listening to a native German speaker is very different than listening to an English speaker attempting to pronounce German words like "achtung" or "vorsichtig".

After watching this video I naturally ventured on to a few related videos like this one:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cg-vUGFz9Jk&feature=related

These clips feature people dancing to the song "99 Luftballoons" which bedeutet 99 Balloons. This is probably the most well known German song out there. Most people may be more familiar with Goldfinger's English version:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5QYIlgRg9TY

Which is quite a Jam. While there are successful Deutsch Bands out there, they still play mostly English music on radios overseas. The German language just doesn't lend itself well to music in my opinion. Unless it's in the form of classic Christmas music like this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GfcS19rielo&feature=related

Wie Wunderbar. Frohe Weihnachten!

-Lukas

AMD 6

Diese Freitag, ich bin mit vielle Freunden nach Weihnachtsmarkt aus Kerrytown gegangen. Ich habe viel Spaß gehabt, obwohl ein bisschen kalt für meinen Freunden. Wann ich bin erste gekommen, ich habe vielle Befeurung gesehen, und ich hat nach der Glühwein Stand schnell gelaufen. Aber leider, ich habe kein Wein gefindet! 

Kurz danach ich hat Sonya und ihren Freund gefindet, aber meine andere Freunden verloren. Alles, ich hat neun Freunden mitgekommen, aber ich hat nur mit Sonya, ihren Freund, und mein gut Freund Josh geblieben. Wir haben Nüsse gegessen, und Bier von süß "Kindlefest" Krüge getrunken, weil den Wein war nicht. So vielle Stände waren! Nüsse, Bier, Wein, Brot, Brezeln, Kunstgewerbe, Kaffee, Gebäck, und mehr! Dort war auch vielle Freundenfeuer für die Leute zustehen in der Nähe. 

Es war sehr süß, und ich war sehr aufgeregt die ganze Nacht! 

Something I thought was really interesting was to note the kinds of things that made it a "German" market in particular, and what German Christmas might be like, in comparison to how an American Christmas might be. In general, they seem very similar, but I think that's because the celebration of Christmas as we know it really started as a German tradition, if I'm not mistaken. Roasted nuts, mulled wine, and the decorating of a Christmas tree are all German traditions, and Santa himself was influenced by German pagan traditions. 

All of that aside, I really enjoyed myself at the market with my friends, and it made me SO HAPPY to have so many German things in one place, I thought I might explode. 

Ein Schöner Wei(h)nachtsmarkt

Gestern nacht, wie Heidi und ihre Freunde, ich habe mit einer Freundin von mir, Stephanie (die spricht Deutsch auch), auf den Weinachtsmarkt in Kerrytown gegangen. Nur fünf Minuten von Kerrytown wohne ich -- über die Straße von Jake!

Ich gehe fast jedes Wochenende auf den Bauernmarkt [= farmers' market] in Kerrytown, aber letzte Nacht war ganz anders. Ich habe viel Deutsch und viele deutsch Akzente gehört, und ein Stand hat Glühwein verkauft. Glühwein finde ich sehr stark, aber das Getränk war warme und würzige. A really fun way to bring in Christmas, I felt.

And the best part was, I seemed to arrive everywhere right before Heidi, whom I ran into at the market, and stole the last of everything. Most importantly I beat her to the Brezeln und free Brezelbrötchen.

Given a choice between giving up oxygen or pretzel rolls, I'd have to think about it.

The big find of the night, though, was a woman selling foreign coins on necklaces. I was a little bit of a foreign-coin nerd as a kid and still have quite a few left over from my collecting days. Much of the woman's currency came from individual European countries before the Euro. Deutsche Marke, Italian lire, French francs... plus currency still in use like the Russian ruble and some Ukrainian hryvnia from when they were first printed, in 1992. I am 25% Ukrainian and had no Slavic currency from childhood. The 50-kopiyok coin I ended up with is worth a whole 6 US cents these days. :)

I'm munching that Brezelbrötchen as I type this and it definitely absorbed the flavor of the Glühwein from the air. Strong stuff indeed.

Willkommen!!

Welcome to our class blog!

We will be using this blog throughout the semester for two kinds of assignments:

1. Once per chapter, the homework plan will direct you to post a response to the culture readings for the chapter on the blog.

2. Roughly every other week, the homework plan will direct you to post here 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). See Was ist ein AMD, AMD Ideen and Beispiele for ideas. This should get you excited about the kinds of things you can do!

Whenever you post something, please include your name and the name of the assignment (e.g. AMD2, Kultur5) as labels. See "Blog: How To" for more details!

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!