Last night I went to the Kino Internationale to see a film with my boyfriend. This was the second time this month that we went to the cinema. Coincidentally, both of these films were in French with German untertiteln. The first was Monsieur Claude et seine Tochter, which was really well-written, funny, and smart. The second was by Xavier Dolan, a Montreal-based Canadian director and actor, called Sag nicht, wer du bist, and was a dark Thriller set in a small town in Quebec. Even though I am extremely picky, and couldn’t understand all the dialogue, I highly recommend both films.

I am not yet at the point where I can watch films in German and actually understand what’s being said. I can usually figure out what’s going on from intonation, various words that I recognize, and the actors‘ expressions, but it is not an immersive experience, and is quite difficult. My boyfriend, whose English is a good deal better than my German, doesn’t always feel like watching a movie in English. So we have to compromise. Somehow that compromise resulted in us watching two films in French in a row…

Now my French is significantly better than my German, but it is still not perfect. In the past when I watched films in French, I relied on English subtitles to carry me through the parts I couldn’t quite catch. No such luck when the subtitles are in German! Watching a movie in two simultaneously second (and third) languages made some entirely new geography in my brain, I am sure! I felt so completely exhausted after the experience! However, there were also moments when I achieved a strange transparency – where the otherness of the language disintegrated and I could immediately understand what was being said – whether this occurred by listening to the French or by reading the German I can’t be sure, but I recall it feeling momentarily easy.

kletterhalle!

kletterhalle!

Last saturday, while swimming at my favourite Baderhalle at StadtBade Tiergarten (not at all close to Tiergarten, more like in Moabit), I remembered that there is a Kletterhalle quite proximate to the pool. The DAV Kletterzentrum. I decided to go inside and see what it looked like, and I also asked some questions of the receptionist, who kindly spoke English with me. She told me they offered an introductory 2-hour beginner’s course every Saturday, and I decided on the spot that I would register!

So, yesterday I went back to the Kletterhalle! I was feeling quite nervous, as I have never done any climbing, let alone in German, but I managed to pay my entrance and rent a pair of shoes. The group was 6 people in total, all beginners, and one trainer – NOBODY spoke English! eep.

The kletterhalle is beautiful, by the way. It is about 4 storeys high, with skylights at the top, and various coloured and contoured grips and textures all the way up. Each series of coloured „rocks“ is rated according to difficulty, which I imagine is based on the size of the grip – how much stuff is sticking out from the wall / how easy it is to hold onto – and how far apart these are spaced.

We all began in the upstairs room, a smaller space with a thick foam mat on the ground. Here we could try „bouldering“, which is basically the same as climbing, but without the safety of a harness and rope system. I was nervous, at first, because I thought there would be some kind of skill-set that I would need to be schooled in before being allowed to touch a plastic rock, but nope! It was completely intuitive, which, I’ve got to say, made me happy, because I was so nervous about not understanding (that much) German. So I began bouldering away. It was totally fun, and also scary. I was trembling a bit and sweating a lot. I found my way up, but then was nervous and couldn’t be certain I would be able to descend, but the trainer spotted me should I wish to jump down onto the padded floor, and I actually did find the footholds to return to the ground.

The next step was climbing, which we did in groups of three. We all wore harnesses, with one person climbing, and two people belaying the rope. The walls were much higher, although when climbing it was easy to forget how high I got until I looked down. Then I got nervous! However it was nothing compared to one woman who got about a meter up the wall and started hyperventilating and crying. (She got a LOT better, and more comfortable by the end of the course, but I was concerned about her at the beginning).

At first felt intimidated by how far apart each grip was – I attributed this to my being short. The trainer encouraged me, saying it really wasn’t about how tall I was, but more about dynamism, mental confidence, and flexibility. She also said that when the body gets nervous it contracts, and the arms and legs stiffen and pull in. As I said, so long as I continued to focus on the wall directly  above and in front of me, I remained calm. I began trying to pull myself up, puzzling out the relationship between my bodyweight and the series of grips to find the best positions from which to jump for the grips that were harder to reach. I climbed the wall several times, and the descent was like being on a movie set for spiderman or something! You just hung from the harness and jumped away from the wall while the people on the ground (and the magic carabiner) helped fly you down.

I felt safe the whole time. I scraped a bit of skin on my knee at one point, but mostly I was very proud of myself!

Today in class we learned prepositions, specifically which prepositions are indicative of dative, and which are akkusative. This was very, VERY useful. I have been struggling to recognize how to distinguish between dative and akkusative, and only this morning realized that it’s actually not so hard! Now I just need to memorize the millions of unpredictable articles attributed for god-knows-what reason to every single German word, and to learn the various conjugations. I am not so great at math either, but I have a 33% wahrscheinlichkeit of first getting the nominative article correct, and then divide that by 3 again to cover dative or akkusative, I am guaranteed an 11% chance of getting the article correct just by guessing (I believe this, although again, math is really not my strength)! If I apply the skills I learned in class today, and my prior knowledge, I can probably increase my chances hahahaha.

Anyways, that’s why I’m taking classes!

I also wanted to describe my experience trying to learn German by podcast, which, as I mentioned, I had been doing while in Canada. So, learning by podcast was actually a lot of fun, but not the most effective technique to learn how to SPEAK German. Positive aspects were that I was listening every day to German idioms, to phrases, to pronunciation, and to a range of vocabulary. I heard how words were used in the context of simple stories, that were also entertaining. As a language introduction and a personal activity I highly recommend it. Grammar-wise, however, learning by podcast wasn’t so effective. I find that learning in a classroom, taking notes, being in a context where it is encouraged to speak and safe to make mistakes has really accelerated my learning. While I learn very well by ear, learning by reading and writing has been really effective. Classroom-based learning is also more useful because there is an established structure and order to what I’m learning, as well as exercises to aid in the application and repetition of what is taught. So, in the end I would recommend both, since my vocabulary is much more extensive from the podcasts, but without the course I would be like a handful of beads without a string to turn them into a necklace (the course is the string, for those of you rolling your eyes at my awkward metaphor).

Today I had big plans for what to do after class, but I ended up on Skype. I find that I spend so much more time on Skype when I am living “away”. It is the only way that I can feel like I can spend time with my friends and family. I Skype with my sisters almost every day, and my friends or work colleagues at least once a week. After talking to my computer (and through it my friends and sisters) for 3 hours, I realized I was hungry, and that I had so many things left to do!

I had just made and eaten dinner when my boyfriend came home from work, we walked my dog, and then he started watching the news, in German!

So, I am writing my blog, while the news is on fernsehen in the background. I think the station is called FAKT. There was a long report about a potential bridge to be built between Denmark and Germany, complete with many convincing computer-renderings. There were many long reports about fighting in the Ukraine, and Islamic fundamentalists in Iraq and across the Middle East. As well, many images of war, of explosions, tanks, and machine guns. Also reports about Gaza and Israel. I can’t understand the news reports word for word, but it is interesting to compare the imagery and staging of the news here, as compared to the way it is presented in Canada. I can understand occasional words, maybe even frequent words, but it is still too fast for me to understand every single one, so most of the time I make sense from the pictures and gather together what’s going on from connecting the words I do understand. Although the nice thing about not understanding a language is being able to simply stop trying to understand, and letting the sounds fade into meaninglessness abstraction. Then the imagery becomes somewhat comical. I think the images on tonight’s news are somewhat more violent on German news – more explicit depictions of war, although to be honest, I didn’t watch very much of the news on TV in Canada. Wow, there was just a preview report for Planet of the Apes! Apparently it was filmed in Vancouver. Also – moustaches! I don’t think I have ever seen a Canadian or an American news anchor with a moustache, yet tonight, I saw probably three very serious moustaches.

And that is my report for tonight. Signing off.

Josh

After last sundays‘ rainshower, we were able to see a rainbow stretching over Yorckstrasse

So, to begin with an introduction: My name is Josh, I’m from Canada, and will be blogging throughout the month of August while I study at Deutsch Akademy. I traveled to Berlin to live with my boyfriend. I brought my dog (a beautiful and loving siberian husky who will feature frequently in my posts), some books, some clothes and my computer with me. Last year I spent a few months in Berlin living with my sister, and I remember how lost I was in the language – how few words I understood. I remember a funny interaction I had with a woman on the street. She commented on my dog, saying “Das ist ein schöne Hund, aber hast sie Shrek?” My dog was indeed afraid, as sometimes she gets nervous in the night, and, I tried to agree with the woman, saying, “Ja, sie heist Shrek”. The woman looked bewildered. My sister later explained to me my mistake. I had accidentally said to the woman in response to her question – is your dog afraid? – yes, her name is afraid! To prepare for the move I spent the past nine months in Canada trying to get familiar with the German language by listening to podcasts while I walked my dog in the cold, snowy winter. It helped a lot, but I had no practice speaking! At the beginning of the summer when I returned to Germany, my language comprehension far exceeded my ability to construct my own sentences, but I know that that is a common experience for those learning a new language. Coming to Deutsch Akademy has been really helpful for me, since I am learning the rules and structure, and getting practice speaking. So, all that to say that I am really happy to be learning German, even though these errors I made when I didn’t know the language are funny in retrospect. I think the things I love about Berlin are the food, ice cream!, all the parks, and how relaxed people are (at least in the summer). Oh, and my boyfriend! I will be trying over the next month to apply for a resident’s permit to stay in Berlin for the next year, and will be writing about my experience at the Auslanderbehörde, as well as posting photos from walks in the city with my dog. I am beginning level A2.1, so I may occasionally post little things auf Deutsch, but I am probably going to make many errors – I hope readers will be forgiving!