German class again…  We’re getting so much done that we’ll be fluent soon!  In today’s lesson we went over verbs again (think I’ve got it!), articles and useful phrases.  We also got a chance to reinact our own versions of the coffee/chat scenario we learnt about yesterday.  We all got really into it, and although they’ll be no Oscars for our acting ability, it was good fun.  As well as being funny, it was definitely a good exercise in building confidence and fluency.We also tried to increase our vocabulary by labelling objects in the room.  We were ok at remembering the names of things like a ‘chair’, but it’s whether it’s ‘der’, ‘die’ or ‘das’ that’s confusing.  We also labelled little cards with useful vocab such as ‘person’, ‘telephone’ etc, and played a memory game to see if we could match the word to its article.  My excuse is that my memory is rubbish… ;)Towards the end of the lesson we learnt some useful phrases.  For example, when answering a question, being able to say ‘I think…’, ‘I don’t know..’, ‘Perhaps it’s..’ or ‘It is…’.   This is starting to really help me to move past being only able to say single words to people in German, or very simple sentences.  I’m really looking forward to learning more!We only have one more lesson this week as it’s a public holiday on Thursday in Munich.  Fingers crossed that the weather stays nice….Bis Morgen!

So we had lovely weather here in Munich…Sunday in particular was the best by far since I arrived in Germany. Munich has so many things to do and see if the sun is shining, and I spent most of the day cycling around some of the sites I hadn’t yet seen (Luitpold Park, Olympia Park, and Schloss Nymphenburg) and then catching some rays in the Englisch Garten.  I couldn’t believe how busy it was there – it was difficult to even find a space to sit ;)  So many people and so much going on made for a brilliant atmosphere though.

During the weekend, I was able to practice speaking a little bit of German to one of my German friends, and have definitely begun to speak German a lot more confidently in restaurants/beer gardens/bars.  I was even able to answer in German when approached by someone in the English Garden asking where my shoes were from!Anyway, so it’s back to learning German at Deutsche Akademie.  Monday was our fifth lesson, and although it’s always good fun, it is starting to get more complicated.  We spent quite a bit of time on verb endings (or Verb-Endung), and because it’s quite different to English it’s taken me a bit longer to grasp than the previous stuff we’ve learnt.  In German, verbs end in different letters depending on the subject (or Subkekt).  So for the verb ‘to come’ you’d say:

• I come – Ich komme
• You come -Du kommst
• He/She/It comes -Er/sie/es kommt
• We come – Wir kommen
• You come (plural) – Ihr kommt
• They come – sie kommen
• I/they etc formally – Sie kommen

It’s mostly the same pattern for the majority of verbs, and I think (hope) I’m starting to get the hang of it!The good thing about German lessons at Deutsche Academie is the way we often apply our learning to real life situations.  For example, filling out the registration form or spelling out our email addresses.  We’re starting to listen to dialogue more from real life situations too, and today we listened to a scene from a group of friends having coffee together.  It was really interesting to hear how the words we’ve been learning should be pronounced and pick up extra bits of vocab along the way too.  Apparently, one of the women in the story was learning German, although she sounded pretty good to me! Let’s hope that’ll be us by the end of the course ;)

So it’s the last day of our first week, and boy we’ve learnt a lot!  I already feel a lot more confident if I’m approached in the street and asked a question, or if I’m speaking to a cashier in a shop. I’m not sure what I say is always completely correct, but at least I’m able to say something other than ‘Ich bin Englisch’ ;)The lesson started with a test (arrgh), but it turned out to be fine and a really good way to see the progress being made.  Today was also a chance for us to go over some of the stuff we learnt in days 1-3.  Bettina gave us a little maths test to do to practice our numbers, for example.  This was fun for me as I love maths – although I did read some of the numbers (which were written in German) wrongly as I was too busy trying to quickly work out the sums!  I’m training to become a maths teacher back in England from September, so as well as learning German these classes have been a good way for me to pick up some tips from Bettina’s teaching, as she’s a really good teacher.We also moved on to section 2 of the book today (yes, already!).  We started by navigating a typical registration form; learning how to ask for what our address/telephone number/email address was, and if we were married/had kids etc.  This was all very useful, although I do wish I’d done this lesson before I spent around 4 hours trying to register in the Kreisverwaltungsreferat in Poccistrasse in my first week!We spent the last part of the lesson learning the alphabet, and had to spell out our names, email address etc to each other. This was great for me as I’m having real trouble pronouncing most German words.  Most of the alphabet is quite similar to English, although j (which is ‘jot’ is German) and y (which is Ypsilon) were less intuitive!Ok, so that’s week one over.  I’ve had a great time and looking forward to the next 3 weeks….

We’re into our third day of the 1A course now and I think everyone’s starting to feel like they’re making some progress.  We’re now able to write and speak a simple dialogue to each other, and seem to be building on what we can say in every lesson.  My list of new sentences learnt is definitely getting longer by the day! And now includes: ‘My name is…’ (Ich heisse Caroline), ‘I am …years old’ (Ich bin 24 jahre alt), ‘I come from…’(Ich komme aus England), ‘I live in…’ (Ich wohne in Schwabing, Muenchen), ‘I can speak….’, (Ich spreche Englisch und etwas Japanisch), and ‘I am…’ (Ich bin Lehrerin) to name just a few.To practice the numbers we learnt yesterday, Bettina suggested that we played Bingo.   If you don’t know what Bingo is, it’s a gambling game mainly played in the UK, US and Australia.  Players each get a grid of random numbers, and then mark off numbers on their grid as they are randomly called out.  If you mark off a complete row, column or straight diagonal of numbers, you shout “Bingo” and you win a prize.  In the UK Bingo is big business – there are huge Bingo halls in every town, which often link up to country wide games where the winner can pocket hundreds of thousands of pounds.  Of course, this wasn’t the case with our Bingo game ;)

Anyway…we had a go at Bingo and it turned out to be really good fun. I managed to win the first game and got to call out the numbers for some of the next game, which was good practice at pronouncing words in German (the bit I’m definitely finding the hardest! )

Yesterday we started to learn how to ask ‘where do you come from?’ and how to respond.  It was great to see that our class is so diverse.  All ten of us are from different countries from all over the world – from Russia, the USA, Australia and Singapore; to Italy, Bosnia, France and England in Europe; and Mexico and Brazil in South America.  I did a similar course in Japan a few years ago, and I think meeting people from all over the world is definitely one of the best things about doing a course like this…. and of course, learning the German needed to get by in Munich too!  So from now on, if anyone asks ‘Woher kommst du?’ I’ll be able to say ‘Ich komme aus England’ :)On the same subject, I’m really pleased I’ve got this opportunity to experience living in a different country. Munich/Bavaria is quite different from where I’m from in England (Nottingham – which is in the Midlands).  For a start, it has nice weather in the summer! I really like that this gives me the opportunity to get outdoors more. It’s safe to cycle everywhere and there are lots of street cafes… …and not to mention beer gardens.  I even spent last weekend in the Alps surrounded by huge snowed-capped mountains!  A new experience for me.In today’s lesson we learnt about grammatical conjugation – i.e. I am, you are, he/she is etc.  Or auf Deutsch – Ich bin, du bist, er/sie ist.  It’s complicated in a new language, but I think I’ve got the hang of it (for now anyway..) as a lot of things are coming back to me from learning German at school.  It’s definitely going to be important as we learn more over the coming weeks.  We also spent some time on yes/no questions, and on counting/numbers.Right, better get on with my homework..Caroline

Today was the first of 16 German lessons at my language school in Munich for the ten of us.  As one of class 1A, I’ve moved to Germany from rainy England until August to join my boyfriend, who’s on a temporary work transfer.  I studied German at school and assumed it would all come flooding back to me…. ….It didn’t, and here I am in Munich staring blankly at shop assistant after shop assistant, repeatedly asking ‘Sprechen sie Englisch?’.  Rightly, I’ve signed up for some lessons.So I’ve paid for my lessons, paid for the text book, and turned up to the first lesson.  Our first lesson turned out to be great.  We have a lovely teacher, Betinna, who made the lesson varied and fun.  We learnt how to introduce ourselves, where we come from, and what we do for a living.  After starring at a German text book for my first few weeks in Germany, it was great to practise actually speaking to each other.  I think it’ll be a while before I lose my dodgy English accent though!