It seems funny to learn how to greet each other in our native countries having already spent the last 3 weeks with each other. Many of us have also socialized outside class like at the “Stammtisch” (Get together) last Thursday. This was a really nice time and it helped me really see peeps as “real people” rather than just classmates. Both then and today, I found many similarities between our cultures. For example, to say “Hello” in the UK and most western countries… we shake hands for formal situations and hug with friends in greeting.

Formal greeting in "Western" countries

In countries with Latin-based languages like Italian, Spanish & Portuguese, they are much more informal and also include kisses. I find both the people and temperature are very warm, friendly and open. A little like in Africa where I originally come from.

Warm Latin Greetings ;-)

However, in Eastern or Asian countries, they are a little more traditional and value showing respect and so bow to one another:

Showing respect the Easter / Asian way!!

They do this both in Pakistan & Japan as I learnt on Saturday at the Japanese course. I think I like this tradition. Sometimes, we can lose the honour of formality when we are regularly informal.

In the course today, we read out loud more and were able to ask questions which helped increase our vocabulary. I enjoyed this and I decided to take my time more to get the pronunciation right. My husband makes sure of this and I found it really helps. I really don’t want to be learning words wrong as it would be very difficult to unlearn.

As you all probably know now, my husband is German and is very keen on being specific. This is something Germans are known internationally for and today we learnt how to tell the time. Needless to say, Germans are very careful to state the exact time even to the point of saying “14 minutes past half past 2” (vierzehn minuten nach halb drei) – No, I didn’t get that wrong, half PAST in English is Half TO the NEXT Hour in German. Germany is obviously very keen on being early.

As an African at heart, this is a problem sometimes for me and my husband getting places on time but I have found the benefits are great when you know that the bus is pretty much ALWAYS running to schedule or will even get you somewhere early. My friends in England will be pleased to know that I am actually on time more often than not now. I’m not quite sure if I could translate this to England but I guess we should try it and see.

Okay, so time for random thought. We found out today that even though time is said very specifically using the 24-hour clock usally, you can also say “shortly before…2pm” i.e. kurz vor zwei. You can even say this for anything up to 14 minutes before. REALLY?? I personally was very shocked at this because let’s be honest, 14 minutes is not short. A lot can happen in 14 minutes. Is this just me or does anyone else agree? Surely, 5 minutes either side of the hour is “kurz”. My husband begs to differ.

Kurz nach drei or Shortly past 3 surely?

Hallo, ist alles okay?

Hatten Sie ein gutes Wochenende? (Did you have a good weekend?) I do hope so.

Mine was good even though my home country are now out of the Euro 2012 Football Championship. Let’s just say – this penalty shoot-out really isn’t our thing but maybe it’s a good thing… for my marriage that is. My husband and I may have had a bit of a falling out if our respective countries had played each other on Thursday, me thinks. Hurrah… my marriage is safe! (hehehe).

We actually spent our weekend on a Japanese cooking course – courtesy of my husband’s company. The course was in the north of the city at another “language” school. There were about 8 of us so very informal and relaxed. The first half was learning about the language and culture. The second half, we got to make sushi and Tempura and see how to cook Japan’s famous Miso soup.

Proud sushi maker!!

This was really fun and interesting. Japan has really preserved a lot of their traditional culture and still kept up to date with the West too. However, I really think I have enough new languages and customs running around my head, which is why I can only remember “Arigatoo goza i masu”. I think this means “Thank You very much.” Good one to remember I think.

In my Deutsch course today we learnt a number of new words describing what is in our homes and room names. My favourite is the kitchen as I love cooking and knew a lot of the words already;-)We learnt that many of the names of furniture are actually combined words – so this is where the wonderful “UBER” long words that German is famous for starts, I see.

We all got our tests back and did okay again. We did another one today too on country names, directions and past tense. We were told that we would be getting regular tests every Monday and Thursday from now on… “but this is nothing to worry about” says our teacher…(Nothing to worry about????) Let’s just say my flat is now covered in Post-it notes – on all the remaining surfaces my friends didn’t cover the first time round.

Me not worrying while trying to cook...

Ciao for now…

oooh… as usual, random thought. We learnt today how to say we have moved  house to. I wonder how long it would take me to persuade my course mate (the one with the really nice house with the river at the end of the garden) to move out of her place so then we can move in…hmmm?!!??!!?

I’m not sure if anyone remembers this but in England there used to be an old TV show hosted by Lloyd Grossman (who now hosts Masterchef, I think) called “Who lives in a house like this?” You got to see small parts of a famous person’s home and players had to guess who it belonged to from the clues. Viewers, almost never got it right but many of the players on the show did. Today, I feel like we were on that show! However, the real issue would’ve have been distinguishing each person’s home.

It was really funny that many of my class (see picture below) lived in apartments in Munich (which is very common here) of which many were described as: big (Gross), light or bright (hell), and with small and dark bathrooms (mit klein und dunkel Badezimmer). I guess that is the price you pay for living in the city…. all except one person in our class. I wonder if you can guess who from the picture below?

My class holding up names of their countries

This person had everything “big” in their apartment and “schoen” (beautiful). They even has a river at the end of their garden where you can go swimming.  They have lived in Munich for a year now so it seems had time to search out a “gem” as we call it in England. In the lesson today, we learnt to how to describe our homes and say things belonged to us or someone else. Let’s just say, today, I wish I could say that the home by the river was mine ;-)

In the picture, my class are all holding up the countries they come from. From left to right, they are from:

Italy, Italy, USA, Sweden / Poland, Venezuela, Germany, Pakistan, Portugal & Norway. Our teacher is Deutsch and unfortunately, Mr Lybia has decided the course really isn’t for him and won’t be returning. It is a shame because I was really looking forward to finding out more about his culture (yes, that’s right… somewhere I haven’t been ;-0).

However, tonight, I do get to find out about other cultures in a more sociable environment. The school has arranged an opportunity for students to meet for dinner in a Mexican restaurant. I am really looking forward to this and practising my speaking. Today, we got to practice “ch” sound again and honestly, I really thought I’d got it before but really hadn’t. Ahh… practice, practice, praktisch!

Have a good weekend everyone and do enjoy the good weather and football. It should be good!!!

Today, we continued to learn the different countries and their languages and locations. We found out that Germany has at least 9 different neighbouring countries. Munich is actually like a melting pot of nationalities with people from all over the world. You can tell just from all the peeps at DeutschAkademie, all the English signs everywhere and in the architecture around the city too. Apparently one of the monarchs back in the day, married into the Greek ruling class and so there are many greek mythological statues around the place. You can see many of them at Schloss Nymphenburg.

It seems like things are coming together too with the language lessons too. Yesterday, we got our results back from the test and I did quite well with only a few silly mistakes (like forgetting full-stops – yeah, they do have that here too). Many of us in the class did well too and so we are all feeling more confident now. Notably, our comprehension is growing and our teacher announced that we therefore need another test – tomorrow!!! We are already on Unit 4 so will be doing another on Monday as well. I guess we are really away now.

In light of this we were enlightened with “past tense” and how to apply possession to an item. Welcome to “Akkusativ & Praeteritum”. Yes, it has begun, the wonderful world of German Grammar.

Behold German Grammatik!!!!

We all seemed to be picking it up quite well but then our teacher advised that the Akkusativ is only for certain verbs and changes only masculine bestimmt & unbestimmt Artikel word endings. OH MY WORD!!!! Can it be that I am actually getting the hang of this. Check out that lingo?!!??? I guess the test will tell next week… or maybe sooner. Tomorrow night many of us are getting together with other international students for dinner in a Tapas bar. It should be quite fun – so watch this space!!!!

Today we learned about different tourist attractions in different countries, how to say where they are and where places are located in relation to other cities or located in the country.

We also learned  to say which countries we had visited. My motivation seemed to return today and I am glad it did because this is something I may have to say a lot in the future. As I said yesterday, I love visiting new places. I think at the last count I had visited about 19 countries and quite a few cities in each. It became apparent quite quickly that many of my classmates have travelled a lot too. Our teacher decided to name us all “Globe Trotters (a.k.a. Weltenbummler) which literally translates to: World Window Shopper.

Most of us have visited the key tourist attractions in Munich which I mentioned a day or so ago. i.e. Nymphenburg Palace, Englisher Garten etc but I realised I am still yet to visit the Frau Kirche (Woman Church) & Neuschwanstein Schloss (New Swan Stone Castle aka Sleeping Beauty Castle). I found out today from my classmates that you can get a really cheap DB (national rail) ticket that will take you right there almost directly and there is also an outlet shopping centre too. I guess it’s time I did some real “Window shopping” too.

Tchuss….

P.s. Ohhh.. I almost forgot, As the weather was again very nice today and hot, we learnt how to say the “sun is shining”. This made me very happy because my husband’s nickname for me has been “Sunshine” for a while and in days gone by i.e. when I really didn’t know much German but was very enthusiastic and trying to impress him, I would sign off my emails to him as “Dein Sonnigschoen”. This actually means “Your Sunny Beautiful”. As I’m not really that big-headed it really was quite funny but my husband really likes word games so it has stuck. I think this is something that is very usual for Germans as many of my German friends make a lot of plays and sketches based on this. Could I have found a new culture feature?

So going to class was difficult today for 3 reasons.

Firstly, I was very tired having been away over the weekend at a YMCA in Magnetsreid, Seeshaupt (just south of Munich). I went with my church and husband and it was a very lovely and green area with great views of the Alps and lakes. It was reasonably priced too and the food was good. I got to do lots of walking which I love and discovered this great warning sign to encourage people to stay on the main path:-

We also decided to watch the Euro 2012 Germany football match against Denmark with some friends last night. This didn’t finish until late and as we don’t have a car it took a while to get home on the U-Bahn (Munich’s wonderful underground train system). I think many in my class also watched the match so were equally tired. However, it seems Mr Lybia seemed to enjoy last night a little too much as he didn’t quite make it in today. Maybe tomorrow.

Secondly, it was very warm weather today. Summer really seems to have arrived.  I tend to only want to sleep when the weather is like this in the afternoons so I guess my African roots are showing now.

Thirdly, we had a test today on everything we had learned so far. In Germany, they do a lot of Oral exams which is very different to England. As I am still uncertain about my pronunciation, I was a little nervous because I wasn’t sure if it would be a spoken or written exam. However, it was written exam and fairly straight forward. “YAY!!” I hope I did okay.

As we are only in the second week, I was a little worried today that my motivation was decreasing already. So, as a “solution-focused person” I called upon my tried and tested – newly named “Universal Motivation Pack”(UMP):

Universal Motivation Pack

Yes, that’s right you all know it… Coffee, Water & Chocolate (muffin-form is my preference as you can see).

I think our teacher had the same idea as after the break, she pulled out her Teacher “Universal Motivation Pack” – a game.

Teacher “Universal Motivation Pack” – a game

This one was to help us learn our “Der, die and Das” items (Artikles) and it worked. The number of items I remember correctly is much more now and am confident this can only increase. Let’s hear it for “UMP”

So on our final day this week, we started to learn what things / items are called in German and needless to say the complication came fast. Apparently, everything comes with a “die…”, “der…..” or “das…..” like in French but they have an extra one that is neutral.

Despite this being a land of many rules and regulations, our teacher shared the news that there really isn’t strict ones that indicate whether a word is femine, masculine or neutral (see above). You just have to know!!! My stomach turns upside down at this point. Luckily she didn’t just leave us hanging – I think she saw the look of absolute panic on everyone’s faces. Apparently, there are little hints that we can take from the endings of the words and this will determine which one it is.
We got to go around the room and label everything with “Post-its” which was especially fun. I now know how my friends felt when they labelled lots of things in our flat, to “re-decorate” it as a “welcome” present for when we got back from our honeymoon. It has actually been very helpful so I’m very happy they had the idea too.

We actually looked at plurals next but I don’t want to cry right now so we’ll leave that for another day. Actually, we learned how to share what our hobbies were and this leads nicely onto what things there are to do in Munich. I personally love travelling and exploring new places by foot and so Munich is perfect for me as it is a very big, old and a lovely city. There are lots to do & see easily accessible by Public Transport very cheaply too. I love the old part of town – Marienplatz and Karlsplatz are cool although busy. I’ve also visited Nymphenburg Palace (Schloss) and the Chinesier Tuem (Chinese Tower) in Englisher Garten. A friend of mine came from England recently to take photos at a wedding but came a few days earlier so we could visit the city. It was great to be a tourist with him and learn a little about the city with someone so I didn’t look like such a loser. We both particularly like Chinesier Tuem because a traditional Bayrische band came to play just while we were finishing lunch there. In England we only have this on special occassions so it was was a really nice surprise.

Joy of the English at the sight of a Bayrische "Oom-Pah" band at Chinese Tower, English Garden

I have visited Munich before I moved here and was taken to the Alps which is really so easy to get to by train. I would love to go again as I love hiking but I do wonder what the next surprise of Munich will be then. I guess time will tell. Tchuss!!!

p.s. Ooohhh… almost forgot to say. Lybian guy came back again today….. 30 mins before end of lesson. I guess he had really good birthday celebrations but really, I think his heart has changed very much towards to the course. Talk about commitment.

So good news. The Lybian guy returned today. It was also his birthday and he brought us chocolate. They were “lecker”. I like him.

We also learned how to sing “Happy birthday!” in German and it was quite fun…”Zum Geburstag viel Glueck!”Even birthday boy sung it too (I guess he needs to know how to say it in the future). He’s the fourth one from the left in the photo below.

Smile!!!

Today, we focused on numbers. A week or so ago, my husband and I watched these hardcore Bud Spencer & Terrance Hill films from 1970s. They are really quite funny if you don’t take them too seriously. One of them was about how they stopped an evil guy causing an explosion that would make everyone forget numbers. Today, I think we all felt like that had actually happened. Our teacher certainly did.

We did a lot of speaking practice again today, which even though I had learnt them a while ago, I still really valued learning how to say “…-zig” properly. 1999 was the most fun – “neunzehn hundert, neunundneunzig” Phew. Really, life would be very tricky without knowing this. For the moment, let’s just say none of us have Mobile numbers because when a German reverses the last 2 digits when they say it,  it really throws you. Guess what I’ll be doing tonight?????

I must go now but just a final thought. Me thinks the Lybian guy might return tomorrow – I think the fact that our teacher taught him how to say the different positions on a football field really helped – especially with tonight’s game and possible birthday celebrations in hand.

Ciao for now….

oohhh…. Random question!!!! Does anyone know if they have the talking clock here?

Hallo,

So today is the second day of lessons. A lot of the things I learnt before coming to Munich are now so much clearer. As they say here…” Alles klar!!!” I can now just about say “Ich” much better too. However, today, I was presented with “Welcher Sprachen sprichst du?” (I never knew it was possible to say so many “Shps” in a row!”

Finding and practicing verbs

We learnt lots of verbs today too, went over basic questions from yesterday and learnt how to same names of lots of different languages. My favourite and most tricky is  ” Franzoesisches” which many of my class mates can speak.

They are all from al over the world – 2 guys and 8 girls.

1 Lybian guy, 1 Pakistani guy and 8 girls incluing me from:

USA, Venezuela, Portugal, Norway, 2 from Italy, 1 half Polish, half Swedish and of course me from England. It’s interesting… they are all very different but all seem to have a common “American” accent.Hmmm…. how does that work?Anyway, they are all very nice and everyone helps each other. I’ll share more about them tomorrow.

We did a lot more speaking today which I liked because I really need to practice my pronunciation. I found out that to get a qualification too, I must do an oral exam…. so bring on the chat, chat, chat!!!!!

My husband has been very supportive and practiced speaking with me almost as soon as I got home today. It really helps to reinforce everything and I am very grateful as I realised I still make lots of mistakes.

The Lybian guy only learnt English 9 months ago and he is very fluent but now wants to leave the Deutsch course because he isn’t understanding everything yet.  I hope he stays because he really has a good understanding and ability to speak English. Let’s just say, if I can speak German as well as he can speaks English – we are really on to a winner. I think everyone else agrees too. I guess, we’ll find out tomorrow.

Tschuss.

Hello, my name is Grace and I come from Birmingham, England.
I grew up there but I was born in a country called Liberia in West Africa. There are only about 3 million of us in the world but we are very friendly and hospitable and we speak Liberian English (which really only Liberians understand although it is basically English with some fun long words and idioms thrown in –  oohh… a bit like German?).

I have recently moved to Germany to be with my husband. We have been married 6 weeks having met in South Africa during a missionary school 2 years ago. There, he became my best friend and much more. He speaks great English having learnt a lot when he was at school and for work & we communicate in English mostly.

As I have got to know him, I have heard a lot about Germany and the culture here and find it quite similar in some ways to mine but challenging at times. However, I am growing to l like it more and more each day. I have been in Munich for 4 weeks now and I understand a lot more than I can speak.  I did not learn German at school as my school specialized in French & Spanish but I liked languages very much and I often can pick up a lot of what people are saying from non-verbals and context. However, this does not help with my grammar and people here (including my husband) really struggle to understand me when I try to speak the little German I have managed to pick up.

Today was the first day of my Deutsch Akademie language course. I really enjoyed it and learnt a lot from interacting with the teacher and my classmates who are from all over the world. It is nice to start from the beginnnig with them. I picked up a lot of Basic German from a short online course I did about 6 months ago, but I think I have learnt a lot more even in just one day being with them.

I hope the Deutsch course will help me not only understand the language better but also help me and my husband understand each other better too. I would  love to work asap and hope this course can help speed up this process too.

Watch this space!!! Who knows, I may even be writing all of this in German by the end of the course – or am I too hopeful?