Blog 14 from Alejandra
Hi people from around the world! Today I want to talk about another thing that I think has made me get better at German and that is: music. In my attempt to immerse myself in everything German I started to listen to music, at first I think subconsciously I listened to music where they sing slowly or at least clearly. I started listening to a band called AnnenMayKantereit. I really like it. It’s alternative rock. Actually writing this post I just discovered they are coming next weekend to Olympiapark and now I want to go see them! Another band is called Wir sind Helden. I don’t think they make new music anymore but it’s alternative pop. I also found out about a very popular singer called CRO, he sings rap, which is one of the preferred styles of music in Germany. Other famous singers are Sarah Conor, NENA (which later made the famous 99 red balloons 🎈 in English), Xavier Naidoo and Lou Bega! I had no idea Lou Bega was German. Anybody remember Mambo No. 5? Here in Germany I discovered there is a type of music that is very bad and everybody refers to it as Schlager Musik. So even the people that like it, recognize it is bad but they love it because of it. I will give two examples in case somebody is curious, one is very lively. It’s called “Schatzi schenk mir ein Foto“ by Mickie Krause. And the second one is called Das geht ab by Die Atzen. This one is for party monsters. I find it very cool to learn with music. It comes more naturally and of course it allows me to know more about the culture and what people like. I sometimes play the Top 50 Songs on Spotify in Germany and discover a lot of new bands and styles. I deeply recommend anyone to listen to music in the language they want to learn. 

Have a good day! 

Ale 

Blog 13 from Alejandra

Hallo Leute! So as I said yesterday, I wanted to talk about my experience reading in German. Someone gave me a novel in German. I started reading it and then abandoned it because really it didn’t make any sense, I was barely understanding anything, searching for a word every 5 words that I read. It was Paulo Coelho’s Untreue. Then my sister suggested I read some of my nieces books. I thought it wasn’t a good idea, because they seemed childish and I thought I would get bored. But, really what happened is that I got very excited because I could understand what was written, and the books were actually lovely and very sweet. The first one I read is very popular in Germany and it’s called Bibi & Tina Hexerei und Pferdespass. There are films and more books about these two friends. I really really liked it, I think when my niece gets older and can actually read, she will enjoy the book. It’s about two friends, one of them is a witch and both of them love horses.

They have fun, adventurous and always stay together. The second book I read is called Erwin Moser: Man kann jetzt herrlich träumen. This book has various different stories of different animals like cats, mice and porcupines. I feel that both books really helped me expand my vocabulary with important words that describe feelings or actions that have to do with feelings like how to say sigh, grumble, mumble, groan, and lots of adjectives in German. Of course novels would teach me different words than regular language books that are more objectively oriented. But I think at the end to become fluid in a language, everything is important and relevant. I have two more books yet to read so I cannot comment on them yet, but they are called Ich bin ich, und du bist du and the second book is called Von Freundschaft, Abenteuern und vom Liebhaben. 

Good day now!

Ale

Blog 11 from Alejandra

Hello everyone! I hope you are doing well. Me? I am having a good time in class. Today we learned about the “particles” in the German spoken language. They aren’t used in the written language. It makes the language much more full of meaning, emotion and sentiment. I can’t wait to start using these. For example there’s the: doch, ja, mal, aber, denn. But there are a lot more particles. I think in English it is the equivalent of the words “like, just, one, actually” etc. These are words that don’t change anything in your sentence, but make it much more vivid. For example when you say: I was talking to a guy versus I was talking to this one guy. Or how everybody says “actually” and “like” nowadays. This obviously is for the more trained language learner. So I hope I can start using these soon. I will try to say as much as I can here in Germany and if someone looks at me weird, then I will know I said that wrongly. There are two more German words I want to tell you about, and that is the very German Häaa?” and the “Na?”. They are very funny to me because everybody knows what a complex and difficult language German is and then out of nowhere come these two very short words. You will hear them very often and they mean A LOT, although they are super short.

The first one (Hä?) means the person didn’t understand anything you said. Instead of asking you to repeat what you just said, or instead of saying “sorry” or “what did you just say”, they just say Häaa? And be careful, when you say this you have to undoubtedly make a funny, weird and question mark face (like in the photo). The second one (Na?) actually has a lot of meanings depending on how you use it (like Bitte haha), but if you just say Na? It means like “Hey” or “What’s up” and the other person usually just responds as well “Na”. All of this translates to “I am good thank you and you? I am also good”. Haha that’s crazy! But if you mix it with other words it means a lot of different things like Na ja, Na klar, Na los, Na Bitte, Na also etc. So here are two words in which finally German complexity is reduced! I have to start practicing them, as they say practice makes perfect! (Übung macht den Meister). The two pictures in this post belong to the Easy German Youtube Canal, which I totally recommend you to see! Nowadays there is a lot of material on the internet to learn more and get better at any language. Actually, I think this gave me an idea about what I should write about tomorrow.

Have a good Monday now!

Ale

Blog 9 from Alejandra

Today I want to talk about the B2 Test. I will do it in a bit less than a month. I am a bit worried, mostly about the speaking test. I registered for the TELC test and it consists of two big parts, the speaking test and the writing test. In the speaking test, three scenarios will be played out. The first one I have to talk about a specific thing for 1.5 minutes (a book, a movie, myself, etc) and at the end of my speech, the person who is listening to me (which is also someone taking the test with me) has to ask me two things regarding my presentation. I have to answer them. Part of the exam is that I also listen to this participant’s speech and ask him at the end two questions. Another part of the test is to plan something with this person (an event for example) and to discuss a specific point of view. That is for the speech part of the test. The other big part, consists actually of more things but in general it is called the writing test. First, comes the hearing test, where one will listen to three different scenarios and have to answer general and more specific questions. For example, what were the people talking about or specific things like at what time does a flight leave or at what platform does a train leave. Then the grammar part of the test, where one will put their knowledge of German grammar to the test. Of course I am terrified of this one haha. Then comes the reading part of the test, again there are 3 different areas to be evaluated (general understanding about something and other specificities) and at the end, the writing part of the test. We have to write a letter about a complaint or something to ask for more information about a specific thing. I hope I pass the test, I have been studying so much, but well I am still finishing my B2.2 course, still for a week. I’ve been going to Huggendubel to study. It’s a lovely department store like Barnes and Nobles. I also attached a photo with an example of the Telc Certificate. Wish me luck!!  

Bis bald! 

Ale 

Blog 10 from Alejandra

Hello everybody! I hope you are doing well. Today I want to talk to you about a couple of German cities. I’ve been touristing a bit and got to know Darmstadt, Mainz and Frankfurt! Funny thing, Darmstadt translated to English means Colon City (Darm = colon and Stadt = city). It is a very beautiful and well cared for city. I’ve come to learn that in Darmstadt there is a very big university where everybody wants to get into, it’s more oriented to IT Technology stuff. It is called Darmstadt University of Applied Sciences. Mainz is also a very beautiful city, it’s a student city and has a big University also (Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz). In Mainz people say “Mainz ist meins” which I found very funny. This area is very well connected, it’s very central and close to different cities. I actually first arrived in Frankfurt by train. From Munich to Frankfurt, it’s about a 4 hour train ride. It was very pleasant. Except that it had a Verspätung (it was going late), which I have come to learn that are veeery common in Germany! I always thought everyone and everything is on time. But, that is only a stereotype. So back to Frankfurt. It is a huge city, it has huge skyscrapers like the ones in New York City. Actually, it is very similar to NYC it’s like the Wall Street from Germany because all of the big Banks are there (that’s where the big euro sign is), the huge tall buildings, and it is a very international city. Last time I read, 50% of the population were German and 50% were expats. I also read that they drink a lot of apple wine. But I am not sure if that is also a stereotype haha. So far, I’ve enjoyed the whole Germany experience! Everyone is really nice, especially if they realize you are trying to learn their language and know more about their culture. 

Have a good weekend :) 

Ale

Blog 7 from Alejandra

So I went to the movies. It is the second time I have gone to the movies in Germany. The first time was 3 years ago, and during the film (Mary Poppins) my sister started having pregnancy cramps. 24 hours later, my niece came to the world. On that occasion, we watched the movie in English, so the original language and I don’t remember if it had subtitles or not. This last time I went to a movie theater called Kinopolis and I watched Thor: Love and Thunder in German! No subtitles. It went “so la la”, so not so bad because any action movie is actually easy to understand and follow through. I’ve come to learn that most of the movies in Germany are dubbed to German. It is quite difficult to see a movie in its original version.

There are some abbreviations that indicate the language of the film. For example, OV means “Original Version”. So you will see a movie maybe made in Spain or somewhere else, just watch out for the subtitles, maybe there aren’t, maybe there are and most likely they will be in German. Another abbreviation is OmU which means “Original with subtitles”. This means you will see the movie in the original language (English, French, or whatever) with German subtitles. Finally, the abbreviation “OmengIU”, which means “Original language with English subtitles”, this is the one I would prefer of course. At least for now. But what amazes me is that the german people in general prefer to watch it dubbed to german. Well, actually maybe it’s the movie theaters that do this without consulting the people, but it is very hard to find movies in their original version, especially if you are not in an international city. It’s quite different from what I am used to. In Mexico there’s i dare to say 50% movies showing in their original version and 50% dubbed to spanish. 

Bis bald! (See you soon)

Ale

Blog 7 from Alejandra

Hallo! I hope you are doing well. I am writing now during my Tram ride to the city center. It Is such a pleasant ride, I enjoy it so much because the windows are large and you can see all of the stores and places that Munich has to offer. It is really nice. Actually, DeutschAkademie is in the heart and center of the city. There are a lot of different means of transportation here it’s incredible! There’s the U-Bahn (subterranean metro), the S-Bahn (subway), the bus, the tram. I hope I am not forgetting another one. It’s great because when you miss your regular means of transportation (for example when I loose my 8:04 Tram) I can just hop on to the 8:06 U-Bahn and still get on time for class. In other situations I would have to wait 10 minutes for the next 8:14 Tram and wouldn’t be on time for class. All of them are quick, I’d say the quickest is the U-Bahn. And all of them are so clean! Munich is such a clean city! Also, all of these means of transportation are very well signaled, you can spot them from far away. The U-Bahn icon is blue and has a giant U on it (like in the picture), the S-Bahn is green with a giant S on it, Bus sign is a bit teal and says Bus, and the Tram signal is red and says Tram. There’s no way to get lost. 

There is also right now a big big deal for promoting tourism into Deutschland and it’s the 9 euro ticket. If you buy one, you can use it on all means of transportation for one entire month and throughout Deutschland. You can go from München up until the north, for example where Hamburg (as I was told haha) is. I am lucky because I’ve saved money on travel throughout the months of June, July and August. 

Have a good good day! 

Alejandra

Blog 4 from Alejandra

Hallo!! I hope you are doing well. Today I want to recommend you an App. It is called Tandem. I had never heard of it before I got to Germany. But here everybody seems to know about it. It makes sense because Germany receives every year new immigrants that wish to learn their language and build a new life. It basically consists on getting a “Tandem partner” with whom you can practice the language that they speak as Muttersprache (native tongue) and you teach the other person your own language (which they wish to learn).

There are people from all around the world in it, you can set up your profile, place pictures, write a bit about yourself, explain your goals and intentions in using the app. Here I dare make a parenthesis that lots of people use it as a sort of dating app. It makes sense because the other person is very interested in your language, therefore your culture, etc… Which is obviously fine, but always set your purpose straight and let your Tandem partner know your goals. You can also make phone calls and video calls through the app. I’ve talked with lots of people on Tandem and gone out with two people. Oh boy, speaking the language in real time / real life, is a whole lotta different thing than just texting. Therefore I recommend this app greatly, if you want to practice a language. 

Talk to you soon, your Alejandra

Ignacio, 19th March 2021

Como ya había contado con anterioridad, Alemania siempre fue un gran sueño mío, pero claro, con saber inglés no basta para cumplirlo. Por este motivo me propuse aprender lo más que podía del idioma y con suerte algún día poder viajar a tal destino. En un principio empecé estudiando por mi cuenta, y como todas las personas del mundo que quieren aprender un nuevo idioma y no pagar un instituto empecé con Duolingo. Pronto me di cuenta que esto no era suficiente y empecé a plantearme la posibilidad de tomar ayuda profesional, y así fue.
Particularmente no encuentro muchas cosas mas lindas que entender bien lo que el otro dice, aunque sea en otro idioma, es una satisfacción muy grande ya que tenes la posibilidad de no únicamente entender lo que dice, sino de poder analizar la forma en la que piensa, la cultura, sus principios, historia, valores, y diferencia culturales con tu propia cultura. Simplemente ir a un país y pasear sin hablar el idioma es no tener la posibilidad de vivir la experiencia a pleno, y eso es exactamente lo que quiero.
En la actualidad puedo comunicarme y entender muy bien el idioma, pero como hay mucho más que aprender y mejorar, asiste a clases en la “DeutschAkademie” donde estoy realizando grandes avances.
Saludos desde Argentina,
Nacho