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German words without English equivalent

Engelsgeduld: (lit.: angel’s patience) great amount of patience

Feierabend: (lit.: party-evening) the rest of the day that remains after work

Fernweh: the desire/longing to travel to faraway places/ foreign countries

Fingerspitzengefühl: (lit.: fingertips-feeling) good skill in handling things/ sensitivity and empathy

Fremdschämen: (lit.: foreign shame) shame that arises from the compassion with someone who made a fool of himself

Geborgenheit: more than safety, protection and invulnerability, it symbolises peace, warmth and calm you feel especially when you’re with the people you’re close to (e.g. family, friends)

Gemütlichkeit: feeling of comfort

Habseligkeiten: valuable and personally important possessions

Innerer Schweinehund: (lit.: inner pig-dog = weaker self) the part of a person that they have to overcome to be productive

Kitsch: objects with superficial beauty that are actually useless but are appreciated nonetheless

Konfliktfähigkeit: (lit.: conflict ability/skill) ability to deal with conflict / ability to constructively solve interpersonal conflicts

Kummerspeck: (lit.: grief/sorrow bacon (fat)) gained weight from emotional overeating (especially after a breakup)

Lebenslüge: (lit.: life’s lie) a lie that you tell yourself to make life more bearable

Mitdenken: (lit.: with-thinking) ability to think for yourself and do more than what you were demanded to do / trying to find a conceptional solution to a problem together with other people

Sehnsucht: intense inner longing for somebody, something or a place

Schnapsidee: (lit.: schnapps idea) a ridiculous and crazy plan/idea you have while you are drunk or an idea that is so stupid that people think you had it while being drunk

Sprachgefühl: (lit.: language feeling) feeling/sense of language, instinctive feel for a certain language / intuitive feeling of what is linguistically appropriate

Stehaufmännchen: (lit.: little stand up man) someone who doesn’t give up and begins anew

Torschlusspanik: (lit.: gate-closing-panic) the fear of missing something important / not being able to do some things (because you’re too old)

Verschlimmbessern: (lit.: verschlimmern=exasperate, verbessern=improve) improve something for the worse / make something worse but with having had the intention of improving it

Vorführeffekt: (lit.: demo effect) the effect that something you’re actually able to do doesn’t work when you want to demonstrate it to other people

Waldeinsamkeit: (lit.: forest loneliness/solitude) the seclusion/solitude of the forest

Warmduscher: (lit.: warm showerer/ somebody who showers with warm water) a wimp / a person that doesn’t like to leave their comfort zone

Weltschmerz: (lit.: world pain (world weariness)) gratuitous melancholia / kind of feeling experienced by someone who believes that physical reality can never satisfy the demands of the mind / the feeling of anxiety caused by the ills of the world

Zeitgeist: (lit.: time-spirit, spirit of the time ) the dominant set of ideals and beliefs that motivate the actions of the members of a society in a particular period in time

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dropbox containing linguistics textbooks

contains 34 textbooks including etymology, language acquisition, morphology, phonetics/phonology, psycholinguistics, sociolinguistics, & translation studies

dropbox containing language textbooks

contains 86 language textbooks including ASL, Arabic, (Mandarin) Chinese, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Estonian, Farsi, French, German, Greek, Hebrew (Modern & Ancient), Hindi, Hungarian, Icelandic, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Latin, Lithuanian, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Punjabi, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Slovene, Spanish, Swahili, Swedish, Tagalog, Thai, Turkish, Urdu, Vietnamese, Welsh

dropbox containing books about language learning

includes fluent forever by gabriel wyner, how to learn any language by barry farber, polyglot by kató lomb

if there’s a problem with any of the textbooks or if you want to request materials for a specific language feel free to message me!

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My presentation is tomorrow!!!

I'm super prepared and ready, all that stuff, but I'm too anxious to sleep. I also had a bunch of coffee so I could finish all of my dead week projects that were due tomorrow. So I watching real housewives of Atlanta and eating cinnamon cheerios

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From Beginner to Intermediate: an intense plan for advancing in language

Introduction

I've studied Spanish at school for 3 years and now I'm at a low B1 level. I can actually understand pretty well while listening or reading but I can't communicate fluently.

This plan will include vocabulary build up, some grammar revision, a lot of listening, reading and writing. And could be used for the most languages, not only Spanish.

Plan

Every day:

Conjugate one verb in present, past and future tenses

Make a list about 10 - 30 words long

Create flashcards with them and start learning them (I use Quizlet for flashcards)

Revise yesterday's set of flashcards

2-3 times a week:

Read an article or a few pages from a book

Write a few sentences about anything in your target language

Listen to one episode of podcast (at least one)

Once a week or every two weeks:

Watch a movie in your target language, preferably animated movie as the language used there is easier. You can watch with subtitles

Grammar exercises

Translate some short text

Once a month:

Write something longer, like an essay or report, on chosen topic

Additionally:

Talk to yourself, to your friends, to your pets

Text with someone

Look at the transcription while listening to the podcast for second time

Repeat what you hear (in podcast or movie)

Check words you don't know from the listening and reading

Read out loud

Listen to music in your target language - you can even learn the text and sing along

Watch YouTube in your target language

Change your phone language to the one you're learning

Think in you target language!!!

***This is very intense plan for self-learners, you don't have to do all of these things in the given time. Adjust it to your own pace. I'll try to stick to this, if I have enough time.***

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Finally settled on another language to study: Scottish Gaelic.

I don't expect C2 status or even C1 tbh, given that the language is in the process of being revived and that I dont, you know, live in Scotland. I hope for B1/B2 at most.

I'm saving money for classes though. Doing Duolingo and other little things in the meantime.

Getting some freelance translation work but not much. COVID killed a lot of that. I want an inhouse position, either as a translator, or working with AI in some capacity. So long as I use my degree, I dont care.

Waiting to hear about a position with Lionbridge, which is one of the big translation and localization companies.

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So writing it wasnt all that tough, after all of the planning we did.

We had to submit possible subjects early on, like 2 weeks into the semester and get approval.

Then we had to come up with 4-5 sources to be approved.

Next was a thesis and outline. Then the first 5 pages. The last stage, which I just finished, was corrections on the first 5 pages and then finishing whatever chapters are left.

I had to replace a couple sources bc I shifted tracks on my second to last chapter but it wasnt what I thought.

The presentation though? Kill me. Public speaking makes me so nervous. I need to write it out asap and practice it at home

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I submitted the final draft of my undergraduate thesis paper!

It came out to 9 pages without work cited and I'm still processing the fact that that's done with.

I have to take a secondary, more advanced proficiency evaluation and measures all 4 language skills sometime before this semester is done.

My presentation of my undergrad thesis is December 8th.

I have another small paper to write for my Topics in German Culture class. But its only 5 pages, wo I'm not worried.

Next semester is my final semester of undergrad and I'm taking:

History of the English language, the last class I need for my linguistics minor

Business German, bc I need 3 more units of german

Advanced German grammar and syntax, bc ice wanted to take this for years and I think I can never learn enough abt German grammar

History of Diseases and Epidemics, so I get to full time enrollment for financial aid.

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Tips for writing a large undergraduate paper in your target language:

This is based on my personal experiences while writing my undergraduate capstone project in German thus far, so keep that in mind.

Extensions or programs like grammarly and Duden Mentor will be a godsend. Serious, look for one on your target language to help you with grammar. It's one less thing you need to worry about dealing with yourself.

If you can, get sources in both your native and target languages. I'm writing about literature and for that reason, any writing I reference is NOT a translation. I'm a translator and I've translated poetry and short stories. Things get changed in translation. I would recommend sticking with the source material in it's original language if you have to analyze literature. Your professor or advisor might allow you to find sources in your native language and I would 100% take advantage of that! Half of my sources are in German and half are in English and I did that on purpose. When I'm fried or tired, I can go through English sources and it takes half the time and half the mental bandwidth that German does.

Give yourself plenty of extra time to get access to sources. Especially if they're in your target language, getting books or articles ect might take longer. I've had to buy a few off of Amazon or from German websites and shipping took weeks. I've gotten one or two via university library or interlibrary loan but not many.

Outline the paper in your native language first. It helps you keep your thoughts straight when its 2am and your brain is melting.

Dictionaries!

Dont be afraid about emailing your professor or advisor if you're struggling! I've emailed my advisor and had a private zoom meeting a few times over the semester. They want to help you any way they can.

I'll write more as I keep working.

Good luck and you got this!

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I should write a post about tips for writing a paper in your target language, but I also feel like it's all been said already?

Idk man. Duden Mentor has saved my life that's all I gotta say

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I have officially started writing my capstone paper. Its 8-10 pages, a research paper, in German obvs. We have to write about one of the authors we're looking at in class and I'm writing about Marie Luise Kaschnitz.

Theres 3 drafts that have to be done before the public presentation to the German facility and our classmates on November 8th.

I'll post a picture of it when it's done!

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I finally reached C1 in german!!

I had my final oral proficiency interview 2 hours ago and just got the results back!

I cant believe it. I really cant. It's been 5 years and 7 months if studying but I finally made it.

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The German Cases / die deutschen Fälle

What are cases?

A case shows the function of a noun or a pronoun in a sentence. In many languages, words change their form or add different endings according to their function in a sentence. For example, they change depending on whether the word is the subject or the object of the sentence. These changes and different endings are called ‘cases’. 

The German language has four cases:

Nominative (Nominativ)

Accusative (Akkusativ)

Dative (Dativ)

Genitive (Genitiv)

These cases are very important in German grammar as they dictate the endings of adjectives and indefinite articles. They can also tell you which personal pronoun to use.

1. The Nominative Case

This case tells us who or what is doing something. The subject might be performing a certain action or have a certain characteristic. In German, the easiest way to tell the Nominative from other cases is to ask “Who or what is doing XYZ?”

Therefore, the nominative is known as the Wer-Fall (the who-case).

For example:

Wer lacht? (who is laughing?) → Das Mädchen lacht. (The girl is laughing.)

Was ist bunt? (What is colorful?) → Das Haus ist bunt. (The house is colorful.)

Wer bellt die Frau an? (Who barks at the woman?) → Der Hund bellt die Frau an. (The dog barks at the woman.)

There are certain verbs in German that only take nominative form. Some of them are sein (to be), werden (to become) and bleiben (to stay)

2. The Accusative Case

Similarly to the nominative, the accusative’s operative question is also “what?” There is, however, a major difference between the two. In the case of the accusative, the person (or animal, or object) you are talking about is affected by the action. This is called the direct object.

Er schreibt Bücher. (He writes books.) ← What does he write?

Sie haben die Kirschen gegessen. (They have eaten the cherries.) ← What have they eaten?

Sie hat ein Bild gemalt. (She painted a picture.) ← What did she paint?

3. The Dative Case

This case is all about the indirect object. The indirect object is an object that is being passively influenced by whatever action is taking place.

Er schenkt seiner Freundin Blumen. (He gives his girlfriend flowers.)

“He” is the subject of the sentence.

The verb (obviously) is “to give”.

The direct object is the flowers that are given.

And then there’s his girlfriend: She’s really just there passively receiving the gift—she is the indirect object of the sentence.

Same with this example here:

Ich gab ihm den Schlüssel. (I gave him the key.)

In this case, “I” is the subject of the sentence, whereas “the key” is the direct object. The verb here is “to give” as well, and the indirect object is “he” who I gave the keys to.

When there’s a dative involved, you’ll always have to ask yourself “Who to?” or “Who for?”, or also “Whom?”. These three questions are indicative of the dative case.

4. The Genitive Case

Its main function is to show possession similar to the English ’s or the preposition of. The operative word here is “Whose?” So whenever you see a sentence like:

Die Jacke des Mannes ist schwarz. (The man’s jacket is black.)

The special thing about the genitive is that when it’s applied, the endings of certain nouns (namely masculine nouns and neuter ones) change.

Examples:

Der Hund → des Hundes

“Das Fell des Hundes ist schwarz.” (The dog’s fur is black.) ← Whose fur is black?

When a sentence is in the genitive case, the letters –es are added to some words, especially those that have only one syllable and end in a consonant.

Das Blatt → des Blattes (the leaf vs. the leaf’s)

Der Mann → des Mannes (the man vs. the man’s)

If a word ends in –en, –el or –er, usually only an –s is added. This happens especially in masculine nouns or those that are neuter.

Examples:

Das Kaninchen → des Kaninchens (the bunny vs. the bunny’s)

Der Leiter → des Leiters (the leader vs. the leader’s)

Der Beutel → des Beutels (the tote vs. the tote’s)

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🇩🇪 Ich würde gerne ein leckeres Eis essen. 🇬🇧 I would like to eat tasty icecream.

das Eis = ice das Eis = icecream lecker = tasty essen = to eat.

🇩🇪 Ich hätte gerne ein leckeres Eis gegessen. 🇬🇧 I would have liked to eat tasty icecream. 

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Presentation in German

So you have a presentation in German? Then you’re probably going to need some of these phrases!

Einleitung - Introduction

Das Thema meines Vortrags/Referats/meiner Präsentation lautet / ist … - The topic of my talk/essay/presentation is …

Ich spreche heute zu dem Thema … / zu Ihnen über … - Today I’ll talk about … / to you about …

Ich möchte heute etwas über … erzählen. - Today I’d like to say something about …

Ich möchte Ihnen heute neue Forschungsergebnisse zum Thema … vorstellen. - Today I’d like to present to you the new research results about the topic …

Strukturierung - Structure

Mein Vortrag besteht aus drei Teilen … - My talk consists of three parts …

Mein Vortrag ist in drei Teile gegliedert … - My talk is divided to three parts …

Zuerst möchte ich über … sprechen und dann etwas zum Thema … sagen. Im dritten Teil geht es dann um … und zum Schluss möchte ich noch auf … eingehen. - Firstly, I’d like to talk about … and after that a little bit about the topic … The third part is about … and lastly I’d like to touch …

Ich möchte auf vier wesentliche Punkte/ Punkte, die mir wesentlich erscheinen, eingehen. - I’d like to mention four essential points / four points that seem essential to me.

Übergänge - Transitions

Soweit der erste Teil. - That’s for the first part. 

Nun möchte ich mich dem zweiten Teil zuwenden. - Now I’d like to go to the second part. 

Nun spreche ich über … - Now I’ll talk about …

Ich komme jetzt zum zweiten/nächsten Teil. - Now I’ll go to the second/next part. 

auf Folien verweisen - refering to the slides

Ich habe einige Folien/Power-Point-Folien zum Thema vorbereitet. - I’ve prepared a couple of slides/Power Point slides about this topic. 

Auf dieser Folie sehen Sie … - On this slide you can see …

Auf dieser Folie habe ich … für Sie .. dargestellt/zusammengefasst. - On this slide I’ve described/summarized … for you.

Hier erkennt man deutlich, dass … - Here you can clearly see that …

Wie Sie hier sehen können … - As you can see here …

Schluss - Conclusion

Ich komme jetzt zum Schluss. - I’m coming to the end now.

Zusammenfassend möchte ich sagen … - To summarize I’d like to say …

Abschließend möchte ich noch erwähnen … - Lastly, I’d like to mention …

Ich hoffe, Sie haben einen Überblick über … erhalten. - I hope you have gained an overview about …

Lassen Sie mich zum Schluss noch sagen / noch einmal darauf hinweisen, dass … - Lastly, let me tell / point out that …

Das wären die wichtigsten Informationen zum Thema .., gewesen. Gibt es noch Fragen? - That were the most important information about the topic … Do you have any questions?

Vielen Dank für Ihre Aufmerksamkeit. - Thank you for your attention. 

Wenn Sie noch Fragen haben, bin ich gerne für Sie da. - If you have any more questions, I’m here for you. 

Good luck with your lecture or presentation!

M.

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Spring/Summer Books

Here’s a list of German books I’m currently reading, or books I plan on reading over the rest of the spring and the summer. 

Currently Reading

Der Nasse Fisch by Volker Kutscher

Buch der Lieder by Heinrich Heine

Want to Read

Gehen, ging, gegangen  by Jenny Erpenbeck

Jugend ohne Gott by  Ödön von Horváth

Die Physiker by  Friedrich Dürrenmatt

Im Western, Nichts Neues by  Erich Maria Remarque

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Spring 2020 Semester Reading List

It’s been nearly 5 years since I started studying German in college, so this reading list is advanced texts, I think. I’m not sure if the actual reading level, but yeah keep that in mind. I’ll separate them by classes.

German 405 - Survey of German Lit II

1. Woyzeck by Georg Büchner

2.  Der gute Mensch von Sezuan: Parabelstück by Bertolt Brecht

3.  Die Verwandlung by Franz Kafka

4.  Bahnwärter Thiel by Gerhart Hauptmann 

German 497 - Creative Writing In German

1. akzentfrei: Literarische Essays by Yoko Tawada

2. mal franz mal anna by Ernst Jandl

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der Nasse Fisch Vocab May 17th

 Some verbs are in past participle form and some adjectives have endings attached. That being said, this post operations under the assumption that the reader can turn the verbs to infinitive themselves and that you can separate the adjective from the ending. 

muffigen - musty

das Atelier - studio

die Schicht - layer

verdient - earned

die Überstunden - overtime

angehäuft - accumulated

ausgeruht - rested, relaxed

dagegen - in contrast, against it, by contrast 

umdrehen - turn, reverse, but in context: turn over

ertastete - palpated

aufschrecken - startle

strengte....an - try

zerdeppert - smashed

die Zimmerwirtin - landlady

rechnend - calculating, reckoning, computing