Good Evening! As you probably know, I focus mostly on English here at Sitzman ABC. I do that mainly since it's my native language, and because there's a lot more demand for English than any other foreign language here in Costa Rica. However, I actually studied German, not English, and I have a special place in my heart for German-- a dark, somewhat scary place in my heart, but a place nonetheless.
I've been teaching a few German classes lately and I came across a few interesting links and resources that I thought I'd share. If you're learning German, it may help out, but even if you're not, the explanations are often in English, so they can help you practice English, also!
Gender (aka "German Word Sex")
First of all, I found this page with tips about German genders. As you may know, some languages have "gender" for their nouns. Spanish, for example, has masculine (el) and feminine (la). German takes the fun to the next level! It has masculine (der) and feminine (die), but it also adds a third one called "neuter" or "neutral" (das). The worst part is, there's no clear-cut way to know what gender a word is. In Spanish most words that end in "-o" are masculine and most that end in "-a" are feminine...but that doesn't work at all in German. However, there are a few general tendencies that you can find, and these pages help you sort them out:
Deutsche Welle
Deutsche Welle is awesome in any language, but it's best in German. It's like the BBC's continental cousin that always wears black, even on hot days. It's got all kinds of information and news, and it has a whole section about learning German. It also has extensive cultural articles, like this one about Ostfriesland, one of my favorite parts of Germany.
And Another Video
In class this week we were talking about seasons (all of which are masculine words in German, by the way), and I found two videos about Der Sommer. The first is at the top of this post, and the second is here:
Enjoy, and have a nice week. Thanks for reading!
There are some exceptions in Spanish with the gender, like la mano, el idioma, el mapa...
ReplyDeleteYes, that's definitely true. Still, it seems like there are 10 times more exceptions than there are rules in German gender! :)
ReplyDeleteThanks for the comment!
Your article about German language is really interesting. Thanks for sharing your idea with us. I have intensive knowledge about German language , culture and we are making a plan to teach German language with the pimsleur method for our students so that they will have sufficient knowledge about their native German language.
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