A Few German Things

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:

Feminine

Masculine

Neutral

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:

Virginia Jetzt! - Ein ganzer Sommer from Virginia Jetzt! on Vimeo.

Enjoy, and have a nice week. Thanks for reading!

Do German Words Have Sex??

Well, no, German words don't have sex, but the nouns do have gender. What does that mean, exactly?

In English, our nouns don't have gender, so this isn't really a problem. But it is a problem for people learning languages like Spanish or German, and it's something that I personally still have problems with in both of those languages.

Spanish is easier than German in this respect. For example, if a noun ends in the letter "o" in Spanish, like muchacho, libro, or carro, the word is usually masculine. Similarly, if it ends in the letter "a," as in casa, puerta, or chica, it's usually feminine. There are a few exceptions (like la mano, el idioma, or el planeta), and there are also nouns that don't end in -o or -a, which can cause problems. For some reason, I always forget if words like corazón (heart) and amor (love) are masculine or feminine, but generally it's not too difficult to just look in a dictionary or ask someone. 

German is a lot more difficult, though.

German has three genders, which a lot of people joke about. There is masculine, feminine, and what's usually called "neuter" or "neutral" in English. For some words, it's easy to determine if a word is masculine or feminine. For example, der Mann (the man) is masculine, and die Frau (the woman) is feminine. These make sense, since the noun gender matches the gender in real life. But there are definitely some weird ones, like das Mädchen (the girl); why is a girl neutral, while a boy (der Junge) isn't? And why do the words seem to end in all sorts of different letters? Isn't there a system?

In the 1990s the musician Prince changed his name to this symbol.
Maybe he was just trying to tell us that he's German. (Image Credit)

Not especially. There are some common patterns to German noun gender, and I'll include links to a site that's been highlighting those recently. But the sad truth is that if you are learning German, you simply have to learn the gender of every new noun when you learn vocabulary. This gender also affects adjectives; to compare with Spanish, you'd say "la casa blanca," not "la casa blanco," since blanca (white) needs to be feminine, since casa (house) is feminine. German is the same way, but it's more complicated, since the adjective endings change not only based on gender, but also depending on whether the noun is the subject, object, indirect object, or possessive actor in a sentence.

I won't go into much more detail here today, since other blogs focus a lot more on this (and most of my readers are here for English tips, not to learn about why German nouns are so depressing). If you are learning German, though, you should check out the Transparent Language German Blog. It's generally got good language and cultural information, and they've recently been doing a series on tips and patterns for determining German noun gender. At the moment they're on part 1 of the feminine nouns, but they've already posted a four-part series on German masculine nouns (click here for parts 1, 2, 3, and 4). It's got some really good information, so check it out!

Thanks for reading, and have a great weekend!

Free Online German Class

Berlin, Germany... Pretty much exactly like Berlín de San Ramón, right?

The other day I posted quite a few links that my German students can check out (click here for that post). I was also chatting online with Sharon, and she pointed out a great, free online German class. It's got explanations in Spanish, so it could be a great resource for my students here in Costa Rica. It has some videos and some sound, too (you may have to wait a few seconds after clicking, just so you know). In any case, check out the course here. If you have any comments, please feel free to share them. Thanks, and Viel Glück!

Some Links For German Students

Let me just say this now: EXTRA CREDIT to anyone who comes to class next week
wearing a Dirndl or Lederhosen!

Hi to everyone, but especially to my German students! I enjoyed our class this evening, and I'm excited that we'll be learning more together in the weeks to come. To help you study outside of class, I wanted to pass on a few links for you today:

Basic German

-One good place to go is this site on about.com. It really is a free, basic German course, but there are a lot of text ads along the way. There's not many pictures, either. One good thing about the site is that you can listen to any of the highlighted phrases just by clicking on them.

-A second option is actually the BBC's German learning site. It's got quite a lot in English, but it's a good way to move into German bit by bit.

-Finally, Deutsche Welle (which means "German Wave") is a famous international broadcaster based out of Germany. It has some basic German courses you can use online. Here's an "audio trainer" course with the instructions in Spanish (you can also find instructions in English or German).

About German and German-Speaking Countries

-There are many, many internet sites about Germany, the German language, and the German people, but two that seem pretty good are Germany.info and Young Germany. The first page is from the German embassy in the U.S. so it's in English. If you prefer Spanish you can go to the German Embassy in Costa Rica's page.

-If you want more information about tourism in Germany, check out this site.

-If you want to know more about "Die Schweiz," then try Swiss World or about.ch.

-If you prefer to learn about "Österreich," head to this page for general information or this page for tourist info.

-If you want to learn about Liechtenstein, that small country we mentioned in class, check here.

A lot of the information on those pages is available in English, German, and sometimes also Spanish.

Dictionaries, Verbs, the Alphabet, and Changing Between Keyboard Languages

-The dictionary I mentioned in class is LEO. They also have apps for smartphones, but it's probably easiest to get them by searching through your phone's store (like the Apple App Store or the Android Market).

-If you want a quick site for verb conjugations, this one is pretty good. It's a little weird about German letters, though. For example, if you want to find "heißen," you need to use the ß... it doesn't seem to recognize "heissen." 

-If you want to add the possibility to easily type German letters on your keyboard, there are directions here. Just so you know, your keyboard will obviously look the same, but if you normally have an American English keyboard layout, the Ä key is the apostrophe (') key, the Ö key is the semi-colon (;) key, the Ü key is the left bracket ([) key, and the ß is the dash (-) key. If you have a Spanish keyboard layout, Ä is the accent key, Ö is the Ñ key, Ü is the weird downward accent key (`), and ß is the apostrophe (') key. 

That sounds pretty confusing, but if you set up Windows to change between languages, it's really fast and easy once you get used to it (just click "Left Alt + Shift" to change languages in almost any program, including Word and web browsers like Firefox or Chrome).

-If you want to practice the alphabet, check out this site for pronunciation and this site for pronunciation plus a few songs. Here are the numbers if you want to practice them.

German Magazines and News

-Two of the most popular news magazines in Germany are Spiegel and Stern. Both are obviously in German, so they may be difficult if you're just beginning, but at least they have nice pictures and you can see how some world news is reported in Germany (it's also a good chance to notice many German-English cognates when reading headlines). 

-Deutsche Welle has a news page in Spanish (and many other languages... just use the drop-down menu at the top right to select the language you want).

-Additionally, Spiegel has a good English site. It's good if you're looking for more English practice!

SO! That's a LOT of links. I'm sure that if you want to practice German, you'll be able to keep busy at least until next week. If any of the links are good, bad, or don't work, please tell me. Also feel free to mention any other links that you may know of, so that I can share them with the rest of the class.

Thanks, and have a great week!

German Class Tonight!

Eating food is OK in my class, but you probably can't smoke...
Unless you look like Herr Lessing or his daughter in the picture.

A few quick notes for students in tonight's German class:

-Class will go from 6-9. We can have a short break, but it will only be a few minutes. If you want to bring some food along, that's OK with me.

-Please bring a notebook and either a USB flash drive or a laptop (I have some extra materials I can give to you).

-Tonight we'll start with basic introductions and vocabulary. We'll also discuss materials (I have a few possible books we can consider, but they all have advantages and disadvantages).

-Consider what language you want the class to be in. I think most of the students will speak English, but it may be hard for you to go between German and explanations in English. And for me, it may be hard for me to go between German and explanations in Spanish. If you want to do the class in German, that's also a possibility, and don't worry, I wouldn't be as strict as I am in English classes. :)

So, see you tonight!

German Class To Start Next Week!

You'd love to be able to communicate with all these people, right?

We've finally found a day and time for our German class! It will be at the Discovery Language Academy in Palmares (that's right across from the Canela clothes store, I'm told). The class will be Fridays from 6-9 PM and the first class will be September 9th. To register for the class or for more details, call Kenia at 2453-4541 on weekdays from 2-8, or Saturday morning from 8-11. I'm excited to start this class, so I hope to see some of you there!

German and English: Similarities and Differences

A few weeks ago we were looking at loanwords from other languages, including German. I said that I wanted to mention some similarities and differences between German and English, since I teach both languages and I'm hoping to start teaching a German class soon. So, that's what this post is about. If you're not interested, that's OK; I'll try to put up another English-learning post later this week. So, here we go:

"March 18th Plaza," in Berlin.

SIMILARITIES: History, Vocabulary, and Verbs

Historically, German and English came from the same language family. In fact, English is considered a "Germanic" language (click here for a language map and here for a cool graphic with more information). That means that many common words are similar in both languages. Some quick, easy examples are house/Haus, man/Mann, here/hier, and good/gut. 

If you have a high level of vocabulary in English, you can also notice other similarities between the two languages. For example, the German word for "dog" is "Hund." That looks pretty different, but if you know that "hound" is another English word for "dog," then you can see the similarity. Similarly, "chair" is "Stuhl" in German; it looks very different, but it's pronounced quite similarly to "stool," a synonym for "chair." There are many more examples.

Another area where we notice both similarities and differences is grammar. In some ways, German grammar is horrible (trust me). Simply put, it's much more complicated than English grammar. Still, if you know that a verb is irregular in English, it's almost always irregular in German, too. For example, the English verb "to swim" is conjugated swim - swam - swum; in German, it's schwimmen - schwamm - geschwommen. That's obviously not exactly the same, but if you compare it to a Romance language like Spanish (nadar - nadé - nadado), then you can see English is quite a bit closer to German than Spanish.

Löschwassereinspeisung is a compound noun meaning "fire-fighting water feed-in."

DIFFERENCES: Grammar, Vocabulary, and Pronunciation

Before we look at the differences, I wanted to recommend a semi-famous article by Mark Twain called "The Awful German Language." It's a classic among German students, but even if you don't study German, it's pretty funny, and you can hopefully read it to appreciate the German language--while laughing a bit, also!

As you probably noticed, "vocabulary" was in the "similarities" category, too. That's because there are some similar words between English and German, but there are also many different words, as well as different word-forming patterns. As you can see in the picture above, German can sometimes have very long compound nouns. Some can get ridiculously long. Here's a fun one, since yesterday was Independence Day in the U.S.: Unabhängigkeitserklärung ("independence declaration"). Speaking of nouns, another characteristic of German is that the first letter in a noun is always capitalized; that's why Hund, Stuhl, and Unabhängigkeitserklärung are all written with a capital letter.

Another difference is definite and indefinite articles. These exist in English, but they're more complicated in German. The English definite article is "the," and the indefinite article is "a" or "an." But in German, the definite article can be der if the word is masculine, die if it's feminine, or das if it's "neuter." For example, Stuhl is masculine--don't ask me why, though!--so it's technically "der Stuhl," if the word is the subject of a sentence. If it's an object, it changes to den Stuhl. And it changes again if it's an indirect object and again if it's possessive. And that's just for the definite articles--the indefinite articles are a whole other problem! To make a long story short, there are between 6 and 12 ways to say the word "the" (depending on how you count).

And adjectives are even worse.

You're probably thinking, "Wow, that's horrible! Aren't there any good differences between German and English?" Yes, there is at least one area where German is generally considered easier than English: Pronunciation. English pronunciation is notoriously difficult to master, but German is much more phonetic, and if you can figure out how to read some of those ridiculously long words, you can also probably pronounce them without too many problems. German does have a few different sounds and letters (Ö, Ü, and Ä, plus the ß, which is basically the same as "ss"), but once you learn what they sound like, they always sound the same way, which is convenient. Then you just need to work on accent reduction!

So, I think that's all for now. I could talk a long time about all this stuff, so I hope it was interesting for anyone who's made it this far. I also hope I've not scared you away from German forever! It's difficult, but also sort of fun if you learn it with the right attitude. If you've got any questions about English, German, or anything else, please feel free to say hi in the comments section or contact me. 

Thanks for reading, and have a great day!

Loanwords Part 4: German Words in English

Welcome to our final post about loanwords! We've previously talked about loanwords from French and Spanish, but I wanted to mention German loanwords. I studied German for nearly 10 years, and even though it's difficult, I really do like German.

Sauerkraut, anyone?
I didn't think so.

I originally was going to talk about how German is related to English, but I think that topic is much more complicated than just loanwords, so I'll talk about that in a different post in a day or two. Today let's just focus on German loanwords in English.

German and English share many historical similarities, so many vocabulary words are similar. However, the number of direct German loanwords in English is much smaller than the number of words from French or Spanish. (Click here for a partial list). There are a few areas where we can notice a higher concentration of German loanwords.

Like Spanish, German gave English some specialty words related to food; some examples are bratwurst, sauerkraut, delicatessen, schnitzel, and strudel. There are also words related to technology, such as autobahn, wunderkind and ersatz. Also, it's interesting to note German's contribution to philosophical and psychological vocabulary, with words such as gestalt, realpolitik, angst, and zeitgeist.

Unfortunately, many German words migrated into English as a result of World War II, and as a consequence they have an association with Nazis and/or war in general. Such words include blitzkrieg, fuehrer, lebensraum, flak and even Nazi (an abbreviation of "Nationalsozialist").

However, it's not all gloom and doom (or Sturm und Drang, if you prefer). German has many great words that made it into English, so here I present you with my list of...

Ryan's Top 7 German Loanwords in English*:

7. kindergarten: Literally meaning "children-garden," it makes going to school seem fun. Now I suspect it may have just been a trick.

6. poltergeist: It means "banging spirit." In other words, call the Ghostbusters.

5. kitsch: A dismissive word used to indicate something is tacky or uncool.

4. kaput: A synonym of "broken."

3. gesundheit: It literally means "health," but it's what you say when someone sneezes.

2. schadenfreude: It means "misfortune-pleasure," but it's a word to describe the sensation of being happy when bad things happen to other people. Very German.

1. wanderlust: Not as funny as "schadenfreude," but it's nicer. It means the desire to wander or travel.

Can you think of any others? What are your favorite loanwords, either from German or any other language? Please share your thoughts in the comments section!

So, that's it for today. Since we're already talking about German, I'll write a post in a few days exploring some similarities and differences between German and English, just in case you're interested. Thanks for reading, and have a great day! 

From the (English-language) comic Bizarro.

*A few of these words are spelled differently in German (like kaput/kaputt), and in German all of them except kaput would start with a capital letter, since German nouns are capitalized. 

German Corner: "The Dumb Fish Song"

So far, I've mainly stuck to talking about English on this blog, but I've been meaning to add more content about other languages, as well. I actually studied German and struggled for nearly a decade to learn it, so often it's actually more interesting for me to talk or think about the German language than it is for me to write about English.

On the rare occasions that people ask about German, they often ask, "Is it hard?" 

Short answer: Yes. 

Long answer: Yes, it is.

German pronunciation is easier than English, since it's phonetic and English isn't, but that's about it. The main killer of students who are trying to learn German is grammar. I remembered I'd heard the following song about 10 years ago, and believe it or not, it's actually a song specifically written to illustrate German adjective endings. You can feel free to watch the video, although only the song is original; the video was made by some junior-high schoolers as an extra-credit project, apparently, and the video quality seems to verify that fact:

Now, if you don't understand German, then it'll likely seem like a bunch of gibberish. If you do speak German, it'll probably still sound like a bunch of gibberish, because it basically is. I guess that's what you get when you write a song based on grammar. For example, the first line* is:

"Eins, zwei, drei / der gute Mann / ein guter Mann / der gute Mann / ein guter Mann / schlag den guten Mann nicht / schlag einen guten Mann nicht / schlag den guten Mann nicht... gib dem guten Mann einen Fisch / gib einem guten Mann einen Fisch"

That means:

"One, two, three / the good man / a good man / the good man / a good man / don't hit the good man / don't hit a good man / don't hit the good man... give the good man a fish / give a good man a fish"

Look at the English, and compare it to the German version. If you notice, there's a lot going on here. In the German, the definite article the appears to be either der, den, or dem, and the indefinite article a comes out as ein, einen, or einem. And it's true! The words "the" and "a" really can have that many variations (or a few more, if you count plurals and genitive/possessive words). And what about "good"? That comes out as gute, guter, and guten. The reason for these linguistic shenanigans? In German, articles and adjectives change depending on whether the noun they're referring to is the subject, object, or direct object of a sentence.

And the worst part of it is this: "Mann" (meaning "man," pretty obviously) is a masculine noun... and German has three genders: masculine, "neuter," and feminine. Plus, you also have to change the articles, the adjectives, and the nouns themselves when you make them plural. And in fact, that's what progressively happens in the following three verses of the song.

English does have quite a few similarities to German due to the two languages' partially-shared history and development, but luckily for today's English learners --and much to the frustration of today's German learners-- English didn't retain a lot of this grammatical complication, while German did.

So, whenever you're having difficulties learning a language, it's sometimes nice to realize that it could always be worse. And if you're struggling with German, remember this: at least it's not Finnish!

Thanks for reading, and have a great day!

*This Turkish site has a kind of half-baked version of the lyrics (For example, it doesn't capitalize nouns, as is necessary in German), but I only direct you there for quick reference. For a better alternative, I suggest checking out Brad Yoder's website. I just realized two days ago that he wrote the song, and in a strange twist of fate, I actually met him in Pittsburgh in 2001. He's a good guy and deserves your patronage. Plus, he looks quite a bit like me, and he might even be my long-lost, evil-twin brother (or vice versa)!

Podcasts

Podcasts are one of the best listening tools available for language learners. If you've not heard of a "podcast" before, it's basically a sound file that you can listen to on your computer or any device that can play a sound file (like an ipod or a cell phone). Podcasts are convenient because they are often short and focus on one aspect of language, and they can normally give you exposure to authentic language, including vocabulary and different accents.

You can listen to or watch podcasts directly on a program's internet page, or you can manage them through itunes, like I do (it seems easier to me that way). Still, if you prefer to go to the pages, I'll provide a link to each of the podcasts below.

There are many, many podcasts out there, so if you have any additional suggestions to add to the list below, I'd love to hear them. I'll list a few language-learning podcasts below that I like to recommend to my students, as well as some that I enjoy listening to in my free time.

--Podcasts to Learn English--

BBC Learning English

In my opinion, the BBC Learning English site is one of the best overall resources for learning English. The site is produced by the British Broadcasting Corporation and is updated very frequently. There are many pages on the site to check out, but they also have a wealth of downloadable resources like podcasts, pdf files, and even videos. The whole site is like a little city full of English fun so if you're serious about practicing your English skills outside of class, be sure to check out this site.

--Podcasts to Learn Other Languages--

BBC Foreign Languages

While you're looking at the BBC, be sure to check out its site for other foreign languages. This site is great because it has news, audio, video, and even language courses for various other languages like German, Spanish, Chinese, and quite a few others. They have dedicated sites for larger languages, but also basic phrases for 36 different languages! You could spend weeks or even months browsing the pages there and becoming smarter!

German Language: Deutsche Welle

Deutsche Welle is sort of like the German equivalent of the BBC. It has a lot of news, culture, and entertainment shows that it broadcasts around the world. Also like the BBC, it has language learning resources. So, if you're tired of studying English, try German! Then you'll wish you had stayed with English!

Deutsche Welle - Langsam Gesprochene Nachrichten

I've spent a good chunk of my life learning German, and it's nice to listen to the language to keep it fresh in my head. If you don't have much German experience, though, their program Langsam Gesprochene Nachrichten ("Slowly Read News") could be a good place to start. As its name implies, it's a news program, but the presenters speak nice and slowly.

Deutsche Welle - Fokus Amerika

This is an almost-daily news program that focuses on stories and issues related to North and South America. It's about 10 minutes per show, and I find it to be pretty interesting, especially as something to listen to while in the car. There are also similar shows for other world regions like Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia, and Germany.

Deutsche Welle - Deutsche im Alltag - Alltagsdeutsch

This is definitely geared to people who have interest in the German language. Each 10-minute episode focuses on a specific topic (something "Colors," or "The Cologne Dialect") and interviews people about the topic. Then they dissect the language to find idioms and interesting phrases, and also discuss etymology. I like it, but if you're not a nerd, you might not dig it.

Swedish Language: Sveriges Radio

Sveriges Radio - Klartext

This is sort of like a Swedish version of a news show for language learners. It's definitely not as slow as the German show from Deutsche Welle, but it's definitely clear ("Klartext," as you can probably guess, is Swedish for "clear text"). I really enjoy listening to this daily, 10-minute program when I'm driving in the car or walking around. It's also a good "confidence-booster," which is great when you're learning a language!

Sveriges Radio - SRI Radio Sweden

OK, this is actually in English, but that's OK. It's still a generally good news show, with an obvious focus on issues related to Sweden. It's normally around 30 minutes; often, I only listen around 5 or 6 minutes, when they talk about the weather. Then I exclaim something like, "Wow! Today in Stockholm, the sun rose at 8:45 AM and set at 2:45 PM! Crazy!"

--Fun/Entertaining Podcasts--

Radiolab

Radiolab? Isn't that the British lounge-pop group that sounds vaguely French? No, that's Stereolab. Radiolab, on the other hand, is an excellent podcast about science in everyday life. Its regular episodes are around an hour long, and its "shorts" are about 15 minutes. Both are excellent, educational, and highly entertaining. They're also good for language learners because the spoken English is very clear. This is probably my favorite podcast.

This American Life

If you life in the USA, you've likely heard (or at least heard of) this radio show. It claims to be the most popular weekly podcast in the U.S.
In each hour-long show, they focus on a specific theme and present three or four short stories related to that theme. It's supposedly about "normal" people, but because of the way it's presented and the high production values, it's quite entertaining. Check it out!


I've also just started checking out a couple of podcasts my brother Paul recommended to me. They seem good so far, although they're not really about learning English (but one's about Spanish):

(Update, 1/24/2011: I've checked them out now. The Coffee Break Spanish is indeed quite good for beginning to intermediate learners, and I liked it quite a bit. The other two were quite entertaining, but I should say that both --but especially the SModcast-- were pretty vulgar. SModcast was especially explicit in parts. In any case, neither of those seem very ideal for language learning, but if you're a native speaker who's into pop culture, you may enjoy them.)

The Complete Guide to Everything
SModcast
Coffee Break Spanish

If you have any luck or problems with any of these podcasts, I'd like to hear from you. Also, if you have other recommended podcasts, especially for language learning, then please comment. Thanks for reading!

(Image Credits: I took the picture of the headphones. All other images from the respective podcasts' sites, except for the black and white SR logo, which is from Wikipedia.)