AMD 6 American Football in Germany

For this AMD I read about something that I am a huge fan of. I read about football. American football that is. I watched a few videos of American football in Germany and noticed that it is slightly the same. I honestly believe that the players of the German league would get massacred by the players in the NFL. Based off of what I see in then in the videos, the German players did small things that could play a large role in what might determine who wins the game. For example, the German players stop running when they believe the person they are chasing definitely has the touchdown. In the NFL, the runner stops chasing when the players is in the in zone. It is important to continue to chase the players just in case they fumble the ball or something happens. Besides that, however, it was very interesting to see American football in the great ol’ Deutschland.

Kultur 5

This article selection was very funny. This writer knows how to add a comical outlook on situations which makes the scenarios even funnier. These article however, somewhat scare me a bit about ever visiting Germany. The author is always making a negative generalization about German's and how they "typically" act. From what he stated, based on the way that I grew up, Germans are very rude and harsh. And I refuse to make a silly statement like that and believe it. As far as the women go, based off of the article, I would love to have a Deutsch girlfriend. I love a girl that makes me work for her affection. The articles also make Germans seem very blunt. The fact that they just blatantly have sex shops for display really proves this. Also, as far as the toilet lady goes, I believe that that is the same thing as a janitor over here. I honestly do bot see the purpose of the tip, unless the pay is ridiculously low. These articles are sehr interesting and I cannot ait to read more

Denglisch

For this AMD, I did one of the suggestions and read an article on Wikipedia about Denglisch. Denglsich is a combination of English and Deutsch words. Apparently, a copious amount of Deutsch words are stemmed from the English language. I find this to be very amazing because they are two separate languages with different rules and sentence structures yet they have many similarities. However, I have noticed that some words are just the same as the English counterpart. For example, T- shirt is the same as in English and German. But, the word for shirt is Hemd. That is very weird in my opinion. Another funny thing I noticed is the German word fro cell phone. Das Handy. When I found this out it really made me laugh. To me, handy means something that a person has that is helpful and right when they need it. So, the Germans took the English word for that and turned it into cell phone. The article also stated that Germans incorporate English words into advertisements. This also means that Germans want their employees to say words such as join us to get people into their businesses. I am amazed that I am able to learn a language that is heavily related to the language I am native in.

For this AMD I decided to make myself laugh and watch an episode of the ridiculously crazy show South Park in German. This was fun to me because I was able to slightly understand what the characters were saying. Though they were speaking mighty fast, I still made out some of the words.  Also, I noticed that some of the curse words that they were saying. That really made me laugh. It was very weird how the German voice actors somewhat did not sound like the American voice actors. Stan almost sounded like a grown man. This was a very interesting thing to do and I might do it again.

Kultur 4

Based off what I read Germans are very aggressive. They are not afraid to voice how they feel on certain things. I can really admire how effortlessly they say their opinions or blatantly tell someone to move. However, I also believe that that is slightly rude, but apparently in Germany it is a way of life. For example the bicycle situation is crazy to me. Why not simply say excuse me or pardon me. Why show anger when the person has done nothing to offend anyone. But again that is a way of life for Germans, and I can respect that. From the articles I infer that Germans are huge on organization and precision. To Germans, everything has to be right and there is no room for mistakes. I love the fact that the country is ran like that though. Children are raise to do the right thing, which closes any shortcomings that the child may ever have. I hope to raise my children in a country similar to that one day. 

Youtube in German

For this AMD, I browsed Youtube and only watched German videos. This was sehr spass fur mich because I actually knew some of what the people were saying. It is incredible to learn another language because when it is understood for the most part, a person feels so accomplished, and that is what happened to me. Now, I will admit that german speakers talk really really really fast, but I could pick up the main point that they were trying to convey. Another thing that I did was read some of the comments. Again I felt a breeze of accomplishment over take my body. As i read most of the comments under each video, I understood what the person was trying to say. I feel like German is definitely a fun language to learn, and hopefully I can be fluent and understand everything that people are saying and writing.

Kultur 3

I find these article to be very interesting. The German stereotypes were very crazy and I can see why a German would be offended. The whole drinking casually all of the time is funny, but I would have to visit the country myself to actually believe that a person would drink a bottle of beer any and everywhere that they go. Also, the article said that construction workers will take a quick break to drink beer, and that was really shocking to me. As far as the fast food goes, German cuisine look delicious. Whenever I visit the country, I would probably be in heaven for my duration there. That currwurst and brotwurst all sound great and based off of their description, they most likely are. Something that I am afraid of however are the opinions of the Germans. Where I come from, specifically, Detroit, if someone blatantly said something extremely negative, let's just say that arms will no longer be down by each persons' side. I cannot imagine a world where people just say whatever they think, Which is even more of a reason for me to visit Germany. I love the fact that Germans are going green. It is very admirable of citizens of a country to express their love for mother nature.

A Conversation In German

For this AMD, I decided to speak with a friend that was almost fluent in German. I met him at the university and we talked for as long as we could. It was very interesting to do this because I actually have not been able to hold a conversation in another language before for a long period of time. This was a different experience because  this was also a person that was relatively new to the language, so it was like speaking with a very young German child, that spoke better than me. When we first began, it was very easy. We asked very simple questions and said very common things that beginners German speakers say such as where are you from, your name, I am blank years old. Then he began to ask me questions that were slightly difficult to understand. So I kept asking him to repeat the question or slow down. Now that i look back on it, we really didnt speak any English, the entire time. I was highly impressed with myself for doing that. By the middle of the conversation, he was asking me things that I have heard and learned before, but it was still kind of hard to understand. Those parts consisted of things like what do I do in my freetime or certain things about my family. Through this experiment, I was able to discover that it is very much easier for me to read German than that of listening to it. The end of the conversation was probably the best part. That is because I nearly ended on a perfect note, but I did slip up on one part though.

Brutally Honest

When I first began learning about Germany and its language, I thought that it was a very interesting place that had a lot of things to offer. After I read these few articles, I realized that that is what it actually is. However, there is one thing hindering me from going there and that is the citizens. Do not get me wrong, the articles described the German people as good people, but they are people that do things that I slightly disagree with. I honestly cannot imagine a life where people are staring at me while I am doing my daily actions, or knowing what time I get home. I am glad that I was able to find out this information before I went there. Even though I do not mind the brutal honesty that Germans hold, it is hard for me to be brutally honest back. I cannot imagine saying, “Oh my, your breathe smell horrendous”, or “Well you have a really bad smell today, you should go get clean.” I may be exaggerating, but I am not good with the brutal honesty thing. 

Facebook in German

I decided to read my facebook profile in German. This was an interesting thing to do beacuse some of the words were unknown to me, but i was able to take a confident guess at what they said because I knew what word were there before. It was really easy for me to navigate the because of the information that I already had known. I admired how the Umlauts were still visible and that also helped me with navigating the site. When I changed the profile back to English, I was proud of myself for being able to read most of the web page.

Oktoberfest

I was most interested by the Oktoberfest information. The Oktoberfest really intrigued me because it seems as if one country began a tradition and other countries did there own spin to it. I admire diversity and really admire it when people can share different aspects of their culture. Like the article said, what started off as a celebration of the heritage of Germany, turned into an expression of diversity among culture. (Kade) When different cultures are intertwined with each other it allows people to become more aware of what other people experience and go through. It allows for triumph to a less ignorant world. People will have more exposure to different things and not be able to pass judgement so easily on others. Also as the article mentions, tourism is a good reason for diversity among culture. Tourist are able to be more informed on other countries besides their own and contribute to other cultures and countries with their own take of their knowledge of other countries.