The German language

Ooh, just noticed big mistake above -- I have a comedy Austrian accent in German and a comedy Maryland accent in English. I am a native speaker of English.

Ah!! I was confused for a second. That makes more sense. Wait so how did you wind up with the comedy Austrian accent then?

Been living in comedy Austria with a comedy Austrian wife for a bunch of years.

Ah, makes sense. I have been there! We went skiing in St. Anton and then went to Innsbruck. So so beautiful. I'd like to go back someday.

my recommendation is pretty much always the pimsleur course, although it depends on what level you're brushing up from

it's not free but it can be found for kostenlos on certain websites

so apparently i've completed B1, which means i've reached the standard required for german citizenship. tbh it's not a very high level, but that intensive course this summer, and i'm so much better than i was before the summer.

i have two "tandem partners" now, they are germans i will meet for an hour who want to learn my muttersprache. i think the idea is like 30m in english, 30m auf deutsch.

Does Pimsleur have Our Hero rescuing his cute Turkish girlfriend from evil Neo-Nazis with hilarious results, though?

crucial quesion!

Thanks Caek! I mostly just need practice.

langsam gesprochene nachrichten is good for a daily dase of spoken german if your level is up there, but it's always, always about the crisis in the eurozone for obv reasons, so it can get a bit samey.

slowly spoken news

See, I get it! I mean not that that was difficult but I think my comprehension is good. I guess I could watch some news online. That's a good tip though. Maybe tv shows too! Any good German TV shows I could find online?

bauer sucht frau

The summer I lived in Germany, I bought a bunch of Asterix comics and read those to help improve my reading comprehension, which was good because of the various pun names; I also read a book by the dude who wrote The Neverending Story that I can't remember the name of (maybe Momo?)

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bauer_sucht_Frau

Doku-Soaps!

link to langsam gesprochene nachrichten upthread iirc

DW has lots of lessons. i found them a bit slow for learning, but i think they're useful once you've reached say B1 to kick on with just listening to lots and lots of german at an appropriate level.

http://www.dw.de/learn-german/german-courses/s-2547

Who knew that "Farmer Wants A Wife" was a successful export of British TV?

Huh so the neverending story is german, that kind of explains why some germans love to say say 'neverending story', in english, when something goes on and on.

The movie was also directed by the same guy who did Das Boot.

http://i1326.photobucket.com/albums/u641/Lixenixen/mitt.png

okay lol

learnt some weird german watching the master in OmU

"das Versuchskaninchen"

ha

Did anyone else learn German using suspense thriller audio/books "Gefahrliche Wege" and "Geheime Mission?" I can still remember parts many years later.

fremdschämen

Wait, is Versuchskaninchen rabbit hunt?

ha. almost. der Versuch = attempt/trial

Ah, just looked it up. hahahaha!

what a beautifully literal language

"das Versuchskaninchen"

lol ... no wonder that the German equivalent of "scaredy cat" is "Angsthase"!!

come to think of it -- since the best use that Germans apparently have for rabbits is to use them as Versuchskaninchen and as the main ingredient in Hasenpfeffer, it's only right for Germans to have a LOT of Angst.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_4QlZmS5gO7s/SnptC75rgSI/AAAAAAAAAaE/r3Q3cNE8BM4/s320/Hasenpfeffer05.jpg

German RABBITS, that is.

Fremdschämen is a bullshit word for a bullshit concept, and fuck everyone who uses it.

native german speakers: please tell me "blackbeat" doesn't mean what i think it means

Non-native, but fluent -- it does mean that. "Black Music" gets said without flinching and almost always in English. But German's not alone there (have heard this in Swedish, Dutch, and French as well).

oh je

The expression 'you are what you eat' is much better in German: man ist was man isst

yeah -- it's even better w/t the ess-tset.

you get marked down on language tests if you put a ß in isst.

i miss ß

;_;

ripß

The expression 'you are what you eat' is much better in German: man ist was man isst

― Daniel Giraffe, Monday, March 18, 2013 4:26 PM (1 month ago

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22490560

die Kuh ist über die Fence gejumpt!

"Kopfball"

how's the class going, caek?!?

Abgeschlossen! That was an intensive thing at the Goethe inst last summer. Had a couple of tandem partners this year too. Much improved imho. But I'm moving to the US next month tho. I'm still doing my vocab flashcards but I've given away the text books :(

Don't give up! Deutsche Welle has a ton of stuff here you can use: http://www.dw.de/deutsch-lernen/s-2055
(or http://www.dw.de/learn-german/s-2469), especially the daily Langsam gesprochene Nachtrichten and the various weekly podcasts such as Sprachbar, Alltagsdeutsch, Wort der Woche, Top-Thema. OK, I see a Video-Thema as well, let's see what that is about.

yeah the problem isn't opportunities to hear/read german, but obligations to hear/read and especially speak it when i have to start a new job.

i do like langsam gesprochene nachtrichten tho (linked it upthead i think)

That Texas German report is kind of pathetic -- if there was a Texas German dialect, it's long dead -- what's left is old Texans who kinda remember how their grandparents spoke.

Fwiw I've spoken German in Hill country and been understood.

True the ppl in that report in their 60s were v basic, but that old lady the professor was recording sounded pretty fluent.