no boys allowed in the room!!!!

oh, no more krautrock in the listings, but ESG in May

Oh, I wish you'd come! I was all alone at that gig and I could have done with some company for high-quality krautperving! I would have protected you from London's perniciousness.

Which book is it, is it that Electri_City book? I liked the look of it but my German ist sehr schlecht.

oh, I didn't know about that one! I'll add that to my mental wishlist.

I got "Krautrock" by Henning Dedekind (name is familiar but I haven't yet worked out why), though in the "people also bought..." sidebar there was another one called "Der Klang der Revolt", which looked like a more thorough examination of the cultural background of the time but also much more srs and so even more of a stretch for my German

(when I was last in Germany I bought a cheap book in German, and the shop assistant asked if I'd like a bag and I didn't understand, and I could see her thinking "if you can't answer that, how are you going to read this book?")

Haha this is what google translate is for! I'm not much beyond looking at the pictures. It's astonishing how much German I have picked up from listening to too much Krautrock, but really it's at the "understand opening instructions on Lidl products" stage not the "read an academic musical tome."

I should read more about the cultural background stuff (fascinated by Beuys and the Creamcheese Club and how they affected the music scene in Düsseldorf) but it's maybe more fun to read Wolfgang gossiping some more.

would you be interested in a book about Moebius?

APSC, i've been learning spanish using this app called duolingo (also has a great website if you don't want to use the app). i'm not a linguistics expert so i don't know how legit the teaching style is, but i'm finding it super fun and easy, very straight forward, almost like playing a game? anyway, i highly recommend it!

re periods: i've the mirena IUD for almost 18 months now i think, and my period has lightened, the terrible back pain has ceased, but i still get a very dull full-body feeling and wretched food cravings.

i just indulge myself the food cravings -- it's one day a month, occasionally two. It's usually taco bell or sushi and gelato involving salted caramel chips

^^^ I do the same. For me it isn't so much particular cravings as the compulsion to be eating something--anything--at all times for a day or two. I just go with it because hey why not.

Glad to see I'm not the only one with menstrual cycle related digestive issues. At this point, one of signs that I'm going to get my period soon is lots of farting. Sigh.

Day 2 of my period (when I had one; I still have a cycle so now I just have to guess) I totally have the trots, which my gyn said was a progesterone effect. Her only suggestion was more fiber during that time to, er, bulk things up.

I like duolingo! I was using to brush up on my French. I have to get back to it.

Someone in the Jezebel comments section mentioned eating carrots, so I'm going to try that.

i don't get specific cravings either, just a general craving to stuff my face. mine lasts about a week though - starts a couple days before my period. i've been trying not to indulge for that whole time, but fuuuuck i get so sad if i can't eat piles of food! i'm heading towards type 2 diabetes if i don't cut this shit out!

I've not had one in about 2 years. Baby + mini pill now

My chin has suddenly become spotty and I'm blaming Mirena, even though it didn't start happening till a couple of months after I got it.

I was having issues with closed comedones but using a BHA toner in the morning and an AHA cream at night has gotten rid of most of them.

belatedly: yes I would read and probably buy a book about Moebius, in English or German! is there such a thing? might there be such a thing?

I keep starting Duolingo and keeping up with all the things for about 3 days and then forgetting it exists for 6 months again. I have a few reservations (the robot voices make me think "is this actual good natural pronunciation I'm learning here?") but it's p. cool whenever I do remember it exists

Wait, I can learn German FROM ROBOTS?!?! Sign me up! (Always wondered how speech synthesis worked with accents - but so much of the pioneering research on speech synthesis was done by Germans I imagine they've got to be quite good by now.)

Turns out that Electri_City book is being published in English in August. That was what the show last night was promoting; and then a half hour presentation from the Düsseldorf tourist board about the music and arts scenes in Düsseldorf and how we should all visit. I'm not even joking.

Yeah, who would be doing the Moebius book? That sounds like a Geeta project? Hell, I would pay money to read a good full-length book on the Düsseldorf/Forst crew by Geeta, including what Roedelius fed his cats for breakfast. Heck, if she could get a comprehensive interview with Herr Schneider, I'd even throw a couple of thousand pounds towards her Kickstarter or whatever. (I bet Claudia S-E has some GREAT stories but no one ever interviews her!)

Speaking of the women of Germany, I'd like to know more about Dorothea Raukes, who released an amazing album as Deutsche Wertarbeit. Have never actually heard the other band she was in (Streetmark), dunno if they're also worthwhile?

That album is so good!! I did not know it was made by a woman! Hi 5 musical women of Germany.

Yeah, who would be doing the Moebius book? That sounds like a Geeta project?

not long before he died, he told her (she wasn't sure if he was joking) that she should write a book about him. It's something she is considering.

OK I've been thinking about this all morning, and here is the thing: I do not want to read another Krautrock book that is all about dudes. Yes, I know, the musicians in that scene, it was such a sausage party. But the musicians in that scene were not the only people IN that scene. Obviously I have a dog in this fight because I've been researching and trying to write *shudders* fan fiction about that music scene, and it is next to impossible to find information about the women that were involved, behind these tantalising clues that they even exist! I want to know Claudia's side of the story on Roedelius. I want to know about her and Florian's other sister, Tina, who I discovered only recently, did a lot of design for La Düsseldorf, including their logo. I want to know about Claudia and Tina's school friend Anita who dated Klaus Dinger, is the woman's voice all over the first NEU! albums. I want to know about Ann Weiss, who turned Michael Rother on to the Velvet Underground and changed his guitar style forever - oh, and also took most of the photos of NEU! and Harmonia. And speaking of photographers, I want to know about Barbara Niemöller who took most of the photos on early Kraftwerk albums (which often get misattributed to Emil Schult - always wondered how Emil was supposed to have taken the back cover photo of Autobahn when he is in the photo, albeit with Wolfgang's head pasted over the top - answer is, he didn't; Niemöller did.) In Geeta's interview with Rebecca Allen, she jokes that she was the first woman in Klingklang because Florian told her they didn't even let their girlfriends in the place. In which case, how the hell did Niemöller take album cover photos of a studio she wasn't allowed inside? There were all these women in that scene that I know nothing of but their names and vague credits about being photographer or designer, and no more, because in the official story, they're just down as "girlfriend" or "muse".

But hey, that's just my hobby horse about how women get written out of scenes because their roles aren't considered important. And that's the Krautrock book *I* would really like to read, but no one ever writes.

I am absolutely with you, would love to see something that reveals the female input into the scene. Also could include artists/musicians who were working contemporaneously but didn't get pigeonholed into "Krautrock", eg the awesome and fascinating collab between Inga Rumpf and Dagmar Krause, or what brought Dolly Holmes to Germany and thus to Emtidi's folk-kraut hybrid....

seriously.
what about djong yun? last i heard she was alive and living in pyongyang.
and renate knaup was super cool but you're right that there were surely a lot more women around. i would like to hear more about them too.
also this gives me fuel to continue mentally assembling my fantasy supergroup CANNES (haha)

Argh, this is going to turn into one of those things I get so fired up about I start thinking "I could do it", and then a week later all the reasons why I can't will hit me. Like, hi, biography of Jun Togawa except oh yeah I can't speak or read a word of Japanese. ;_;

i messaged LL with more details.

i'm majorly creeped out by his posts, and i honestly think ppl should just not engage him at all, if not outright ban him. it's not like he actually takes in anything anyone else posts, anyway.

it's funny, i instantly knew who you were referring to, bc it's been bothering me so much as well.

Justine could you the same me, please.

fb messaged you, sunny

Ja, so! Ich lerne Deutsch! I've been doing Duolingo for a week and I swear I'm getting worse. It bothers me that they do no theory at all, they just bark things at you and expect you to pick it up without knowing what the patterns are!!! (I had to go and look it up on a theory-based website what the deal is with the accusative! Because they did not explain it at all.)

But haha I just had to press the turtle for the first time and mein gott, I have NEVER heard a German robot sound so disdainful! "Iiiiiihhhr sssseeeeiiiiit Määääänner!" OK OK I'm just a learner there's no reason to get so snooty with me! Haha!

I've been using it for a while for French, and just recently starting using it for Spanish, too. I agree totally, coming at it from a background of learning language from the skeleton out, so to speak. It feels wrong. But! It does encourage me to practice a little daily, which seems key, and after using it for a while I did start to notice increased facility with the language in a unconscious way (like the right verb form just coming to mind, though I didn't really consciously understand the concept of forming it, and the right vocab springing to mind). I'm not sure how helpful or effective it is in the long term.

There's a lot to be said for just sheer repetition! Like honestly the only reason I'm fluent with the (intensely irregular) verb to be is because I have heard Ralf Hütter sing "Ich bin der Muzikant" and "Sie ist ein Model" and "Wir sind die Roboter" a million billion times. I do like over 100 points of practice a day, and I do have to say that it is getting into my head through blunt force repetition, like Interpol. But once we seriously get into tenses and cases, I know I am going to need to back that up with theory.

I JUST WANT THE THEORY, MANN. I LOVE LINGUISTIC THEORY!!!

You guys this is my main topic of academic and personal study! I'd love to talk about it but typing isn't going to work. Repetition is immeasurably valuable when it comes to learning a skill, and language learning is a skill. Imo.

I think that's exactly why I like duolingo- you just learn sort of intuitively, almost like a child or like immersion. I find myself figuring stuff out on my own, and I think that helps me remember a lot better

Well. Because I took a year of German at college level, I remember the basic understanding that German has 3 grammatical genders and a metric shit-ton of cases that are mainly expressed in the article. If I didn't remember that, I would be ütterly lost! (Stop adding umlauts to things, iPhone, I'm speaking English now!)

Aren't there studies that show that intuitive language acquisition stops at a certain age, and after that, it's a skill that needs to be learned? Did we discuss that on another thread?

And also I wonder what part neurodiversity plays in this. (I had delayed language acquisition in my first language, which is very Aspergers.) Even when I was in single digits, I remember being taught French in the "repeat things at children until the pick it up" fashion and it was a nightmare, I just couldn't pick it up, though other kids seemed fine. But at the same time, Latin, which was taught in a "charts and tables and grammar and theory" style, I absorbed like a sponge. People are different so no one single teaching style is going to work for all.

Is there an ILX leaderboard on Duolingo, or will that not work if we're all learning different languages?

I talk German with German friends on Tumblr, but they're all 30, 40 years ahead of me, ha!

That why I specified that it works for me. Formal learning of Japanese got me nowhere. I don't intend to write any academic texts in Spanish but I would like to be able to hold an adult conversation in it, since it's heavily spoken in California.

One thing it's not teaching me is the accent - I can hear it but I can't make my tongue do it. Actually sometimes I can't hear it - sometimes I can't tell if the b is being said like a b, v or w.

Yeah, sure! I wasn't contradicting you, I was just wondering if that might be a reason why some styles work for some people!

Accents are so difficult to reproduce. The only thing I've found helpful is videos where native speakers physically show you the position your mouth / lips / tongue have to be in. It's weird, I'm fine with Ö but Ü is a struggle. My German friend sent me soundfiles of her saying "Flür! Hütter! Düsseldorf!" and I could hear the difference but couldn't make my mouth do it. Then I watched a video where a guy explained (with a close-up) of how you put your lips further forward for Ü. I feel stupid doing it, but the sound is much more like what Germans do.

"Ch" I am never not going to do like a Cornish "gh" so I give up.

I'm sure there are videos of mouth placement for that weird Spanish B / V thing? I feel stupid doing these exaggerated mouth poses, but until I get the sound, I guess it works? Just do it alone in the bathroom where no one can see you making faces in the mirror!

I think the critical period for native language learning is up until about 6 years old iirc.
I find it really hard to learn European languages just from hearing as I need to see it written down for it to go in my memory (I am often poor at determining what people are saying/lyrics though). The few words of Japanese I know that wouldn't work for so I feel like a young kid trying to learn it just from hearing.

La Lech is obviously not only trained but also an active teacher of language so I defer to her, but from my training in TEFL I have to say that 'natural' language use is very much emphasised, and has proven to be most effective for most people. I guess one thing that is different in TEFL is that it is immersion teaching, so trying to explain rules of English in English to people who can't speak English is futile, you have to *show* the rules through practice, whereas an app could do explanation in a student's first language if it wanted to. Different styles of learning is definitely a thing, though - my own (learning not teaching) preference is to concentrate on reading and writing before even attempting to broach speaking and listening, which is not how most people learn best, but it's what I'm more comfortable with.

I'm very tired and probably not expressing myself well, which is doubly ironic for both an English grad and TEFL-qualified person. Oh well.

Also, now I have a smartphone I might actually join you in German Duolingo-ing, Branwell. Would be nice to remember more than just "verschwende deine jugend".

Accents are so difficult to reproduce. The only thing I've found helpful is videos where native speakers physically show you the position your mouth / lips / tongue have to be in. It's weird, I'm fine with Ö but Ü is a struggle. My German friend sent me soundfiles of her saying "Flür! Hütter! Düsseldorf!" and I could hear the difference but couldn't make my mouth do it. Then I watched a video where a guy explained (with a close-up) of how you put your lips further forward for Ü. I feel stupid doing it, but the sound is much more like what Germans do.

Also I've done this with one-on-one teaching and it definitely feels silly but is very very useful, and also is quite fun if you're comfortable in the student-teacher partnership.

I am MasonicBoo on there if you want to add me, Emil.y? (I haven't quite worked out the social bit of adding people to a class or a board or whatever.)

((Please don't laugh at how bad my German sucks!!!))

I will have to actually d/l the app first but when I do I will add you! (Also my German will be terrible too, I got an A at it for GCSE but have literally never used it after that.)

I loooove teaching pronunciation because it's light/goofy and physical rather than mental. People have a lot of hang ups/misconceptions/anxiety about lg learning. I enjoy helping them move past it and learn to express themselves effectively. This is why I believe well-trained language teachers have a necessary role in the world.

There's my professional mission statement lol

Last night I was chatting with a guy at a show who is a lapsed drummer. We were having a nice convo, talking about music etc and I asked him a ton of questions about why he stopped playing. Eventually he told me he sat down recently to try to play, couldn't do what he wanted to do, and gave up pissily. I smiled and was like "what it sounds like is you reacted like a baby". He paused and eventually was like "yeah you're right." His frustration was legitimate and expected but his reaction was self-defeating. We loled after that. I felt like I was at work, but not in a bad way.

Sounds like me and whenever I try to write. "WHY AM I NOT JAMES JOYCE ALREADY? EVERYTHING I DO IS TERRIBLE SO WHY BOTHER?"

Uh, you're not Joyce yet because Joyce spent fucking ages on his work and you don't.

For the record so no one thinks I'm a monster I don't ever tell my students they're acting like babies -- I just meant having that convo about what prevents us from persevering reminded me of being at work.

Emil.y yes, exactly. <3

I have fond memories of my GCSE French teacher pulling ridiculous faces and making us all say "pneu" and a few other words in the most exaggerated manner possible, would be all for someone teaching me the secrets of umlauts this way

(I am not very good at hearing the difference, still worse at saying the difference, and Düsseldorf in particular is one word where I swear the difference I usually listen for isn't even there, dunno if that's a peculiarity of that word or if the difference I think I'm hearing isn't even the right one)

anyway everyone please learn German and post lots of fun thoughts and links on ILX's The German language thread

I love that Deutsche Wertarbeit album! Would love to know more about her, hear anything else she did, read a less dude-focussed book, read anything Geeta writes on the subject, etc...