German Visit

Last Thursday(Sept. 16), we had German visitors in our class. I think their names were Alex, Patrick and Yan, not that sure, but they were really nice. It's awkward to speak, because we might commit mistakes and of course they'll notice. But they don't laugh whenever we commit mistakes, and they even corrected us and tell us the right word to use. I even talked to one of them and he told me that what I've written on my "fake" business card was wrong. Well it was really wrong, and he told me a lot of things about it. They were willing to teach us about their language, and I hope they will come again to our class. I find them cute too, so I BADLY WANTED TO VISIT GERMANY.haha :)

Frau Roorkie Ong :)

When our professor, Frau Arroyo, went to Germany for a two week course in Goethe Institute(not sure about the spelling), we had a substitute professor. I'm afraid of her at first because I know she's really fluent in speaking German. She's been in Germany a lot of times, and she even know how to speak other languages. So I'm afraid to speak in class(we all are). But a day or two of being with her, I started to like her. She's great and she's really an energizer. Her style of teaching encourages us, coz she's giving everyone a chance to speak. I think she memorized all our names in just two or three days. She even said that she like our class because we like to take notes. I think her style of writing German words in the blackboard helped us in our recalling of genders, or as she calls it "The Almighty Gender". I learned a lot from her and I'll always remember her. She said that she'll miss our class, and we do miss her too :) it was a great experience with her.

Moving forward: German 11

Now that we're over in our German 10, I'm looking forward to German 11. I expect harder and more complicated topics. I need to recall all that we had discussed in German 10, for these will be my tools to learn German 11 topics. It's like moving from one grade to another, a higher step into a better understanding of German as a language. It will be more challenging, but fun. I expect more laughs shared in the class because of mistakes. We'll all commit mistakes and learn. I expect more articles to read, conversations to listen, and movies to watch(and I mean feel-good movies, I honestly don't like the holocaust, it's too heavy for me). This will be the last part of our course, and I'm so excited for it.

Viel Glück!

Self-Assesment: German 10

Just had our finals in German 10 yesterday. Can't imagine we're over in the first part of our course in German. Looking back, I think I've learned a lot. I can now converse using simple sentences, I can answer to certain questions and give directions. Now I'll never be lost in Germany, haha! I'm slowly being used to their numbers, unlike before that I still need to translate the number in English. When it comes to the gender of nouns, I think I'm slowly getting it too. I memorized the nouns with their corresponding gender and I practiced saying the nouns with their gender, their inseparable, haha :) About the articles, I also memorized it. Well memorizing, i think, is my way and it helps me a lot if I memorized the words. My weakness is still in listening. I think I need more practice. At first I really can't understand even a word, but now I'm recognizing phrases, and sometimes I even understand a whole sentence. It's not about understanding every word, but it's to recognize some words and derive the meaning or gist of the whole sentence from this words.

German 10 taught us the basic, how to construct sentences, positioning of verbs, asking directions and questions. My favorite topic is describing our houses, not to mention the drawing part. I find it fun to play with the adjectives. German 10 taught me to study everyday, because if I fail to look back on what we've discussed that day, I'll also fail to move on to the next topic. Every topic we tackle is a part of the new topics we're going to have. I'm looking forward to German 11 because I know my knowledge about the German language will be broader in that part. :)

Goodbye Lennie

I know it's super late to write a review about this movie, but I'm writing anyway. The story occurred when Germany was divided into two: the West and East Germany. The two countries were separated by a wall, called the Berlin Wall. East Germany was a socialist republic, while the West was more of a democratic country. That's why a lot of East Germans wanted to go to the West.

The story focused on one family, a family living in East Germany. Their father moved to the West, hoping that they will follow, but the mother didn't. In turn, the mother became so dedicated to their country. The climax of the story was when the mother had a coma, and was asleep for eight months. In that eight months, a lot changed. The Berlin Wall was gone, indicating the unity between the East and West Germany. When the mother woke up, her son became scared that the mother will have another heart attack(which may cause her death) if she'll know what happened to their country. So he (together with his sister, his girlfriend, his sister's boyfriend and her mother's colleagues) worked hard to keep their mother from knowing the truth. But still at the end, the mother knew about the truth(told by the son's girlfriend), without the son knowing it. He's happy that his mother died without knowing that East Germany was already in unity with the west.

The main reason that we watched the movie is for us to understand the words spoken and also to know a little about the history of Germany. I must admit I understood the movie by reading the subtitle, but I also recognized a few words and maybe that's good enough ;) Looking forward to another good German movie (again, with a handsome lead actor) :)

June 16, 2010

I'm always curious about what happened during the time of the Holocaust in World War II. I had watched some documentaries and read a lot of online posts about this topic. My engagement on this topic came back after our discussion today. I don't remember how we came to this topic, but Frau Arroyo told us about this "National Guilt" the Germans had about this issue. Due to this National Guilt, Germans became less nationalistic and they were not proud of their country. They don't even sing their national anthem. Well this issue had seriously affected the Germans. I knew that what happened was a great horror, I can't even imagine that it really happened, that people do actually experienced those things. But it was a long time ago, and the Germans living today don't have anything to do with what happened in the past. But again, I can't blame them from being guilty of what happened. It's just sad that the guilt they had affected their attitude towards their country. Being a Filipino, I was raised to be proud of my country, so I really don't know why they were not proud of being a citizen of the country they were born into.

It's just now that I realized how serious Germans take this issue. I promise not to joke about this, or even to mention it in front of a German. It's something I don't know, something I don't want to know further.

Zahlen

I'm a bit nervous for our math quiz bee this coming Wednesday. I'm used to joining a math quiz bee, but this time it's different. It's a German math quiz bee! German numbers were quite hard because they are so loooong, like when you say 121 in English, it's one hundred twenty one, but in German it's einhunderteinundzwanzig, quite long right? I easily memorized the numbers, but it's recognizing them when it is already being said is the hard part for me. Zwei(2) and Drei(3) were confusing for I could not distinguish the difference when it is already being said. It's better to use Zwo for 2. Well, I think I find it hard because I still need to translate the words in English so I will be able to understand it. I'm still looking for a better way to understand the numbers.

Eins, Zwei, Drei, Vier, Fünf, Sechs, Sieben, Acht, Neun, Zehn!