“Open Mic”
***
Hallo ihr alle,
und willkommen zu Tag 4 vom Deutsch-Lern-Adventkalender.
And today, it’s time to break a tradition. Out with the old, in with the new – Let’s goooo!
Ready? Today, we’ll have:
No Community Poll
OMG, yeah!!
Polls suck!
The future has arrived!
Seriously though, one of the Advent Calendar traditions has been that I do one day where I ask you a bunch of questions about you and your German learning and how you use the site. The goal was for everyone to get a bit of an idea of the community here, and for me to “gather some data” about how you’re all using my site and what you like best and least.
However, already last year, I felt kind of bored while trying to think up new questions.
And so this year, I have decided to ditch the polls all together and instead just make this a sort of “open mic” setting in the comments.
So I’m inviting YOU to tell us a bit about you. Stuff like:
- Who are you?
- Where are you from?
- Why are you learning German?
- How long have you been learning?
- What do you see when you look out the window?
- What’s your favorite animal?
- How was the year for you?
Or anything, really.
Like… you don’t have to answer these questions, they’re just meant as examples.
If you feel like telling the other readers a bit about yourself, that’s awesome.
You can do it in English or German, or a mix.
And you can even make something up. I mean, it’s a sport these days, anyways, and it’s a really useful skill if you want to… I don’t know.. get on podcasts.
Oh and also, please let me know if you have any feedback regarding the site. Like… are there any features you’d like and what are things you don’t like? And do you have any topic ideas? All your feedback is welcome.
So yeah… I’m really looking forward to your comments, have a great day y’all und bis morgen!!!
Audio Speed
Dark Mode
I’m Bob Johnson, 67 year old life long resident of Lexington, KY, USA. Retired and learning German for a few reasons:
1) Took two years of language in high school but never gained any meaningful fluency, so “unfinished business”
2) Keep my mind challenged, hoping to stave off cognitive decline as I age
3) Inspired by my former European colleagues who were fluent in 3 or 4 languages
Two years in high school, now let’s do two decades in retirement :)!
Will you promise to be just as entertaining with your instruction for two decades? :-) I do plan to stick around, though. You make it worth the time and effort.
My name is Abby, I’m from Buffalo, NY – USA. I’m 42 and started teaching myself German about 3-4 years ago. Ever since I was quite young I had a thirst for all things German.
there was once a huge German influence in my area. My family was one of those families that helped to shape our city. They came to Buffalo from Nalbach, Germany in the 1850’s.
Anyway, by the time it was my time to learn a 2nd language in school, German was no longer taught. I periodically searched for local German classes offered in the area, as I learn the best with lots of structure and drills. Unfortunately I was left to my own devices. Somehow I have taught myself how to read German at an upper intermediate level and I do pretty well with listening comprehension as well. Speaking and writing.. not so much. I’m too self-conscious to practice speaking with a native on-line. I’ll have to get over that some day. I spend on average an hour or so daily engaging with German content to continue my learning.
I love “your daily German” as it will take a deep dive into various topics that no other website does – and with good humor thrown in too. Much appreciate your hard work
Thanks a lot and Glückwunsch zum Erfolgreichen Selbstlernen! Das ist nicht einfach und du hast es geschafft.
Außerdem Respekt, dass du so regelmäßig dran arbeitest.
This may be a question for a future Advent Calendar unless you’ve already written about it . What is the favourite Christmas dish in Germany? I ask because my father grew up with a Swiss German father and a German mother ; Oma never allowed Opa to speak German in the household because she didn’t want her kids to hear that low class Deutsch spoken in her house, but that’s another story. We inherited their recipe for Christmas goose, which in my opinion is a gift from the gods. Yet I’ve yet to meet anyone here in the US who’s ever tried it. Turkey, ham, steak, sure. But no goose. What do you have over there?
I’m really bad with these traditions so I’d just regurgitate whatever ChatGPT or Google have to offer me on the topic. So it’s not really one I should write about, I feel like, because I don’t know anything about it other than that you’re supposed to fast before and very few people do.
We do have a Weihnachtsgans-concept going on though. Definitely not a turkey.
Hallo Emanuel! Ich heiße Erin. Ich lebe in den USA. Ich lerne Deutsch weil mein Mann aus Deutschland kommt. Ich habe 2015 angefangen, Deutsch auf YouTube zu lernen. Ich habe einen Blick auf den Sunnenaufgang vom meinen Fenster auf. Ich habe ein Sohn und drei Haustiere. Ein Hund und zwei Katzen. Das Leben ist gut!
Hi, I’m Elizabeth from the USA, I’ve been following this blog since 2017. I usually submit a comment or two every Adventkalender. I’ve always been fascinated by languages, and back in the 2000’s I did three years of Rosetta Stone German in high school (I was homeschooled) because I thought it might come in handy since my cousins were half Swiss. Joke was on me because not only did they only want to speak English when they were around us, they spoke Swiss German natively and “high German” was only for school in their minds. Rosetta Stone taught certain things very thoroughly, but I was completely helpless when it came to forming my own sentences. In 2013 I decided it was time to learn Spanish, and I dove into that with a passion. I had many more opportunities to practice with real live people and I could say nearly anything I wanted to say after 18 months. I had learned how to learn. In 2017, I redirected these skills for learning German. My younger sister was in community college and asked if I wanted to enroll in her German class. I did, as well as our dad (lifelong learning is a big thing in our family). We had a lot of fun in that class, but I honestly learned more from my own research than from the teacher. That was about when I found Emanuel’s blog. Life has gotten busier since then, and I haven’t been putting a ton of energy into improving my language skills (I’m a mom of two) but I still like to read an article every once in a while for entertainment and to reconnect with my passion for languages. I love the Adventkalender.
PS : normally I would challenge myself to write in German but my youngest baby was only born a few weeks ago so I’m pulling the “just-gave-birth card” and defaulting to English. :)
Ohhhh, Glückwunsch zum Nachwuchs :)!!!
Hallo Emanuel! This is a nice opportunity for me to thank you for your website ; your quirkiness, your jokes,even your dip into politics,your amazing insights! They all make my learning so much fun. I won’t be writing in Gerrman,even though I’ve been at it for some parts of the past two years. You have already written to me that I should learn at my own pace, and that’s what i’m trying to do! I was introduced to your wonderful language when I was about 6 years old, when a German baker and his wife moved across from our house; the fellow had converted his garage into a working bakery, and the most amazing smells emanated from their place. I come from a family of 6 children and we would sit all in a row on the sidewalk across from his garage. There were times when he would wisper”Kommen Sie,schnell”!! We didn’t have to be told twice(even if we didn’t understand a word)..and he would give us little kaiser breads that were oh, so good!! His wife would sometimes come out and be mad at him for giving bread to such a large brood of kids! I am a full fledge Québécoise; I’ve learned English mostly by myself, but unfortunately, I’m a bit older to learn German as fast, but I’m still enthusiastic about it! I,ve never travelled to Europe, I’m just now in the process of obtaining my passport and hopefully travel to ”Les vieux pays”, like the old folks here would say when they were going to Europe! On day 12 of your Advent calendar, you talk to us about Raufasertapete, which a lot of German apartments have. We had something like this in the ’70’s in Québec; it was called Stucco and let me tell you,it wasn’t as nice as the stuff you have! And so hard to take off! I’m still trying to learn German by watching German movies with German subttitles; I think that I must be retaining some of it, I’ve even dreamed in German! Christmas is just around the corner, and it’s always been my favorite time of the year! Thank you so much for everything,I hope my letter wasn’t too long and boring (my kids always tell me that I write too long). Have a great day!
I could smell the bakery for a split second there :). It’s such an amazing smell and so rare nowadays.
Hi Emanuel, I’m lucky then that we have 3 bakeries in our neighborhood; they’re also always very busy! Guten Tag!
We have a lot of “bakeries” but they just “aufbacken” frozen prebaked stuff. I call them “Aufbäcker” :)
Ich bin Walt und ich komme aus Texas.
Ich lerne Deutsch, weil meine Familie vor vielen Jahren aus Deutschland kam. Ich auch finde der deutsch Sprache serh interressant und lustig. Ich vergleiche gerne englische und deutsche Wörter, um ihrem Konnektieren zu finden. Ich habe immer eine andere Sprache zu wissen.
Ich habe seit vier Jahren deutsch gelernen. Ich fange ein paar Mal an, aber nicht so ernsthaft. Ich benutze meistens Duolingo aber habe ich auch ein bisschen Bucher, Webseite, und andere Media probieren. Ich denke dass ich besser am Lesen als Sprechen sein so weit. Ich weiß mein Grammatik immer noch schlecht ist! Ich sollte viel mehr zu lesen!
Wenn ich sieht das Fenster aus, sehe ich meinem hinterhof. Gibt es Gras, ein Shed, ein Basketball Tor, und anderen Dinge. Der Himmel ist blau und meistens wolklich.
Mein lieblingstier is villeicht das Pferd. Das Mascot von meinem schule war der Mustang. Ich finde sie sehr schon und stark tiere sind. Ich auch gewach auf ein Bauern Gegend.
Mein Jahr hat meistens gut sein. Ich habe mehr über Deutsch gelernt, hat Spas mit meinem Familie machen, und habe viel Bier getrunken!
Vielen Dank für Ihre harte Arbeit. Ich hoffe mehr von Ihnen zu lernen nächstes Jahr!
P.S. Ich habe neulich das Spiel ‘Deutsche Präfixverben’ per Post bekommen!
P.S.S. Forgive my mistakes
This is the PERFECT text to learn from. There are so many of the typical mistakes in it that English speakers tend to make when they start writing naturally in German :).
This is not meant as a dig. What I mean is that you can use this text, analyze it, and understand the mistakes and then your writing will be 70% better forever.
Ich glaube, du kannst die Hälfte der Probleme selber finden, wenn du ihn in Ruhe liest. Und ich meine nicht Fehler mit Fällen oder Artikeln. Die sind egal. Ich meine Verbformen und Satzstrukturen.
Ich habe gerade nicht so viel Zeit, aber vielleicht könnte ich ihn nächstes Jahr für einen Artikel “Let’s read and correct” verwenden. Was denkst du?
Perfekt!
Awesome, I’ll do it then :)
I can’t promise that I will remember to notify you here in this comment thread, but if you’re getting the newsletter, you’ll not miss it .
Wundebar!
Hallo! Ich bin Sarah Rose und ich wohne in Deutschland aber ich komme aus Amerika. Ich habe zehn Kinder und meine fünf jüngsten sind in deutsche Schule und ich lerne ihnen mit. Ich liebe Deutsch zu lernen. Ich will mit meiner Nachbarn besser reden. Dies ist meine Lieblingswebsite und ich bin sehr dankbar für Emanuels Arbeit!
Hi! My name is Unique and I’m from the US but I’m currently in Germany as an exchange student for a year. Ich habe nur ein paar Monate deutsch gelernt, aber meine Gastfamilie sagen, dass ich sehr schnell deutch lerne, aber ich will gerne mehr deutch lernen und üben. I just really wanna be conversational and be able to like. communicate in my classes here in germany.
I stumbled onto this page on my little “finding german teaching websites” rabbitholes and i fell in love with it. I’ve been doing this other website for grammar learning but it doesn’t always give good explanations and the examples are a bit funky at times.
I havent gotten a membership yet because Im an exchange student, but I WILL BE GETTING IT RAHHHHH I love how silly your explanations are and honestly that’s exactly what I needed for german explanations :)) thank you so much for what you do.
Best name ever :)!!
Hallo, ich komme aus New Jersey. Ich interessiere mich im Allgemein für Sprachen und habe vor vielleicht zehn Jahren angefangen, zum Spaß Deutsch zu lernen. Aber ich lerne ernsthaft nur seit ein paar Jahren. Deutsch ist die einzige Fremdsprache, die ich sehr gut kann, weil ich es am schönsten und am lustigsten finde. Ich habe schon viele deutsche Freunde, die ich im Urlaub kennengelernt habe.
Und vor einem Jahr habe ich mich in einen Deutschen verliebt- das hat mir sehr geholfen und motiviert. Er spricht mit mir, als ob ich Muttersprachlerin wäre, was schwierig aber hilfreich ist. Ich möchte in den nächsten Jahren zu ihm nach Bayern (in der Nähe von München) ziehen. Das wird eine Herausforderung, aber ich freue mich schon auf das Abenteuer.
Wow, extrem gut geschrieben!! C1!
– Aber ich lerne ernsthaft nur seit ein paar Jahren.
– Aber ernsthaft lerne ich ERST seit ein paar Jahren.
You need erst, not nur. And I moved things around to have the main message at the end (where it should be).
– “und am lustigsten finde.”
No mistake, but… do you mean you find it “funny”? Because that’s what this means.
– das hat mir sehr geholfen und motiviert.
– das hat mir sehr geholfen und mich motiviert.
Very interesting mistake. You have a self referecne for both verbs, so skipping one makes sense, BUT… they’re in different cases, so you actually can’t skip. “Role” has to be the same to be skipped. It doesn’t sound super bad the way you did it, and many German won’t be able to tell what irks them about it.
Ich glaube, du wirst absolut keine Probleme hier haben, dich zu unterhalten. LIest du dir selber ab und zu mal was vor?
Vielen Dank. Diese Fehler hätte ich selbst erkennen sollen…
Und ja, ich finde Deutsch lustig, den Klang und die wörtlichen Komposita. Wenn es mir nicht so viel Spaß machen würde, dann hätte ich nicht so gut gelernt :D Ich hoffe, das ist nicht unhöflich zu sagen!
For the ernsthaft sentence, I meant to say, at first I was learning casually/for fun and then I started taking it seriously and working harder. Is ernsthaft right for that?
I’m Steve from Southern England. I’m 70 now, still working as a software engineer with not enough money to retire anytime soon. My wife and I are foster carers of young children mainly babies. We’ve been fostering as long as I’ve been learning German which is ten years. In that time we’ve fostered around twenty or so new born babies. It’s rewarding but stressful and extremely painful to let them go.
I’ve been with Emanuel from the very beginning. I enjoy learning German and this site is one of my top resources. I’m unable to spend as much time as would like learning and often find that after a busy day it’s impossible to concentrate on anything. I suppose I’m at B1/B2 level now and can read most articles if they’re for learners and follow most German films and TV shows.
I was a subscriber to the Easy German YouTube channel for many years along with the Slow German podcast. I had to save some money anticipating that I may not be able to work for many more years.
I love Emanuel’s slightly subversive sense of humour and his obvious progressive politics (unless I’m sadly mistaken). His view of the world seems to dovetail with mine and hopefully next year I can get my pathetic article stats up.
I’m very much looking forward to reading all the other pen portraits but like everything in life where do we get the time.
Happy holidays everyone.
Steve
Wow, the first paragraph is really inspiring to me! I want to be at this level of being active and engaged once I’m your age.
If you can follow German movies, you must be fairly good at least in the “receiving portion” of language. German movies usually have really bad audio mixing, and the actors cannot talk properly, so sometimes, I have a hard time with all their stop and go mumbling and the super loud ambience noises.
Also nice that you picked up on the subersive streak. When I started, I wanted to have some spirit of the early forum internet, youtube and Reddit alive on my page.
And yes, I think I am progressive, politically. But I can come across as neo-liberal sometimes and even libertarian sometimes and then socialist some other times. It depends on the specific issue :). I think I’m pretty centrist overall. I do like the pressure a growth oriented free market society produces. I think it’s natural and we humans need it. Some more, some less. I do.
But it has to be ballanced and managed and be given boundaries by “we, the people”. I do not want to live in a dog eat dog world :).
Re: German movies, I just passed a B2 exam with flying colors including 90% in listening, but I still can’t follow most movies or TV shows without subtitles. Narration, podcasts, audiobooks, etc. I can usually understand everything without subtitles because it is usually clearly spoken, but natural-sounding conversations are hard. This is very frustrating when my main goal is to be able to engage in conversations like a native speaker! And when I do I often have to ask people to repeat themselves or slow down a bit, which really bugs me. And strong accents, dialect, and slang are pretty much a no-go for me so far!
Like I said… German actors cannot talk and the audio mixing paradigm we use is AWFUL.
How’s it with dubbed movies? Any difference to those originally shot in German?
Hm that’s an interesting question. The only thing I have really watched dubbed in German is a couple of bad Netflix reality shows, haha. I understood them, but I assumed it was just because the dialogue was so stupid.
I also watched a couple of Big Bang Theory episodes in German after I already knew them well in English. The regular conversation I understood, but when they started talking really fast about science they lost me. But that happens with the English version sometimes too, haha.
I’m am electrical engineer living in Minnesota. All of my grandparents were born in the USA but the majority of my great-grandparents were not. Both sides of my family originated in German speaking regions (the Banat and the Black Sea region, around Odessa). My grandparents spoke German as children but by the time I was around they had mostly forgotten it.
I decided about 25 years ago that I would attempt to learn German. I’m very self-paced and it goes relatively slowly, but it’s okay because I have no intention of ever being “done.” Today I would say I’m at about B1 level trying to get to B2, but there may be some gaps here and there. I like using your site frequently to understand why I might use one word instead of another. I could give you many examples of times when I thought, “I wonder if Manny might have an article on that?” Like why use rennen, joggen, or laufen.
Thanks for all you do. I mostly lurk here, but I find this site useful and helpful, and I’m always glad to renew for another year.
Freut mich sehr :).
Ich komme ursprünglich aus Kalamazoo Michigan, aber ich habe in viele Orte gewohnt, von Washington, D.C. zu Minnesota, Nebraska, und San Francisco. Ich wohne jetzt in Milton, Georgia, ein wenig nördlich von Atlanta, am Fuß des Appalachen Vorgebirges. Ich bin 65-Jahre alt, das Alter des Ruhestandes, wie so viele andere in diesem Kommentarbereich. Das macht Spaß zu sehen, jedenfalls fur mich.
Ich habe Deutsch seit zwei Jahre gelernt, aber ich lese besser als ich höre, und ich höre besser als ich spreche. Ich habe auch ein bisschen französische Sprache, und ich mag beide Sprachen. Und jetzt auf English …
I had a year of college German, which I enjoyed but was then a bit too much, and two years of high school French. I enjoy the history of languages and all their quirks, and the better sense of a country’s culture one can pick up from learning a language and visiting with native speakers, and of course visiting the countries that speak the language. I get a big kick out of finally picking up phrases and sentences as I hear them. I also want to keep my brain active in retirement. I chose to work harder on German first because my two daughters have French, and one is fluent, so it will be easier to get their help to pick that up. I have two German language partners, I listen to the Deutsche Welle slow news, enjoy the Easy German podcasts, and especially this YDG site, as it really helps me understand actual usage, has the great sense of humor and the delightful etymologies. I can also practice listening by blurring both German and English. I am far less disciplined than this description makes it sound, and I need to do more speaking.
I’m looking out at a lovely forest valley behind the house with a ridge in the far distance, filled with both Georgia pines and deciduous trees. At this time of year one can see a few lights in houses on the opposite ridge at night.
I look out of my window in Leeds, England to see other identical houses. This is my computer room where I do my language studying: German and Spanish with a database that I built in Access.
I love the style of YDG and look forward to each new issue. I like Easy German, but feel the language is anything but easy; Spanish is far more accessible. I listen to slow German news from Deutsche Welle and also Top Thema. I am still looking for other B1/B2 sites with German material.
Through Conversation Exchange I now have two German and two Spanish friends that I speak to weekly to improve my fluency.
Why am I doing this? Basically to keep my 70 year old brain active and to have things to pass the hours.
Through Conversation Exchange I now have two German and two Spanish friends that I speak to weekly to improve my fluency.
Oh that’s amazing!! Which site did you use for this?
https://www.conversationexchange.com
The comment section here is AMAZING. I hope everyone’s new year is amazing, full of love, gratitude and joy!
I’m a dentist. I finished my undergrad studies last July, and started my intern year last month, so I have not officially graduted yet. A lot of people in the comments wrote “I learnt German when I was in college” and I thought “Wow, maybe I’ll say something like this, many years later?” Anyhow, I’m glad this site is part of my journey.
I started learning German because I wanted to learn something new without the stress that college put on me. I was not enjoying my life as a college student, and I know I love learning, I just needed to find something that would bring me back my spark. I love languages, but I was not seriously considering German at all, I’ve never learnt it and I used to think it sounds a bit harsh (sorry Emanuel), and I was trying to learn French instead, which simply didn’t work out. And I found myself learning this weird Language, which I happen to enjoy very much.
I’ve been learning for less than 5 month, taking it slow and steady, no pressure whatsoever, and it’s amazing. And I’m particularly grateful for the new insight this blog has to offer on all things German. I’ve been sponsored since September, because I have no idea how the complicated online payment systems work in my home country. Getting over my anxiety and reaching out to Emanuel here was one of the best decisions I made this year.
My year has turned out really, really well, thank God. I’ve travelled twice, one of them solo (first time to travel solo outside of the country), semi-graduated, started learning a new language, picked up swimming, crocheting AND cooking, and invested in my physical and emotional well-being in more ways than I can count.
What else can one wish for?
Sounds amazing :)!! And sounds like it’s all self-made, so it’s bound to continue that way!
Thank you!
I had a lot of blessings this year. All my life actually.
I hope it does, will do my best for it to continue :)
Hallo zusammen,
Ich heiße David. Ich bin in Argentinien geboren, aber zurzeit wohne ich in den Niederlanden, in Maastricht, nicht weit von Aachen.
Ich lerne deutsch aus verschiedenen Gründen. Zuerst, ich lerne Sprachen gerne. Ich spreche Französisch, Spanisch, Englisch und Italisch. Wichtiger, meine Frau ist deutsche, aus Bonn. Wir haben zwei Kinder, 3 und 4 Jahre alt, die sprechen Deutsch als Muttersprache. Wir besuchen regelmäßig die Familie meiner Frau in Deutschland, und während unserer Besuche alle sprechen Deutsch.
Ich interessiere mich für Deutsch seit 2010, aber ich bin seriös dafür seit 2020. Your Daily German ist ganz sehr nützlich und Emanuel ist ganz lustig und pädagogisch. Ich liebe besonders die Erklärungen vergleichen Deutsch mit anderen Sprachen und die Etymologie des Wortes. Ich hoffe, dass alle Erklärungen richtig sind. In jedem Fall sie helfen mir, die Konzepte gut verstanden.
VG,
David
“Ich hoffe, dass alle Erklärungen richtig sind. In jedem Fall sie helfen mir, die Konzepte gut verstanden.”
Ich versuche bei der Etymologie immer, bei den Fakten zu bleiben, und wenn nicht, dann markiere ich das normalerweise. Ich will auch keine Wissenschaft hier machen, aber wenn eine Verbindung nur vermutet wird und angezweifelt, dann erwähne ich sie meistens nicht :)
Hallo Ich bin Maria und komme ursprünglich aus Kolumbien. Ich habe eine besonders Beziehung zur (?mit) deutschen Sprache.. als in nach DE angekommen bin, verstand ich nur Bahnhof, wie man so schön sagt. Deswegen habe ich sofort einen Deutschkurs an der VHS angefangen.. Leider er war nicht so erfolgreich, Deutsch habe ich nicht gelernt, aber dafür hab ich in diesem Kurs meinen Mann kennengelernt!.. “love at first sight”. Er hat mich den nächsten Tag auf einen Kaffe eingeladen und seitdem sind wird zusammen :) schon seit 13 Jahren :) Wer hätte gedacht, dass der Genitiv so romantisch sein kann! Jetzt arbeiten und leben wir in München mit unserem Schokolade Labrador!
Ohhhh la la, war das dein Deutschlehrer in dem Kurs :)?
Nein, er war auch ein Student aus Italien :)
Italien und Südamerika – Feuer und Feuer leben zusammen im Land von Eis :D
I’m Elaine, I live in the UK, I’m 69 – for just one more week. I studied German for one year at school many moons ago and started again during the lockdown in 2020. Now I’m retired I like to visit Europe but unfortunately even though I can understand things when they’re written down, my pronunciation and speaking ability is quite limited. I’ve been trying to find a local teacher for one to one lessons but no luck so far. I love Emanuel’s humour and I’m now a life member of YDG.
When I look out of the window I see houses, small gardens and lots of birds, which I feed every day. My favourite animals are cats, donkeys and sheep.
The year for me ? Apart from numerous dental appointments, no complaints.
Speaking is definitely by far the hardest. Like… one can be practically “fluent” in reading, and completely fail with a simple sentence. Momentum builds quick though. Have you tried reading stuff out to yourself? That used to help me a LOT!
Ich bin Anna, and I’m pretty new here. Really enjoying it. Emanuel’s approach is very appealing to me – knowledgeable, fun, interested in the words themselves and how they work – and it’s clear right away that he works hard to make this good. I so appreciate that!
Ich wohne in Wisconsin, in America, and I’ve lived here almost all my life. I thought I’d say I’m older than dirt, but I read some of the comments, so now I can say I’m “only” 70 years old. Cool!
Ich lerne Deutsch zum Spass (I don’t know how to make the eszett!). I originally wanted to because I published a sport horse magazine and had contacts in Germany, and was there in 1997. But I really didn’t have time. I’m set now with more time and some good sources like this one! I’ve been learning this time since August, but found this site only a couple of weeks ago. I may never get back to Germany, but I still want to learn!
From my second-floor (“1st floor” to any Europeans) window I see a bare birch tree, with the Wisconsin winter just getting going. We’ve had temps down to 9 degrees F this week, but it will be above freezing this weekend. I love the seasons, and we had a beautiful fall, with incredible color on the trees.
My favorite animal? I have a special fondness for cats of all sizes, and have fostered rescue cats. Also elephants and whales and raptors and – well, it seems like all animals are like family to me.
This year was mind-blowing for me. Good things, hard things, but most of all a bit of clarity. I think I finally know who I am and what I should be doing with my life. ‘Bout time.
I’m going to go back and read more about you all – I’m loving the comments!
“From my second-floor (“1st floor” to any Europeans)”
Actually, I recently learned that we’re pretty split on this. Germany counts the ground floor as “zero”, but many other countries count it as 1.
I think the reason is that German uses “Erggeschoss” and then “Stock” or “Etage” and without having looked it up, I would assume that “Stock” has some notion of stacking. So the first “Stock” is the first one STACKED on the ground floor.
But yeah… Bulgaria for instance counts like the US and many others in Europe do too.
And hell yeah, team seasons all the way. The older I get, the more I love them and I really don’t understand why people move to Spain or Kalifornia where every single day is the same all year around.
Who are you? I am Dom (Dominic). I am 83 years old. A Professor Emeritus. Did brain research.
Where are you from? USA. Born in Pittsburgh, PA Lived in Boston, Stamford, Houston, Memphis
Why are you learning German? Brushing up. Learned German at University of Pittsburgh. Required for my Ph.D. In 1962, I lived in Ludwigshafen. Exchange student at BASF. Visited Germany ca. 25 times since then.
How long have you been learning? 63 years.
What do you see when you look out the window? A beautiful world. Neighbors. Friends. I see my family coming to visit.
We have two children, ten grandchildren, and two upcoming great-grandchildren. I see a very wonderful life. My wife is extraordinary.
What do I do. Walk. Read books. Think. Wonder. Talk to many people and strangers.
How was the year for you? Excellent. No doubt my body is aging, but I do not “feel old”.
Do I enjoy this German website? Very much. Always learn something.
” A beautiful world.”
Such a wholesome thought.
Danke, Emmanuel.
Dom