Yourdailygerman – Ad Calendar
“Sneak Peek“
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Hallo ihr lieben,
and welcome to day 21 of the absolutely epic Yourdailygerman Advent Calendar. And today,
I want to give you a little sneak peek into something I have been working on quite a bit over the past year:
My Abs
Nah, kidding.
My abs are super chiseled of course, but they don’t have much to do with German learning.
What I really want to show you a sneak peek of is the book I am working on.
Or I should say, WE are working on.
Because I have teamed up with a really talented illustrator and we’re making a book about separable prefix verbs.
Not sure, actually, if I told you about that last year in the calendar :).
So yeah, the concept of the book is basically like a “prefix verb best of“. So we’re taking 30 of the most interesting ones and for each, we’re doing a quick explanation of its meaning and a few examples, but most importantly, a cartoon. And those are really really lovely.
Of course, there’ll also be a short section about grammar, but the idea is really that you have a beautiful book you can flip through every now and then, read a couple of entries and slowly get a feel and maybe even a liking for prefix verbs.
So are you ready for a preview?
Here it is. It’s a little blurry, but just click on the image to get the full size pdf-version.
(click the image or here for full size pdf)
We’re still working on the layout, and we still have to finish some texts and some cartoons but yeah… just a matter of time and you’ll get some 200 pages of prefix verb awesomeness :).
Like… I’m super duper excited and I’m sure you’ll really like it.
So yeah, that’s the little sneak peek. Let me know in the comments how you like the look of it so far and if you have any ideas for it or some questions.
And other than that, have a great day, and I’ll see you tomorrow.
Oh and here is Helen’s (the artist) Instagram, for more cartoons about German:
The Sneak Peak looks good. I like the examples that support the illustration. The book is going to be amazing.
I did not receive any Email after this one. (Adventskalender).
Could you please send me the content/links for 22nd-24th. Thanks.
I really enjoy reading your Emails although i need to read them all of them together due to time constraints.
This book is amazinggggg!!!
Just wanted to leave a big THANK YOU for signing me up for a year as a member since I cannot afford to pay. I am profoundly grateful!! Vielen Dank!
Small feedback on the book (which I’ll probably get), the layout of the text looks amateurish. I think it’s the usage of left aligned as opposed to a justified layout. Centering “To hold up.” would look better there imo. Consulting a specialist might be useful. Exciting stuff!
Thanks a lot for the input!! This is a very early draft in terms of layout and we’ve since changed book format to square and a few other things. The text is already in “justify” though. Doesn’t look like it, probably because the paragraphs are so short.
Getting a professional to do it is a tricky thing because you either need to put up SERIOUS money, or you’ll basically have no idea as to the quality you’ll get.
I’d much rather put up a few drafts here and see what the community says.
I am aboslutely looking forward to having that book. A good job you have done with the book.Very nicely done
I seem to be missing something. I still don’t know when to use halt and when to use aufhalten. Halt like Achtung is well-known in the english speaking world mainly from the old world war 2 movies. Even my hubby knows what halt means. I am guessing the correct command is Halt auf! which has evolved into just Halt! ??
Will I buy the book? Probably yes, but your example confused me. Especially because the book should be about prefixes. ie when to use them or not. I don’t mean to be critical, just confused.
Thanks for the instagram follower.
I didn’t realize this could be confusing but now I totally see why.
aufhalten – to stop someone, to “bring to a halt”
halten – to come to a halt
Those are two different verbs. If the creature in the cartoon where to say
That would mean “stop” in the sense of “Stop someone!!” Like… the wolf is supposed to stop someone else.
“aufhalten” is what the blue creature does with the wolf. And it does that by putting the hand out and telling the wolf to “stop/come to a halt”.
I’ll absolutely change that caption to “Stop!!”. Or even just the other sentence.
Thanks a lot for this feedback! These are things you really don’t notice as a native speaker.
Oh just to make sure:
“Halt!” is not a short form of “Halt auf.”.
I agree! My first reaction was “ dang, I’m using “halten sie” incorrectly. I like when experts explain wen to use and wen not to use XYor Z. But I think they can get down to my level.
Ich werde schon ein bisschen traurig, wenn ich daran denke, dass dein epic Adventskalender 2021 bald zu Ende …aber mittlerweile macht es mir so viel Spaß! Vielen Dank für so viel Humor und Lernen. Dein neues Buch sieht absolut toll aus – ich kann es kaum erwarten, ein Exemplar zu kaufen. (You’ve also found an illustrator who is perfect for you.)
I was struck by your comment about how online language-learning communities tend to be nicest and most honest. I certainly enjoy reading the comments here, where there is an eager-for-knowledge vibe and a supportive atmosphere. (P.S. as I typed “atmosphere,” I just thought of the German word der Atem, which probably has a common root?)
Hmm, that would make a lot of sense :).
But the etymological source I am using doesn’t mention a connection there, so it’s more likely just a coincidence.
I’m surprised Elsa hasn’t mentioned this yet, but the intro paragraph seems a little confused about whether this is day 20 or 21…
No one can catch ALL my mistakes :). Too many for one person.
This comment sounds like you put mistakes in on purpose and our mission is to spot them. A lot like “Where’s Wally?” haha
Of course, it’s all a test :).
Ich will dieses Buch! :D
Super Arbeit! Ich freue mich auf die Veröffentlichung Deines Buchs!
Hello,
I NEED this book!!!!
Prefix verbs (along with vocab) are the reason my German is moving slooooooowly…
The cartoons are not only hilarious, but an absolutely awesome way for learners (especially visual learners, like me) to actually memorise these verbs once and for all…
Keep up the good work and don’t make us wait too long…
PS – If you need any detypoing on the book, let me know ;)
Bis Morgen!
Good day!
That looks absolutely hilarious, honestly as your whole series on prefix verbs (do not to be interpreted other articles are worse). Is there a way to preorder that? Are you going to have an ebook as well?
And as the idea which is really dear to my heart and that’s this time of the year, could you consider publishing something like Anki deck for that? Maybe starting something like a Kickstarter project, I’d definitely like to help with it both technically (I am a relatively experienced software developer), with my time and also financial.
Once again, thank you very much for your work, it’s awesome!
And Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
Sorry, hilarious is the wrong word, wonderful I meant
Preorder… we haven’t thought about that yet, I think mainly because it’s kind of uncool to offer preorder without knowing when the whole thing will be finished.
But we’re getting to a point where we could think about it, actually :)
E-Book… absolutely!! We want to do it all – a normal hard copy, ebook and maybe a high quality hard copy print.
As for software… can you send me an email please please pretty please!
I have some ideas in that direction, but I can’t do it all on my own!
How can I reach you? I’d rather not post my email. I am also listening to Easy German podcast, so maybe I can reach you via some contacts over there.
info@german-is-easy.com :)
Do you have an idea how much the book might cost yet? It sounds really great.
I think for ebook will go for something like 7-10 dollars. I kind of don’t want to dump it for super cheap like so many people do on Amazon.
For the hard copy it depends on print quality and page count, so I can’t give an estimate yet. Maybe 20ish. I don’t think cheaper is realistic, to be honest.
Smart. People buy e-books for the convenience and the Vorteile, not to save money. That said, the cost of an e-book is lower due to no trees being killed, no shipping, handling, unpacking and putting on shelves and of course, what doesn’t get sold, doesn’t get torched. Yes, they DO burn books. Horrible shame.
Would be good with an iTunes version as they are in color. While I prefer to read on my Tolino or Kindle, certain books are better on the iPad as colored illustrations or cartoons (Rüdiger Bertram) are actually in color on the iPad.
Um, what I really would like to see is: a good explanation of trennbare Verben that ALSO are untrennbare. The difference in usage is usually not so easy to grasp.
Oh, and did you get a notifcation for this one, by the way? Because I answered that from the site instead of using my comment feed reader. Maybe that’s why you never ever got them!
I did get the notifications this time! I was wondering what changed ^^
I don’t see why you should make it super cheap. You have spent years becoming an expert on the subject and then put a lot of work into creating the book itself. Given that you have to operate under capitalism, it’s not unreasonable to charge a decent price for your efforts.
The gratitude of your readers doesn’t pay the rent after all.
Ideally, I’d like to do the same model as on the site, so people in third world countries or really broke people have a chance too.
But that’s gonna be kind of hard. Maybe a give away every now and then where only those who need it will enter.
But in a way, a book like that is a “luxury” item, while I feel like the blog is more “basic education” and I think that should be accessible for every one.
Transthetics do something like that where they have regular raffles for the chance to win one of their products. They make prosthetics for trans men which cost around $200. So for some people its prohibitively expensive, but for those who can afford it they will usually just buy them because then you actually get your product instead of waiting and hoping for a raffle win.
They have also done giveaways where you write a review and if they use the review then you can get a discount or a free product or something, although I’m guessing you don’t rely on reviews as much as they do!
Would you be able to do selective pricing based on the shipping address? To make it easier for people in less economically developed* countries to afford it?
*side note: this is a more PC phrase to use. “Third world” is considered a little outdated now.
Yeah, “third world” sounds bad, to be honest. I’m just used to it, but “people who can’t afford it” is the best choice, as there are plenty of those everywhere.
I love that raffle concept. The general problem with stuff like that is that if it reaches a certain size, people will start gaming the system.
If you know what happened to Uber in China… it’s hilarious, how they got played.
I can do these free accounts, because there’s no real resell value. And people learning a language are usually in a VERY genuine mindset. Like… it’s one of the most nice and most honest communities.
As soon as there is financial gain though… situation changes.
Different prices depending on region is technically possible, but for me on the blog for example, it’s too much work.
And also, there are plenty of people in India who have NO problem paying normal prices. They would then get the discount as well, which would cut into revenue.
I mean… most “poor” countries have plenty of rich people in them, as well.
But raffling out ebooks is definitely a good quick fix.
That’s true. Somehow the rich people are low in number but spread pretty far.
One thing i just remembered as well about transthetics is that after you enter the raffle you get a share link so if a friend enters via your link you get more raffle entries. Which can be a nice extra bit of marketing.
Hmmm, that sounds like an incentive to game the system.
Refer a million bot friends, get a million entries.
Make sure it’s available at online libraries, Goethe library via Onleihe is one that all German learners world wide have access to – and you get paid for every loan. Local libraries could also have a copy available – e-book and hard copy. You get paid for every loan.
Congratulations! Sure, it will a Deutsch book, plenty of all the magic that you always dysplay in your classes. Thank you Emanuel!!!
The book is a GREAT idea! I think the cute illustrations will make the material more memorable too!
Yeah, they’re really the center piece of the whole thing. Explanations will be much shorter than what I do on the site!
Great idea. I’m sure it’ll be great. Best wishes
Love it !!
Karl
Hi Emanuel, Excellent. Will there be a section on the strange symbols? Second question: Why does the blue character in the drawing not use the prefix auf?
What do you mean by “strange symbols”?
And the character in blue doesn’t use “auf” because it doesn’t fit what he’s saying. But what he does is “aufhalten”.
I imagined the idea of the drawings would be to illustrate the prefix verb. Accordingly, in English one can say stop as somebody is moving. I was expecting the blue character to be saying stop (as in don’t move forwards through the doorway) and therefore wondered what had happened to the auf part of the verb. I subsequently read your full entry in your dictionary and now realise that aufhalten means to stop/to prevent/to check/to hold up the pony man from completing something. In short, aufhalten would not be used to halt someone/something from entering a room. Or have I still misunderstood the meaning?
Strange symbols? A few posts ago you offered a drawing of two arrows conjoined. You mentioned that there was a sheet with some different drawings. All meant to illustrate the meanings of the prefixe.
So the blue figure “stops” (aufhalten) the wolf from entering because the wolf wants to eat the ducks that are there. That’s why aufhalten fits here. The wolf has evil intent.
As for the symbols… now I know what you mean :). We might put something like that in the book, but less abstract.
And also, the book is about separable prefixes only while my weird symbols are for the non-separable ones.
I was hoping they were chickens because they have little unicorn horns and then you could call them Einhühner. Enthörner doesn’t have the same ring to it.
*mind blown. Why didn’t we think of that?!?!! What a waste :D
To further clarify… when you tell someone “Stop!”, you either want them to “stop moving” or “stop doing”. The former is “(an)halten” and the latter is “aufhören”.
Let me know if you need more examples.
Wonderful. Many thanks. I think I now have a clear narrative to wrap around the meaing of the verb, aufhalten.
Maybe this one isn’t math, but a “picture” of a door that we are just peeking into?
You mean my little heart equation at the top?
This one was actually meant to be a progression in the mathematical sense :)