And my mom and grandma's visit came to an end much too quickly! I had so much fun with the two of them here. It was great to be able to share my life in Germany with them, show them the things I do everyday and where I live. I loved playing cards every night and walking to the bakery together every morning. We all had a really great time, made some really great memories that week! So as a final das Blog farewell to them, here are some final pictures - some of my favorites - from their trip.
with a Dortmund flying rhino || on the train || enjoying some beers in the Altermarkt
Playing cards || all three of us || outside the Reinoldikirche
filming on the Deutzerbrücke || first view of the cathedral in Cologne || looking at the locks on Rhine
When my mom and grandma were visiting, I wanted them to get their fill of traditional German food as well as the local specialties. So we hit all the standards:
I think we had schnitzel about 3 times during their week here - they were in love! We tried Jägerschnitzel, Bauernschnitzel, Zigeunerschnitzel and Schnitzel wiener Art.* And, according to my mother:
"What could be better than a frickin' Schnitzel?!"
*Fun fact: a schnitzel is only a "wiener Schnitzel" if it's made with veal.
Schnitzel prepared the same way, but with any other meat is merely a
"Schnitzel wiener Art" which basically means "Schnitzel of the wiener variety"
My mom has had an iPad for about a year. She loves the thing and, I have to admit, she's pretty proficient on it for her age generation. So, to prepare for their big international journey, my mom hooked my Grandma up with an iPad also.
Considering my grandma has never even owned a computer, I was pretty impressed with how quickly she took to it. And throughout their visit, it wasn't unusual to walk in on sights like this before these two went to bed.
Of course, since my grandma doesn't have internet or a need for email or anything like that, most those features are all lost on her. So in the end, she pretty much owns one expensive Farkle machine (she also really likes "those Angry Birds").
It also inspired my next entrepreneurial endeavor:
When visiting Germany, there are three things you definitely have to enjoy: Beer, bratwurst, and bakeries. While my mom and Grandma were here last week, we made sure to get our fill of all three! Beer is kind of an obvious choice while visiting Germany. But hey, stereotypes and cliches become stereotypes and cliches for a reason, right?
We tried Kölsch while in Cologne and some Altbier while in Düsseldorf. Beer became a staple of all our restaurant experiences.
Bratwurst was the one of the top priority items on Pam's list of things to relive from her German glory days. And I'd have to say, seeing her face light up like a kid's on Christmas when she got that bratwurst in a brötchen topped with mustard, was definitely worth it (especially to witness the ensuing victory dance).
I also made them expand their wurst repertoire and try currywurst! I'd say it was a success.
Finally there were all the bakeries. Trust me when I say we couldn't make a day without our trips to the bakery. I know bakery isn't really up there on the list of German stereotypes with beer and bratwurst. But for anyone who's spent any length of time in this country will tell you that there is nothing anywhere that compares to a German bakery.
We never came home without our daily picks from the bakery. By the end, our collection was a little out of control, but it was all just so delicious!
(please note, this picture was taken after we were done chowing down)
So if you ever make it out to Germany, with seals of approval from my mom and grandma, don't forget to try the essential three Bs: Beer, Bratwurst, and Bakeries.
Again, I must begin with an apology for going MIA for so long. But with the visit from my mom and grandma last week, there was no time for such distractions!
Of course, we did have time for a few other distractions. On the first night of their visit - between games (a lot of this and this were played) we got caught up doing some youtube sharing. I'm not really sure how it started, but eventually we watched the following two videos:
If you have not seen one or both of these videos, I suggest you watch them right now. If you have already seen them, I suggest you watch them again to enrich your life a little bit more.
As a result, their entire trip was riddled with responses such as "honey badger don't give a shit," "thanks stupid," and "that's nasty." The week was filled with outbursts of "ALLEN!" and "STEVE!" and "nighttime! daytime!"
If nothing else, that just might give you a bit of an idea about my family and how cool we are, for those of you who had not had the pleasure of meeting them.
The whole week was so much fun! It was great to get to show my new home to my mom and grandma as well as just be able to spend time with them! There is so much to tell about the week that I don't even know where to begin....
So if you'll allow me one more day to collect my thoughts, I'll begin with the real treasures of the visit tomorrow. Until then, watch, rewatch, and show all your friends those videos [again, as the case may be].
Today's lesson is over a subject that has plagued speakers of the German language since the dawn of time (or, you know, since the dawn of the German language).
The Article
For those of you not familiar with the different parts of speech, there are two different types of articles: the indefinite article: in English, a/an and the definite article: The. In German, there are also definite and indefinite articles, but we are going to focus only on the former.
In their most basic form, there are 3 definite articles in German:
The feminine
(pronounced "dee")
The masculine
(pronounced "dair")
and the neuter
(pronounced "doss")
So there are a couple more than the English the, surely that can't be too hard to keep track of? True, it wouldn't be, if the rules regulating which articles are assigned to which nouns weren't completely arbitrary.
This means when you learn new vocabulary in German, you must also commit the correct article - or gender - to memory.
Luckily, there are a couple tricks to help remember some articles for those of us not lucky enough to grow up with it ingrained in our brains.
As might have already been implied, the gender of a noun can sometimes depend on the actual gender of the subject. For example: man is DER Mann, woman is DIE Frau, boy is DER Junge and girl is DAS Mädchen. Wait... what?!
Poor girls get the neuter article, but don't feel too bad for them, it has to do with that "chen" on the end of the word and not their actual ambiguous sexuality, but we'll get to that later.
But what about the other 95% of nouns that don't have an actual biological gender to [sometimes] help determine the grammatical gender? Are they all just neutral, like in English when we refer to everything non-human as "it"? No no no, there's no need to make this too simple. But sometimes, just sometimes, parts of a word can give clues to what article it needs.
Let's start with the feminine words:
-all words ending in "-ung," "-heit," "-keit," and "-schaft": DIE Einladung (invitation), DIE Freiheit (freedom), DIE Wirklichkeit (reality), DIE Freundschaft (friendship). I have yet to find an exception, but I'm learning and forgetting and relearning articles everyday.
-Words ending in "-e": DIE Ecke (corner), DIE Grenze (border), DER Name... what, what?! ok, so this one actually has quite a few exceptions (der Deutsche, der Junge, and der Friede, to name a few), but when in doubt, it's a good starting point for a solid guess.
-Words ending in "-ie": DIE Geographie (geography), DIE Industrie (industry), DIE Ironie (irony)
-words ending in "-chen" or "-lein" (in German, these are diminutives, so, theoretically, you can add them to any noun, thereby also changing the gender to neuter): DAS Mädchen (girl), DAS Fräulein (unmarried woman, "Miss" in English).
-words ending in "-o": DAS Auto (car), DAS Konto (account), DAS Radio (radio), DIE Disko... what?!! that's right, more exceptions! Be careful with words such as DIE Avocado or DER Euro.
-words ending in "-ismus": DER Journalismus (journalism), DER Capitalismus (capitalism)
-Days and Months: DER Montag (Monday), DER April (April).
...Are you still with me? Good, we're only just getting started.
Now, there is one more little trick to help simplify things (if that's even possible at this point). German is a language that is all about compound words. One word I've seen pop up again and again with a certain notoriety is this 63 letter monster:
How in the world are you supposed to get an article for that?! well, we could break it down. It's one long word, but it's actually made up of 7 very clear words:
das Rindfleisch
die Etikettierung
die Überwachung
die Aufgaben
die Übertragung
das Gesetz
That's 2 das-words and 5 die-words. Does that mean we go for die since it is the best represented? No, it's actually much simpler. In the case of compound words, the new word takes the gender of the last word-part. Therefore, because of "das Gesetz," we know that it is DASRindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz
This trick works about 98% of the time. For example, we have DER Tag (day), from that we can make DER Sonntag (Sunday) or DER Feiertag (holiday) or DER Geburtstag (birthday).
Of course, there's always my favorite exception: DAS Wort (word), DAS Vorwort (preface)... so far so good, until... DIE Antwort (answer). Well, damn.
here's a nice one for you though - the plural article is DIE.
Always. For every plural word. no matter what the gender of the singular word. But don't get too cozy, this is not the same DIE as the feminine article. "How can you possibly tell the difference, then?" you might possibly be asking. That comes in when we get to the different cases.
No, I'm not going to even try to explain the different cases of the German language (that would take many chapters of a text book...). Just know that there are 4: Nominative, Accusative, Dative, and Genitive.
Take a look at this chart to see what happens to each of our four articles (feminine, masculine, neuter, and plural) when used in each case.
So now our 4 articles have turned into 16. Sure, you see a lot of der's and a few den's, but that doesn't make them the same article. It's always important to know the difference between a dative feminine "der" and a masculine nominative "der." I could explain why, but again with the chapters in texts books thing. So I'm just going to ask you to take my word on this one.
Unfortunately, all the tips in the world can't beat the truest method of learning articles: Memorization. plain and simple.
Whenever my students ask me if I think German is difficult to learn, my go to answer is: In English, we say "The." In German, you say "der, die, das, die, den, dem, des, die, der, der, das, dem des, die, den, and der."
Anybody who has ever walked any distance with me (whether a several mile hike or 2 feet) knows that I have issues walking. I stumble over my own feet at least once a day. After so much practice, I'm usually pretty good at catching myself before I fall. Sort of a weebles, wobbles but won't fall down sort of scenario. Unfortunately I'm not always lucky. Sometimes all it takes is an inconveniently placed curb, an particularly uneven cobblestone, a giant cement object, or - as was the case last week - a slippery escalator.
If I'm lucky, it's only friends around to witness my lack of basic coordination skills. Of course, just ask the 3 crowded UGA bus stops I've wiped out in front of, the likelihood of only friends seeing my fall is slim to none.
So last week, to initiate Dortmund into the Emily's Greatest Falls hall of fame, I slid my way down an outdoor escalator into a subway station. It was a rainy morning and I was running very late - which result in me actually running for my train to school. I decided to go for the run down the escalator approach instead running down the stairs, for that extra 2 second advantage. And that's where things went awry.
I had barely taken one step on the slippery rolling steps of death when I felt my foot slide out from under me and fell forward. It was all I could do to grab the railings and catch myself with the my shin to keep from tumbling all the way down. I tried to laugh it off while fighting back the painful sting of embarrassment (and what was surely a battle wound on my leg) to the shocked Germans staring at me in concern. When I got home and was able to assess the damage I found some lovely escalator inflicted gashes. Luckily they're quickly healing, but I have yet to face the escalator of doom since this incident.
But on a side note: Despite cutting through my skin, absolutely no damage was done to my tights. Therefore, I strongly recommend tights from Primark. Clearly worth the 3€!
