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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Smyther Newbie United Kingdom Joined 4819 days ago 2 posts - 3 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German | Message 1 of 4 07 September 2011 at 12:04am | IP Logged |
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Smyther: I stopped at the market for lunch and asked for "eine apfel bitte"
Smyther: I couldn't believe it when she asked "ein apfel oder einen kilo?" Thaurian: oh god, smyther's German Thaurian: WO IST DIE BAHNHOF?! Smyther: it's not that I didn't understand her, but why would I want a kilogram of apples? About this thread: This is a blog-like thing for my year in Austria studying at TUGraz. Since arriving I've decided that having some German-speaking friends/contacts online might be a good idea, but as I have no specific questions for the forum, I thought I'd instead contribute my adventures surviving life in a foreign city and lectures in a foreign language. About me: I'm an Electrical Engineering Student from Swansea, UK. I'm currently in Graz, Austria for 10 months to study at TUGraz as part of the Erasmus scheme. My hobbies include anything to do with science and technology, Aikido, music and piano, Touhou and convincing myself that I'm not going to fail the year and have to pay all my grant money back. Term hasn't started yet, I'm here a month early to learn some German before all hell breaks lo- my lectures start. My German: Among the many important lessons I've learnt since my arrival last week (like nothing is open on Sunday so buy twice as much food on Saturday), is that my German is terrible. I knew I was a beginner and my vocabulary was short, but I was not expecting to be quite so hopeless and terrified when I tried to ask for help in the supermarket on my first day. Fortunately, I'm not prone to panicking, there are some real saints on the streets and my intensive language course at Uni-Graz has started. Some history: I lurked this forum for a while about 3 years ago (07/08-ish). At the time I was in school and spent most of my breaks browsing Wikipedia. I read about linguistics for weeks until eventually I resolved to try learning a language. I tried Japanese first. I found a few sites, studied the grammar, practiced my pronunciation and studied kanji harder than I studied my chemistry. However, coursework got in the way and I had to put it aside for a month. When I came back to it, I found this site and after some reading, I decided German was a better choice, given my career choice and Swansea University offering placements in European universities with no language requirement. I got myself a copy of Micheal Thomas' German for beginners 8-hour audio CD for the summer (who does such a good job it makes you want to teach like him too) and signed up for a semester long German course at my university after I arrived. However, some way into my second semester, I had shift in priorities and for the last year and a half, my top priority has been improving my maths and working for my 1st class degree. Everything else was secondary and competed for my free-time. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| yassi Diglot Newbie Austria Joined 4820 days ago 34 posts - 49 votes Speaks: German*, EnglishC1 Studies: Turkish, Slovak | Message 2 of 4 07 September 2011 at 7:34am | IP Logged |
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Hello Smyther,
Welcome to Austria! I guess the market lady's reaction was not due to your German - exactly the same thing happened to me a couple of months ago when buying potatoes on a market and I'm a native (Austrian) German speaker. I think most people there just don't buy one piece of anything but more. I usually do too, but that day was the last day before going on holidays and I didn't want a kilo of potatoes to rot at home while I lie on a beach in Croatia. Our Dialog was like: Me: "Zwei Kartoffeln bitte!" Market lady: "Zwei Kartoffeln?! Zwei Kilo?" Me: "Nein, wirklich nur zwei Stück bitte, ich fahre morgen auf Urlaub ich brauche nicht mehr" Market lady: "Ah, das ist dann was anderes." So don't worry - "Einen Apfel bitte" is perfect German! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| ummagumma Senior Member IrelandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5247 days ago 217 posts - 241 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: German | Message 3 of 4 07 September 2011 at 8:17am | IP Logged |
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Hallo Smyther,
Ich wünsche dir viel Erfolg beim Deutschlernen und ein wunderschönes Jahr in Österreich. Hoffentlich sind alle die kulturelle Unterschiede so harmlos, lustig und eine Möglichkeit mehr Deutsch zu lernen! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Smyther Newbie United Kingdom Joined 4819 days ago 2 posts - 3 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German | Message 4 of 4 08 September 2011 at 10:23pm | IP Logged |
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Not sure how active I'll be able to keep this, but here we go.
I finally got myself a bank account today. There was a problem with my rent payment and they had to ring my landlords. I felt a little happy to know the outcome of their (German) discussion before they put the phone down. I tried getting some fruit from the market again today. When I wasn't sure if I had to grab a bag and help myself before paying, or ask and have my bag filled for me, I froze. It happened again when I fancied some watermelon icecream. It's clear that I still have a long way to go, but at least I'm confident enough to try now (even if I'm not confident enough to actually make a sound). When I arrived last week, everyone had an intimidating, almost French aura that said "speak my language perfectly or don't bother me", but people in the city center seemed a lot friendlier and much more like the German culture and language I was expecting. It's 3 days in and my intensive German course is getting unbearable. I payed 150E to learn German, not play "charades-in-German" followed by "fill in the blanks on the exercise sheet". All I can think of in lessons is how I could be spending these 3 hours a day better. On that thought, I dreamed up an idea to write a simple game to help me with the vocabulary. Something like https://www.msu.edu/~lakejess/kanjigame.html , which let me learn a good few hundred kanji in a few weeks when I was learning Japanese. It'd have to be modified to account for genders in German, which I'm not to sure how how far to take. If I could get it working it would be awesome, but laziness might get in the way (like all my other pet coding projects). Edited by Smyther on 08 September 2011 at 10:26pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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