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BAnna’s TAC 2014 Spaß-Lobo-IndRussian

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BAnna
Triglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 4400 days ago

409 posts - 616 votes 
Speaks: English*, German, Spanish
Studies: Russian, Turkish

 
 Message 25 of 236
27 January 2013 at 6:20pm | IP Logged 
It was a remake of Emil und die Detektive including an atrocious rap by the kids. Erich Kästner is probably rolling in his grave ... I read the book a while back and I have seen part of the 1931 version on Youtube, which is pretty cool: as they roll into Berlin on the train you can see the Gedächtniskirche (pre-bombing).

The library here has a decent collection of German DVDs: most are region 1, which often means only English subtitles (What is wrong with us in the USA?!?), but a few are region 2 (although it seems not all German movies have the option to turn German subtitles on, most kid ones do). I have an ancient laptop I set to watch region 2, so I usually watch those there. When possible, I try to watch a movie a couple of times (with/without subtitles), but I just can't bring myself to watch Emil again. Maybe I'll go check out the youtube version instead. Edit: I just found the 1931 version there with Spanish subtitles, what fun!

Humor/comedy can be difficult to appreciate cross-culturally, and of course a lot of the verbal quips/puns/etc. are way beyond me. Are there German knock-knock jokes? I think I'd have to start with something at that level or below, you know, first grade humor :)

Edited by BAnna on 27 January 2013 at 6:50pm

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Sunja
Diglot
Senior Member
Germany
Joined 5863 days ago

2020 posts - 2295 votes 
1 sounds
Speaks: English*, German
Studies: French, Mandarin

 
 Message 26 of 236
27 January 2013 at 7:09pm | IP Logged 
oh you gotta love Jürgen Vogel with his shark grin ;) We haven't seen that one in ages and we fast forwarded through the rap song (I'd forgotten about it). I think rap songs in German went out of style after "Die Wilden Kerlen", but yes, they're -very- annoying. I've got kids and have had to sit through many-a-rap song.

Yes, the comedy takes getting used to because there are different cultural sensibilities. I guess I've gotten used to it by now but it was quite a new dimension back when I first arrived. You'll have to ask Josquin about the knock-knock jokes. Joke-telling time is coming up since Fasching/Karnival is coming up in Feb. I think it's funny that they have "Männer Witze" for women and "Frauen Witze" for men. As if we laugh differently ;)
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mrwarper
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Winner TAC 2012
Senior Member
Spain
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1493 posts - 2500 votes 
Speaks: Spanish*, EnglishC2
Studies: German, Russian, Japanese

 
 Message 27 of 236
28 January 2013 at 1:07pm | IP Logged 
Sunja wrote:
[...] As if we laugh differently ;)

Don't we? You won't see many engineers laugh with (not at) mathematicians' jokes ;)
Seriously, I find it immensely refreshing when someone can find the humor (and laugh with it) in the stuff that 'naturally' addresses 'others'. It's pretty much like that Slavic proverb about living as many lives as languages one speaks...
Conversely, isn't any humor that can't jump any group/social boundaries kind of... dull?
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Dagane
Triglot
Senior Member
SpainRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 4289 days ago

259 posts - 324 votes 
Speaks: Spanish*, EnglishB2, Galician
Studies: German
Studies: Czech

 
 Message 28 of 236
28 January 2013 at 2:07pm | IP Logged 
No idea about 'regions' regarding subtitles. By the way, I wonder if there are movies to be watched for free online. Whether there are, I don't actually know anything about German series nor films, apart from Rex, that cute dog whose series I don't intend to watch now... Could you enlight me? Of course, I guess all of them are beyond my understanding now, but who knows... I may enjoy any of them.
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Josquin
Heptaglot
Senior Member
Germany
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Speaks: German*, English, French, Latin, Italian, Russian, Swedish
Studies: Japanese, Irish, Portuguese, Persian

 
 Message 29 of 236
28 January 2013 at 2:25pm | IP Logged 
Oh yes, German humour... That's a very special story. Germans are famous for their bad jokes without any real punchline, also known as "Kalauer". For my part, I much prefer British humour over German humour, but that's another story.

"Knock knock" jokes exist, but they're not very common. The best known traditional jokes are "Ostfriesen-Witze", "Blondinen-Witze", and "Ossi/Wessi-Witze". But there are a lot of jokes about all social groups. I specially like "Bratscher-Witze", jokes about violists, because I'm a musician.

While German jokes can be somewhat pointless, there still exist some good comedians: Hape Kerkeling, Otto Waalkes (okay, his best time is over), Harald Schmidt, Volker Pispers (he does political cabaret), and others which I don't remember just now.

Yes, the humour of a different culture can be hard to understand. I still catch myself watching 'How I Met Your Mother' or 'Modern Family' and not understanding what's funny. Sometimes I'll get it after having listened three times to the same gag/pun/whatever, soemtimes I don't get it at all, because it's some cultural reference I don't know.

And the "Männer- und Frauenwitze" are rather about special stereotypes men attribute to women and women attribute to men. They're not special jokes made for masculine or feminine humour. However, there are "Herrenwitze", which used to be somewhat saucy jokes told among men. But today, "Herrenwitz" also has an old-fashioned feel to it, because it was an element of the bourgeoisie and the "Spießertum" and doesn't really exist any more.
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mrwarper
Diglot
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Senior Member
Spain
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1493 posts - 2500 votes 
Speaks: Spanish*, EnglishC2
Studies: German, Russian, Japanese

 
 Message 30 of 236
28 January 2013 at 6:07pm | IP Logged 
Josquin wrote:
Yes, the humour of a different culture can be hard to understand. I still catch myself watching 'How I Met Your Mother' or 'Modern Family' and not understanding what's funny. Sometimes I'll get it after having listened three times to the same gag/pun/whatever, sometimes I don't get it at all, because it's some cultural reference I don't know.

Overabundance of cultural references can be annoying, especially pop culture references (I think reasonable educated people tend to find more meaningful --and thus know more about-- timeless / universal stuff than weekly fads, political scandals and showbiz stars of the moment) but in general it's pretty easy to see when something c/sh/would be funny, or even imagine what such references hint (like authors' likes and dislikes) at if you're really into the show but not the culture.

However, I think it's sometimes more related to person/show specifics than cultural differences. For example, I really enjoy 'Modern Family' like I was living there* but whenever I watch 'How I met your mother' (usually upon one of my classes' request) there's one character than I find less dull (but certainly not awesome) but I just can't laugh with the rest. It all comes from the same 'culture' (that I unfortunately don't feel is very different from my own) yet my reactions vary a lot. With Japanese shows it's a wholly different story, however -- they all have this 'different everything' feel to me regardless of my tastes.

*I often spot where the translation just doesn't cut it and I can imagine how much more hilarious it'd be in the original -- I check my guesses and I get it right almost every time.

One thing I find funny about German 'TV movies' (the ones that look like American TV movies -- I don't get this feeling from shows like REX or 'bigger' movies like 'Das Boot') and I'd like to see confirmed or refuted, especially from natives, is that, to me, they feel like they are trying to copy something they don't really understand, so if the original is usually bad, these are mostly unwatchable. If not, maybe it's the language translation on top of the culture transplant (I haven't tried them in the 'original' German yet)? BTW please don't take this as any kind of attack to German 'home' cinema ;)
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BAnna
Triglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 4400 days ago

409 posts - 616 votes 
Speaks: English*, German, Spanish
Studies: Russian, Turkish

 
 Message 31 of 236
03 February 2013 at 9:32am | IP Logged 
All specifics on progress are in my first log post. Generalities below.

@Sunja, mrwarper, josquin: this discussion led me down the rabbit hole of watching a lot of German humor links on youtube, most of which was incomprehensible to me, but still worthwhile. A huge amount of play on words, so I'm not quite there yet, but someday ...

@josquin: I went on Lang-8 this past week, did some corrections for others and saw how much time and thought it takes. I must really thank you again for being our Godfather. :)

@dagane: the German broadcasters have websites where you can find a lot of free TV shows (ARD, ZDF, ...) and if you look under Mediathek or Sendung verpasst, you can find programs to watch. Some even have German subtitles (for hearing impaired), which help if the actors are speaking quickly or using dialect. No promises about the quality of the programming: it is TV, so you can't expect too much. If you can bear children's material, ZDF has a 10 minute "News for kids" called Logo, which uses simplified words and is easier to understand than the news programs targeted to adults. The German spoken radio broadcasts (such as Deutschland Funk) are worth checking out. Some of the programs are really interesting and many have transcripts. And Deutsche Welle has both audio and video podcasts that seemed to be targeted towards learners of the language. And of course there is youtube ...

End of January
Pros: consistently spending time using German usually 2 hours per day on average, added a skype partner and a pen pal this month, started using Lang-8, started an intermediate course with some nice people, figured out logging here (I think) and enjoyed lots of interesting content: books, articles, films, radio, etc.

Cons: grammar exercises seem crystal clear UNTIL I speak/write (and make gobs of errors), vocabulary drilling feels like torture: I hate flashcards and anki! The only thing that seems to work is just reading a lot, but my fear is that it is much less efficient. I didn't like a lot of junky content, but kept listening/reading/watching because there was something to learn. It wasn't a complete waste of time, but I need to be more selective.

Neutral: Doing corrections of Lang-8 is rather time-consuming, but I do feel obligated since others are kind enough to correct my stuff. Help from native speakers is essential, but can be time-consuming and since many German-speakers already speak English quite well, I may not have much to offer in exchange (need to figure this out).
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BAnna
Triglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 4400 days ago

409 posts - 616 votes 
Speaks: English*, German, Spanish
Studies: Russian, Turkish

 
 Message 32 of 236
03 February 2013 at 6:38pm | IP Logged 
Eines Tages ging eine Frau ins Kino und kaufte zwei Eintrittskarte. Sie betrat das Kino zusammen mit ihrem Hund. Der Manager hält sie und sagte, "Entschuldigung, aber die Hunden sind im Kino nicht erlaubt. Er muss raus." Die Frau erwiderte, "Aber dieser Hund ist klug wie kein anderer Hund der Welt und er wird sich sehr höflich und leise benehmen." Der Manager zögerte, "Na ja, es gibt fast keine Kunden heute Abend, dann er reinkommen kann, aber wenn er piepst oder sich unpassend benimmt, muss er unbedingt hinausgehen und zwar sofort." Die Frau antwortete, "Machen Sie sich keine Sorgen. Mein Hund benimmt sich besser als viele Menschen." Sie wurde zufrieden und bedankte dem Manager. Die Frau und der Hund schauen den Film an. Nach der Film endete und sie durch die Vorhalle gingen, kam der Manager zur Frau und lobte den Hund: "Ich habe Ihren Hund beobachtet. Er hat sich wirklich sehr gut verhaltet und es schient sogar, dass er hatte den Film eben genossen." Die Frau lächelte und sagte, "Ja, er hat es eben genossen, aber das Buch gefiel ihm viel Besser."


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