Laundry

I’m already sad because of the upcomming end of my A2.2 course. Fortunatelly the most of us from the group are continuing, which confirms my feeling that this course was a good one.  We do a lot of grammar right now, it makes us feel confused every 10 minutes. I’m looking forward to the moment where all these rules /exeptions are intuitive and easy like piece of cake.  But is it going to happen.. ever? We’ll see.  Now I’m enjoying the new ability to open my mouth  in public – in german.  It doesn’t happen too often but at least I’m able to answer simple questions at work.  At this moment the biggest victim of my evening course are my neighbours who have to deal with me making laundry at 10pm. Entschuldigung 😐

 

Bike

Here in Berlin each cyclist is a holy cow on the road. Consequently, buying a bike is a must to do thing for everyone who moves here.  Great number of cycling paths makes it the most efficient mean of transport (yes, even better than incredibly good u-bahn and s-bahn). Unfortunatelly, now for me is way too cold to use it, so I left my bike in the courtyard of my building and I visit it with a sad look every time I throw litters. Maybe if it gets a little bit wormer next month I will try, cause then I could make the distance between my office and DeutscheAkademi in 5 minutes. Talking about the school- it’s only one week left. I’m really happy with the progress I made during the last 3 weeks, so I’m looking forward what comes next.

Body

Yesterday we were learning vocabulary that describes human body. I was particulary fascinated by the drawing our teacher made on the board, so I took a photo of it. It’s cute, isn’t it? After that we were asked to play a game in pairs: one person was describing a picture of a man she/he had, and the second one was supposed to draw. You can imagine how funny the final ‘portrets’ were.

Stammtisch / Get Together 24. Januar 2013 @ Bar & Restaurant Brauhaus Südstern

Lern deutsch und triff nette Leute beim Stammtisch am 24. Januar @ “BRAUHAUS SÜDSTERN”

Möchtest du nach dem Deutschkurs in Berlin dein Deutsch verbessern und dabei nette Leute treffen? Dann komm zu unserem nächsten Stammtisch im “Brauhaus Südstern”, wo wir in gemütlicher Atmosphäre Deutsch sprechen und uns von unseren Erfahrungen mit dem Deutschkurs in Berlin erzählen.

WO? “Brauhaus Südstern” (Hasenheide 69, 10967 Berlin-Kreuzberg, U-Bahn: U7 “Südstern”)

WANN? Donnerstag, 24. Januar 2013 um 20:15 Uhr

Wir freuen uns auf euch!

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Learn German and make friends at our Get Together on January 24th @ “BRAUHAUS SÜDSTERN”

Do you want to improve your German after your German course in Berlin and meet nice people? Then come to our next Get Together in the bar & restaurant “Brauhaus Südstern”, where we will speak German and tell each other about our experiences with the German course in Berlin in a comfortable atmosphere.

WHERE? “Brauhaus Südstern” (Hasenheide 69, 10967 Berlin-Kreuzberg, U-Bahn: U7 “Südstern”)

WHEN? Thursday, January 24th 2013 at 8:15 p.m.

We are looking forward to seeing you there!

What is your reason?

First of all, let me introduce you two important girls from DeutschAkademie/ Alexanderplatz:  Hella, my teacher aaaaand a girl from reception who’s name I unfortunatelly don’t know but I ensure you, she’s really nice too 🙂  They must have many interesting things to say about language school and what is going on around. Everyday they meet poeple who moved to Berlin because of… something. From my experience most of them are learning german cause they want to find a job here, or they already have it but still ‘ja’, ‘nein’ and ‘danke’ is not enough to cammunicate with the world around.  I guess there can be other motivations like love affairs, school demands, parents’ aspiration or simply I_have_nothing_better_to_do_with_my_life.  Who cares, learning new language is always a cool thing.

Cultural Program after the German course in Berlin – Museum Story of Berlin

As a part of our leisure program, yesterday we went to visit the museum Story of Berlin after the German course in Berlin. Here we learned a lot about the history of Berlin and improved our German. From the first mentioning of Berlin as a city until the reunification of Germany in 1990, we could learn in the 21 theme rooms of the museum and also got a guided tour through the nuclear bomb shelter right at the Kurfürstendamm. For all the ones who participated at the tour and also for those who want to know the most important parts of the history of Berlin, here we give you a little summary of what we have learned. Below you can also find a list of the most important German words concerning the history of Berlin. We hope that you enjoyed learning German at the museum Story of Berlin. See you at the next leisure program after the German course.

In 1251 Berlin first was mentioned as a city. There used to be a union between the trading towns Berlin and Cölln. From 1415 until 1918 there were electors, emperors, and kings living in Berlin, who all had very different tendencies in their way of ruling. As a result of the French Revolution and the victory of Napoleon, in 1806 Berlin was occupied by Napoleon’s army for two years. After a time of poverty the french troops left Berlin and reformations were initiated, for example now 7% of the people had the right to vote. The first university of Berlin (Humboldt) and the first newspaper of Berlin (Berliner Abendblätter) were founded. The population kept growing, which also led to some social problems. As a part of the Industrial Revolution the first train started operating in 1838.
In 1871 the German Empire was founded. The infrastructure could not keep up with the rapid growth of the population, which led to an economic crisis. In order to manage the traffic, the subway (U-Bahn) was constructed. After the First World War followed the time of the Weimar Republic with a lot of domestic policital confrontations. Berlin now had 3.8 million habitants. The economic situation was bad due to reparation costs of the First World War, though after changing the agreements there was a short economic boom, the “Golden Twenties”, before the global economic crisis in 1929 and Hitler becoming Reich Chancellor in 1933. From then on, Jews were massively persecuted and 50,000 of them were brought to and mostly killed at the concentration camps. In 1939 the Second World War began, during which Berlin was bombed during day and night time and 50% of the downtown area were destroyed. Hitler killed himself in 1945 and Berlin was divided into four occupation zones (Great Britain, France, USA and the Soviet Union). Between the western zones and the Soviet Union there were political tensions, the western part became the BRD (Federal Republic of Germany) and the eastern part became the DDR (German Democratic Republic). The DDR built a wall separating their country from the West until 1989 in order to prevent their citizens to escape into the West. Since 1990 Germany has been a united country again.

 

die Handelsstadt trading town
die Hauptstadt capital
die Wirtschaft economy
die Aufklärung enlightenment
die Armut poverty
die Reform reformation
der Kurfürst elector
der Kaiser emperor
der König king
die Armee army
die Regierung government
wahlberechtigt (adj.) entitled to vote
die Wirtschaftskrise economic crisis
(Erster / Zweiter) Weltkrieg World War
das Wachstum growth
der Aufschwung (economic) boom
bombardieren to bomb

 

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Kulturprogramm nach dem Sprachkurs – Besuch des Museums Story of Berlin

Gestern sind wir im Rahmen unseres Freizeitprogramms nach dem Deutschkurs in Berlin ins Museum Story of Berlin gegangen. Hier konnten wir vieles über die Geschichte Berlins erfahren und unser Deutsch verbessern. Von der ersten Erwähnung Berlins bis hin zur Wiedervereinigung Deutschlands 1990 konnten wir in den 21 Themenräumen des Museums lernen und bekamen außerdem eine private Führung durch den Atomschutzbunker direkt am Kurfürstendamm. Für alle Teilnehmer, die mit dabei waren und auch für diejenigen, die etwas über die Geschichte Berlins erfahren möchten, gibt es hier noch einmal eine Zusammenfassung dessen, was wir gelernt haben. Unten findet ihr außerdem eine Liste der wichtigsten deutschen Vokabeln in Zusammenhang mit der Berliner Geschichte. Wir hoffen, ihr hattet Spaß beim Deutsch lernen im Museum Story of Berlin. Wir sehen uns beim nächsten Freizeitprogramm nach dem Deutschkurs.

Als Stadt wurde Berlin zum ersten Mal 1251 erwähnt. Es handelte sich zunächst um eine Union der Handelsstädte Berlin und Cölln. Von 1415 bis 1918 wohnten Kurfürsten, Kaiser und Könige in der Stadt mit jeweils sehr unterschiedlichen Tendenzen in ihrer Regierung. Im Ergebnis der Französischen Revolution und dem Sieg Napoleons wurde Berlin 1806 für zwei Jahre von Napoleons Armee besetzt. Nach einer Zeit der Armut zogen die französischen Truppen ab und es wurden Reformen eingeleitet, zum Beispiel waren nun 7% der Bürger Berlins wahlberechtigt. Es wurde die erste Berliner Universität gegründet (Humboldt Universität) und die erste Tageszeitung herausgegeben (Berliner Abendblätter). Das schnelle Wachstum der Bevölkerung brachte soziale Probleme mit sich. Die Industrielle Revolution setzte ein und es begann der Bau der Eisenbahn, die 1838 ihren Betrieb aufnahm.

1871 wurde das Deutsche Reich gegründet. Die Infrastruktur kam mit dem rapiden Wachstum der Bevölkerung nicht mit und es folgte eine Wirtschaftskrise. Zur Bewältigung des Verkehrs wurde die U-Bahn konstruiert. Nach dem Ersten Weltkrieg folgte die Weimarer Republik mit vielen innenpolitischen Auseinandersetzungen. Berlin hatte nun 3,8 Millionen Einwohner. Die Wirtschaftliche Situation war schlecht wegen der Reparationskosten des Ersten Weltkrieges, jedoch gab es nach Änderung der Vereinbarungen in den 20er Jahren einen kurzen Aufschwung, die „Goldenen Zwanziger“. Es folgte 1929 jedoch die Weltwirtschaftskrise und 1933 wurde Adolf Hitler Reichskanzler. Juden wurden verfolgt und 50.000 von ihnen wurden im Holocaust in Konzentrationslager verschleppt und meistens ermordet. 1939 begann der Zweite Weltkrieg, währenddessen Berlin tagsüber und nachts bombardiert wurde und 50% der Innenstadt komplett zerstört wurde. Hitler tötete sich 1945 und Berlin wurde nach dem Krieg in Besatzungszonen (Großbritannien, Frankreich, USA und Sowjetunion) aufgeteilt. Zwischen den westlichen Zonen und der Sowjetunion gab es Spannungen, der Westen wurde zur BRD (Bundesrepublik Deutschland) und der Osten zur DDR (Deutsche Demokratische Republik). Die DDR errichtete 1961 bis 1989 eine Mauer, um die Bürger daran zu hindern, in den Westen zu fliehen. Seit 1990 ist Deutschland wieder ein vereintes Land.

 

die Handelsstadt trading town
die Hauptstadt capital
die Wirtschaft economy
die Aufklärung enlightenment
die Armut poverty
die Reform reformation
der Kurfürst elector
der Kaiser emperor
der König king
die Armee army
die Regierung government
wahlberechtigt (adj.) entitled to vote
die Wirtschaftskrise economic crisis
(Erster / Zweiter) Weltkrieg World War
das Wachstum growth
der Aufschwung (economic) boom
bombardieren to bomb

 

[nggallery id=13]

That is true

Thanks to so many speaking exercises I do now at DeutscheAkademie, I finally begin trying to comunicate with ‘normal’ people, at work or anywhere else. I mean, before even if I knew some basic sentences it was always hard to s t a r t talking cause I didn’t want to sound like an idiot. And now, when I sound like and idiot every day at german classes, it gives me more confidence to do the same during the rest of the day. Yesterday I went to the bank with a strong decision to get what I want without saying a single word in english. And I did! Of course,  the man who works there was looking at me like I was retarded, but who cares, I managed to express my need and answer his questions… in german.  Great success 😉

Sunday afternoon

Unquestionable advantage of intensive language courses is that on the weekend you get this feeling that you totally deserve to rest. Of course there’s nothing wrong with taking you notebook to the cafe and looking at new vocabulary from time to time, but still, it only you’re choice. You’ve been learning so much whole week, right? I’m lucky to live in the area that offers any kind of place for relax  I could wish for. Just few steps from my flat is a great street, Bergmannstraße. Maybe now in January it does not presents very well (who does?), but trust me, on the every other time of the year it is full of people, inside and outside pubs, restaurants and cafes. In the middle you will find great indoor market with fresh meet and vegetables, and on some days of the week there is also a typical german Flohmarkt (flea market), heaven for those who never get tired of shopping. Bergmannstraße It’s my first choice on lazy Sunday afternoons when I finally has nothing better to do than read a book and eat spicy coconut milk soup in my favourite vietnamese restaurant.