The disappearing tower

October in Berlin is a mysterious time. After a cloudy and cold September, along came a sunny October. We became optimistic, winter was once again far away, summer decided to pay us another visit. Well that only lasted a week or so, then not only did it become cold and gloomy but also very foggy.

The fog sits so thick and heavy that it hides Berlin’s most recognisable tower, the Fernsehturm. From our class window we can easily see the tower, it was there in the morning and then in an hour’s time it was completely engulfed by the fog. It was as if the tower never existed, it was really surprising. Most of us can spot the tower from quite a distance away, I myself use it to get my bearings. So when I couldn’t see it, even from close distance, like from our classroom, I felt like asking „Who stole the tower”?

Even though it is getting colder every day and the sun disappears for a week at a time, the mistiness and the disappearing act of the tower makes for a playful October in Berlin. Quite perfect for Halloween!

Fotos vom Kulturprogramm im Oktober

Liebe Teilnehmer,

unser Ausflug in das Dokumentationszentrum „Topographie des Terrors“ am letzten Freitag war sehr informativ und bot uns Einblicke in die Geschichte des deutschen Nationalsozialismus und seine globale Wirkung. Für alle, die nicht dabei waren, haben wir hier ein paar Bilder zusammengestellt.

Euer DeutschAkademie Team

#DeutschAkademie #Berlin #Kulturprogramm #DeutschLernen #MitSpaßzumErfolg #TopographiedesTerrors

 

 

Have you been to dm yet?

Have you been to the chemist shop dm? At first I thought it was a bit weird that. Seriously, it’s a bizarre concept to buy a simple medicine at a shop that sells all sorts of wellness products (eye drops, shampoo, vitamins, etc). Anyways, aside from my cognitive dissonance.

„Why?” I hear you ask. I love that dm food gluten-free and vegan foods; it has the best toe socks for sneakers; the home brand products are really good quality at crazy cheap prices,  I refuse to buy branded soaps and shampoos now. Best of all, your 2 euro dm canvas bag can be exchanged for a new one once it’s all dirty and used, true story! I would recommend this to a friend.

In short, when I first came to Berlin dm helped me feel more familiar with my new hometown. Before you dismiss this as random ravings, check out dm for yourself.

 

Die Artikel!

I’ve never been so confused in my life, and I’m not sure there is an easy solution to clear that confusion. Have you come across German articles for nouns? If you haven’t,  rejoice! And if you have, well you’ll know that there’s a whole tangled jungle lurking behind the innocent looking: der, die, and das.

Last week, we started to learn German and we were full of confidence and eagerness. Then we stepped into the dark tangled jungle of articles, any confidence and comfort we gained with German was quickly snuffed out. We literally have to remember which articles go with which noun, there’s no partner or rule, and then we need to remember how they change according to the verb in the sentence (that’s what the image below is demonstrating).

Everyone in class is hoping for a saviour, a rule, a tip, a trick, anything!! But alas, the only thing we can rely upon is our memory. Thank goodness our teacher is patient, she also has handy games and exercises to help us become more familiar with 'die Artikel’ (the articles).

On a positive, apparently even Germans struggle with this. Yay, misery is company.

 

You know Uno?

So class is not just about sitting at your desk and remembering what you’ve been told, we’re often spilt into little groups to tackle exercises and practice what we’ve learnt. Well, as well as this, we play games! Ok I won’t lie, I wasn’t really a believer that these games would be fun but actually they are a really effective way of reinforcing what we’ve learn and of course fun too.

In the beginning it was tossing a ball around the class, we’d have to either answer a question or recite an noun+article. Then came UNO! I haven’t played UNO for years, let alone in German! Gosh, we had a lot of fun. I was really sceptical about the „fun” factor, but as we got the hang of saying things in German and remembering the rules, we couldn’t stop playing. In a span of 20mins, we played 4 rounds. I plan to make my partner and friends play this in German, and perhaps the penalty for not keeping to German will be shots (shots, shots, shots, everyb… yeh you know the song) or maybe just picking up more card; because let’s face it games are more fun when the stakes are high.

I suspect there’s another game around the corner, as I see our teacher pull out a bag of dice and chess pieces from her bag whilst she is arranging what she needs for the lesson. Scepticism has been thrown out the window, I’m looking forward to more games!

 

1st Week Summary

Hi there, thank for coming back!

The first week of German school is over! Yes, it’s over and actually it was a very good week. For me it was a week of new beginnings. It is the first time I ever go to any language school, I met new friends, I study new language… I can actually make sentences and even understand when people talk to me. It feels much better to know the language of the country you live in and I recommend you to do the same!


(Picture: My new friends from DeutschAkademie, Spain, Portugal, Argentina, Israel).

In DeutschAkademie I feel very good. It’s very quiet, the teacher always starts on time, and end on time(…), it is very accessible, I think all the transportation options go through Alexanderplatz so it’s really easy to get there. In the school there is a coffee area where you can have a snack or drink a coffee, yesterday I wanted to have a coffee and realized it’s all for only 1E!! And it’s acceptable price for machine coffee 🙂

I like the way we advance and study. I can see my improvement on a daily basis. The key is repetition. At the beginning you don’t need much, just 15 minutes a day! Even if you will do less its good because as many times as you’ll get across the study material mean you will remember it better. And so, you can see it in class. The people who had no idea about German can actually say sentences and find sense in what the teacher say..

 

 

Wishing you a happy birthday, with some jam in your shoe!

If mum hadn’t called me I would have completely forgotten my Birthday. The sunny weather and warm temperature today made me feel not so far away from home (Sydney) and perhaps Berlin was giving me birthday greetings with a beautiful day.

Our teacher opened the lesson today with a funny birthday song for me, it’s not your classic Happy Birthday song (see the picture below). Apparently all children learn this in kindergarten. Wait, have we English speakers been using a German word, Kindergarten, without realising it? Cool! Ok, back to the funny birthday song, how cute would it be to hear little children sing „Marmalade in the shoe and apricots in the pants,” mean but cute. Is this an example of German humour being taught from a young age?

As you can see from the picture, there was a grammar lesson hidden within the song. Is this an example of German practicality? Our teacher is the sweetest, she just wanted to ensure we learnt more than just new vocab from the song.

 

Everyone wants to learn Deutsch (German)

It’s really amazing that the people enrolling at Deutsch Akadamie are from all over the world, and I mean All Over! Just have a look at the map below, look at all the little flags the students have placed and all the holes where previous students have come from. It’s just incredible.

In my class, there are 11 of us, we are from: Brasil, Colombia, Egypt, Portugal, Scotland, USA, and of course Australia! There’s a sense of international companionship amongst us.

It’s really interesting to note the points where we English speakers get stuck in learning Deutsch differs to where other language speakers get stuck. Deutsch, though complex and unusual, has patterns that can match with another languages which really helps the learners.

Seeing the map with all the little flags sticking out from everywhere, gives a sense of the multiculturalism that exists in Berlin. I feel Berlin is a melting pot of different cultures. Very cool.

 

Hello everyone! Nice to have you back here!

I wan to recommend you about my favorite place in the city! I can’t remember if I already told you about my love for coffee. So yes, I am a coffee lover and a professional barista, so my favorite place in terms of cafe’s is a small coffee shop in Mall of Berlin, at Potsdamerplatz. The name of the shop is „der Kaffeeladen” (the coffee shop). I can highly recommend to those who loves good coffee to go and have one there, because they have very good&tasty coffee served very nicely and professionally and they also have some small pastries of course. If you want to go, as I said, it is located in the Mall of Berlin at Potsdamerplatz at the ground level right next to the U-bahn station of U2 Mohrenstrasse.


(Picture: My coffee at der Kaffeeladen with a small glass of water and the best Florentiner I know 🙂 )

Yesterday we had a night-out with the DeutschAkademie school! At the end of our first week of German course in DeutschAkademie we had a night-out not only of our class but more classes at the „Cancun” restaurant next to Alexanderplatz. It was organized by the school and it was very nice evening. We got to know more people and our classmates better and it was very nice is funny evening! I would definitely recommend you to also go because you can meet new people and make new friends and basically it’s fun! At the end every table (we set in mixed tables as we chose..) had to make a pasta tower and put a Marshmallow on top of it without the tower to fall. Here, as you can see, is our piece of art, and it called „die Piraten” (as we also added a flag that unfortunately you cannot see in this pic) :

First week summery: I am happy with my decision to go to German school and choosing DeutschAkademie school. I’ve learned a lot of important things and I can already see the change in my German!

I wish you happy weekend! The forecast says it’s going to be sunny so enjoy every second of it!!
Thank you for following and see you next week!!
bis nächste Woche!!

 

Tal

Fotos vom Stammtisch im Oktober

Liebe Teilnehmer,

es war gestern ein sehr lustiger und unterhaltsamer Stammtisch. Bei unserem Gewinnspiel „Spaghetti-Turm“ wart ihr mit vollem Ehrgeiz und Motivation dabei. Viele von euch haben bei diesem Geschicklichkeitsspiel ihr volles Können gezeigt und haben als Team überzeugt.

Anbei noch viele schöne Erinnerungen an diesen Abend.

Euer DeutschAkademie Team

#DeutschAkademie #Stammtisch #DeutschLernen #MitSpaßzumErfolg #Berlin #Alexanderplatz #Cancún