Struggling along, just finished Deutsch, 101. Moving onto 102 2nd semester, i'm nailing the vocab, but all the different forms of the word "the" and "a" in german is giving me some trouble, anyone have any helpful tips for me to keep things straight?
I recommend you spend a lot of time early on memorizing the gender of nouns. The case thing will all make sense to you at some point. But memorize the gender so you are not playing guessing games.
Thats what I try and do, learn the article with the noun. Although my german grammar is poor my spoken german is very fluent having lived in Germany for years. So my tip is just keep learning vocab, listen to, read and speak as much as possible. Forget about learning all but the simplest grammar until you can speak the language.
a friend of mine from japan who worked for one year in germany told me, that he will never understand why it is called - for example - "der Tisch" but "die Lampe". He said that he managed to learn german just because he spoke german all day long. (He refused talking english with us.) That gave him a feeling for the language. He said that just learning vocabular and grammar doesn't work.
I find grammar very helpful. There clearly is a correct way to speak the language and learning by hearing can sound very natural, but can also be full of mistakes. It is worth the effort to learn the grammar. Some parts of grammar have no clearly articulable reasons. Thus, I do not think there are really any reasons behind whether a word is masculine, feminine or neuter. It is primarily a matter of sound, and of the words having been codified in dictionaries as having particular genders at some point in the past. You have to memorize it. (Often if you guess you can have a 66 per cent chance of getting it right, but that makes you look even dumber when you get it wrong.) There are similar weird issues in Japanese. You can ask your friend if he knows why he uses "wa" sometimes and "ga" other times. There are also dumb things in English -- our spelling rules make NO sense. The cases in German really do make sense -- so it is worth spending time learning their use. Nominative is the subject. Thus, for example, in English, the word "Thou" is a nominative form. It can only be used as the subject of the sentence. Similarly, "Der Mann" can only be used as the subject of a sentence. Accusative is the direct object, and in English one would use "Thee", which can be used as a direct object in a sentence. Similarly, "Den Mann" has to be used as the direct object of a sentence. Dative is for the indirect object. The way I know whether or not to use dative is by looking at the verb or the preposition. You can figure out whether or not the verb is transitive (i.e. requires a direct object) or intransitive (i.e. requires an indirect object) by looking in the dictionary. A transitive verb takes accusative. An intransitive verb takes dative. As to prepositions, you have to memorize the rules for prepositions and case. Genetive is for possessives.
Do what I did: Marry a nice German girl, and have her teach you the language ! The grammar is a drag. You can't really learn the cases unless you have a good grasp of the genders, and the only way to learn genders is memorization. In spoken German, one can simply mumble the endings, thereby not having to deal with "Meine, Meinen, Meinem". I've also found it helps to read alot of German. Bild.de is great for this, as the language is so simple. Watch out, though, if you try this at work, as "Schnecke des Tages" is often right there on the front page :-D
Memorize the definite article when you memorize the noun. That's the ONLY way to get a good feel for the genders. Also, if you think German grammar is tough, check out Latin sometime.
I agree that reading a lot is very useful. I have always found novels to be better than news or newspapers -- although Kicker is great. After subscribing in the US for three years, I finally feel I understand the articles. Next year, I am thinking of graduating to Der Speigel, which has okay soccer coverage. Problem is, Soccer is what interests me. Any recommendations for soccer books in German? I read Jurgen Rollman's Beruf: Fussball Profi and liked it a lot but that is because my day job I am a lawyer and it had lots of German football contracts in it. Gott Ist Rund I found to be too difficult to read. I plan to try it again in 2003. For novels, I found Ungeduld Des Herzens by Stephan Zweig to be a good read. Siddhartha was easy to understand but not very interesting. I also find the Der Hexer Von Salem series to be easy to follow -- all plot and very predictable, but you have to enjoy Lovecraft.
Ethel: You read Kicker in print? maybe you could answer my question about same (check the Germany index). Spiegel's sport coverage is a bit weak. Sport1.de is quite a bit better, and their US sports coverage is exceptional. I wish I could help out on the soccer books. Unfortunately, my wife is no soccer fan, nor are any of her friends (nor is, in fact, any German I've ever met. Odd... Any other Amis have this experience?). Siddhartha in English was lovely.
Interestingly, I have never met a German who was a soccer fan either -- they all want to talk to me about Basketball, a sport I know little about. Yes. I get Kicker in print, but read it on the train and throw it out, so I have no back issues to check. It arrives late -- after I have watched the games on Fox Sports World, but I still enjoy it. I will go see what your question is and try to answer.
You are meeting odd Germans ethel: if you want to stick to soccer, then there's no alternative to kicker. Rival magazine is Sport-Bild, but this would be a step back for you. The soccer coverage in Spiegel is not worth mentioning. If you're interested in political matters (what Spiegel's main business is), then I'd recommend Focus as this is the easier language (somehow Bild for intellectuals). Books? Don't know. What direction are you looking for? Didn't know that Jürgen Rollmann wrote a book - he was goalie in Bremen and Duisburg and also active journalist I think. I got "Fussball Gott" by David Kadel as a present this summer - is quite a good read. Lots of soccer pros somehow related to God are introduced.
I have a lot of soccer books, but nearly all of them are about the history of the game. If you are interested in this topic try: Everything written by Hardy Grüne (Especially Von Grauen Mäusen und großen Meistern and Vom Kronprinzen bis zur Bundesliga) Eintracht Braunschweig - Die Chronik by Stefan Peters Fußball für Millionen - die Geschichte der deutschen Fußball Nationalmannschaft Horst Friedmann - Sparwasser und Mauerblümchen Fußball Weltgeschichte, CS-Verlag Attention: If you are NOT interested in this topic, those books will be VERY boring.
Soccer books: Olaf and Alex, thanks for the recommendations. I will definitely check these out next time I do an Amazon.com.de order. The books I most like are either about the politics or business of Soccer or about tactics. In English I enjoyed 4-4-2 by Andy Gray, a tactical book. On the politics side, I enjoyed Football Against The Enemy, Passavotchka, and FiFA and the contest for world football. Books that cover a season from the point of view of a fan who can write well are fun. There was a book in English I read, Football Fanatic, by a man who visited all of the professional football grounds in England within a year. It was full of history and trivia about the teams, but also was a bit of a travel log. I would be very interested if there were a book by a correspondent who went to Asia for the recent world cup and followed the tournament and team while at the same time enjoying Asia. (I really liked Ultra Nippon in English). I am curious about the Eintracht Braunschweig book Alex recommended. Each German team seems to have a book about the team lovingly compiled by a writer with access to the archives. I read the Eintracht Frankfurt one and while it was interesting, especially to see what was going on with the league in prewar and postwar times, I found it to be quite dry, and was not planning on working my way through more of these. Is there something that makes the Braunschweig one good? Also, what does Eintracht mean?
First of all : as a Eintracht Braunschweig fan i am quite biased. To be honest i don't know other club books to compare the Eintracht book with, but if you disliked the Frankfurt book i could imagine that you will dislike this book too. "Eintracht" means unity. Another possible translation is harmony (but not in this context).
On Monday kicker introduced "Lexikon der Fussball-Mythen" by Christian Eichler. Sounds dull and also is arranged like an encyclopaedia, but behind the terms the author tells about big soccer games, great teams and players. Might be quite interesting, but admittedly I haven't seen it yet.
I recommend the books by Christoph Biermann, who writes for the Sueddeutsche Zeitung (mainly Vfl Bochum and Leverkusen-related stories). 1) "Wenn du am Spieltag beerdigt wirst, kann ich leider nicht kommen". Die Welt der Fussballfans (1995) I like that quote...a fan speaking to his mother 2) Der Ball ist rund, damit das Spiel die Richtung ändern kann. Wie moderner Fussball funktioniert (Co-author: Ulrich Fuchs) (2002) If you are tactic-interested, this should be worth a look. Ronald Reng also writes for the SZ, he has published a book on the career of Lars Leese at Barnsley..sounds dull, but all reviews (even in the Feuilleton pages) agreed that it was interesting and funny.. I haven't read it myself, but I gave it to a friend as a bithday present, and she was pretty intrigued, said she didn't expect that she could hardly put it down after starting. Ronald Reng: Der Traumhüter (2002) About magazines: I enjoy "11 Freunde" very much, but I am not sure if you can get a suscription abroad. Maybe you can find out at http://www.11freunde.de
I've been trying to learn German since i was 8, but I've never been able to get anyone to teach me. here I am, seven years later, and i finally broke down and get a Teach Yourself book. Any hints/advice for me, since there is no one to go over my work to make sure I'm doing it right?
Maybe it was mentioned in the above posts and I missed it, but what was the name of the book by Toni Schumacher...the one that he got in hot water about? I'd like to read it. Take a Goethe Institut class (if there's a Goethe Institut in your area---I guess they've closed a lot of them down) they really throw you into the language.
"Anpfiff. Enthüllungen über den deutschen Fußball" is Toni Schumacher's book. You might have problems to buy it as it is from 1987.
I used to subscribe to Sport-Bild - what a complete rag that "publication" is. Anyway: Maybe you should find an Internet chat site populated by Germans where you can practice your (written) German. Only problem there is that if people decide their English is better than your German, they may try to force their English on you. IMO the ONLY way to learn German is to do it the way a German would: correctly, efficiently and by the book. Learn the grammer rules, as they are very important. Only if you have a good grasp of German grammar will you be able to speak well enough to impress people (if that's what you're after). Also, there is no substitution for memorization. Memorize the important tables (like adjective endings) as these will be of no end of help to you. Memorize the song "Aus außer bei mit - nach seit - von zu" (sung to the tune of the Blue Danube Waltz), as these prepositions always use the dative case. German is not that hard a language to learn (for an English speaker), but you have to be strict with yourself and put in the work. There are no shortcuts.
I took a quarter of German about 4 years ago...unfortunately, I have forgotten most of it!! It is a fun language to speak, though!! Any language that calls a bra "der bustenhalter" is #1 in my book!! My question here is if anyone has heard about the Pimsleur Approach of language learning...I actually got a mass e-mail about it the other day, and researched it. It seemed to be a respected method (they sell audio CD's and cassettes). Many legit newspapers have been complimentary of it...I am considering buying the "Quick and Simple German" set (actually only $20) as an re-introductory. Anyone ever heard of it or have an opinion on it??
Just wanted to add something about german soccer books: 11 Freunde müßt ihr sein is a book written for kids, so it should be easier to understand... it takes place in pre WWI Berlin and is about kids playing soccer... imo the best german soccer novell...