Diving for Pearls

OK, if you are interested in diving for pearls you've probably come to the wrong place. I want to draw attention to an interesting German language site with plenty of treasures for the culturally minded. Perlentaucher.de describes itself as Online Kulturmagazin mit Presseschauen, Rezension, Autorenliste, Feuillton.

Their Links page includes access to a very comprehensive links listing of just about every publisher on the web. I have found some offering free e-books to download. They also list by country the most important Zeitungen, Zeitschrifte und Internetmagazine, Buchkritiken und Literaturmagazine.

E-Books v print

It's nearly a month since I last posted anything and nearly a week since we moved into our new home. Now that I have a decent broadband connection I hope to do more. The chaos here is beginning to recede. We now have hot water and the washing machine is working again - but not the television. Why does everything go wrong at once?

I have managed to get most of my German books onto the shelfs but we have dozens of boxes with other books, ornaments and I don't know what else. Books and internet are what matter to me. I find I can only read a few pages on the computer screen before my eyes start watering and there is something enjoyable about just holding a book. I have wondered about E-Books and using some sort of reader. That could be good for PDF files provided I don't want colour. E-Books are beginning to sell better than hardcover books.

Amazon: E-Books verkaufen sich besser als Hardcover-Ausgaben

Amazon verzeichnet steigende Verkäufe seines E-Book-Readers Kindle. Mittlerweile setze das Unternehmen mehr E-Books als Hardcover-Bücher ab, heißt es in einer Mitteilung.

 ZDNet.de

German Exports

Germany has always relied on exports and is Europe's top exporter. Despite the recession exports from Germany were worth over 800 billion   euros. Imports were 135 billion less for the same period. The high levels of exports may be endangering the competitiveness of other European countries. Should Germany strengthen its domestic demand as French minister Christine Lagarde demands?

Read more on this in sueddeutsche.de Frankreich basht deutschen Export-Erfolg

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Export has a table showing where German exports go. You could use the information to practise using vocabulary about increase and decrease and also try expressing an opinion about German exports and how they affect other economies in Europe.

iGoogle

iGoogle is a great way of keeping up to date with news and other information in German and you can set it as your home page.

Set up a Google account if you don't have one and go to iGoogle. Once you are signed in you can drag in whatever gadgets you want. Even better you can set the language to Deutsch and your location to Deutschland. If you are new to iGoogle it might be better to delay changing the language before you figure out how it works. You can also create other pages (sometimes referred to as tabs) so you can group the gadgets according to subject. I have Home, Nachrichten, Technik and Österreich on mine.

I have the Google News gadget on two pages. One is set for Deutschland and the other for Österreich.

Give it a try and if you are particularly proud of one of your pages you might like to share it with me.

Martin Luther and the German language

Martin Luther, famous for his part in starting the reformation of the church in Germany, also had a significant affect on the German language. His translation of the Bible effectively created a standard version of German where none had previously existed. Many German expressions stem from his Bible translation.

There's a very useful mp3 file about Luther, including his influence on the language, that you can download from the University of Erfurt and there's an accompanying PDF file. The mp3 file is very clear and lasts about 10 minutes.

These two files are examples of the sort of test foreign students have to take to ensure that they have sufficient knowledge of the German language to undertake study at a German university. This type of examination is known as DSH - Deutsche Sprachprüfung für den Hochschulzugang. Many of the universities give examples of the requirement and many of them include an mp3 file. These are ideal for listening practice and there's a reasonable range of topics. I discovered these thanks to deutschlernen-blog.de Uli Mattmüller. He has even sorted out those with mp3 files DSH-Prüfungsbeispiele mit mp3-Dateien

Open-Data

Very strangely I picked up on some British news from a German blog the other day. I'm following www.netzpolitik.org and found a post about Open Government Data. About 3000 datasets are available from data.gov.uk. I found this quote from Daniel Dietrich of OpenData Network in the post

Die Daten stehen ab sofort in maschinenlesbaren Formaten und unter einer offenen Lizenz der Öffentlichkeit zur freien Verfügung. Damit ist die Seite der derzeit umfangreichste und ambitionierteste “Open Government Data” Katalog weltweit. Ein großer Tag für die Opendata Bewegung!

You'll also find an article about the Guardian launching on the same day a central portal to World Government Data from various governments throughout the world - Guardian eröffnet "zentralen Zugang zu den Verwaltungsdaten der Welt"

I would like to have your comments on the Opendata Movement and on any hopes you have for eDemocracy. If you want to find some German and Austrian data sources their are some useful statistics links on Jeckylls Heft

Wine, thistles, snails and soil

On a package tour to Austria a few years back I went on a day trip to Südtirol, the part of Tirol that the Treaty of London transferred to Italy after WWI. It was strange being in Italy zet finding most people spoke German. The trip included a visit to a Weinberg. The owner spoke German and the travel rep translated as most of our party had no German. I remember laughing uproariously at some of the Weinsprüche (proverbs and sayings about wine). His his final offering had the travel rep blushing - she didn't translate it either.

As well as Weinsprüche there are Weinbauernregeln - traditional and proverbial sayings about vine cultivation. These give more or less reliable prognoses about the expected vintage or present age-old experiences as proverbs or rhyming epigrams.

Vines need light to thrive.

Blüht der Stock in vollem Licht,
große Beeren er verspricht.

I think the next expresses the same idea as thistles grow well when there's plenty of sun.

Blüht die Distel reich und voll,
ein guter Herbst dir werden soll.

The healthiest grapes offer the best nourishment for snails so in Switzerland they say:


I guess if you were expressing that in standard German you'd have to say something like: Im schönsten Weinberg gedeihen die meisten Schnecken. In English I would use comparatives rather than superlatives: The better the vineyard, the more the snails flourish - which reminds me of the pattern often found in German using je ..., desto ...

Vines need a loose, well aerated soil and plenty of dung applied before the ground freezes in Winter.

Dreimal gehackt,
und der Wein schmackt.

Räbbauer, führ dyn Mischt, vor's Jahr ummen ischt!

Obviously another from Switzerland: Grape-grower, spread your muck before the year's end. Or in German: Rebbauer, fahre deinen Mist, bevor das Jahr zu Ende geht!

There are also lots of Weinbauernregeln (Winzerregeln is an alternative word) related to the calendar (Kalendarsprüche). I think I'll save them for another post.

If you have some sayings about wine, grapes or anything do share them by leaving a comment.

Luck - Learn German podcasts

Learn German podcast PG37 - Luck

A real lucky dip this one. Good fun as well. Ich bin ein Glückskind!

This is just one of a series of podcasts to help you learn some modern colloquial German and slang ... and probably some things you didn't even know in English.

Enjoy!

Climate Change Challenged

There seems to be a growing trend of scepticism. The IPCC (International Panel for Climate Change - der Weltklimarat auf Deutsch) has acknowledged that their own warnings about the rate of glacial melt in the Himalayas has insufficient scientific basis. Weltklimarat muss umstrittene Prognose zurückziehen is the headline in tagesshau.de
It's good that the IPCC are open to correction and acknowledge things that don't meet their own standards. What is more worrying is the way corrections are seized on as though they were absolute proof that climate change is nothing but hysteria. Yes we need corrections but we also need prompt action to try to reduce the human contribution to global warming. Even if the climate change models were much better developed the sceptics would still be in denial.
I was also interested to see that Michael Fish commented on Monday that long term forecasting is a science in its infancy - guardian.co.uk Comment is free Climate change sceptism
Wie denken Sie über die Sache?  Wie finden Sie die Umweltpolitik Ihres Landes?

Detektei Suni

Detektei Suni & Partner is a nine part series of audio plays available for free download in mp3 format. You can download them separately or use a link on their start page to download the whole series.

Produced by the University of Augsburg for children and young people but very suitable for adults learning German as a foreign language. You can also download the scripts for the first seven instalments in PDF format.

The start page presents the links to the episodes under a series of images. When you click on one it appears to present you with the same page but if you scroll down you'll find what you selected is presented further down the page. It seems odd to let the site navigation get in the way of the content but don't let it put you off. This is excellent material.

Starvation Wages

A report on tagesschau.de speaks of subcontractors working for the railways paying starvation wages Hungerlöhne bei Bahn-Subunternhemen? ZDFheute.de is carrying reports that suggest increase social polarisation Soziale Polarisierung nimmt zu. One in seven Germans is threaten by poverty and the ratio would be almost one in four if it were not for welfare benefits (Sozialleistungen).

I was impressed by the quality of the comments posted on the Hungerlöhne article - well worth a look. I also want to mention CAP's campaign for a living wage in Britain. This also has links to theological justifications for similar campaigns in the US. I've tried to find similar on German sites but not been very successful so far. But I did stumble across http://www.suedwind-institut.de/ According to the English part of their site "The work of SÜDWIND is based on the conviction that there is a connection between the prosperity of industrial nations and the poverty that is prevalent across broad sections of society in developing countries." Their work includes poverty reduction, ethical investment and world trade. I think I might be exploring some of this over the next few months.

The way in which we deal with poverty depends very much on the attitudes that people take to the causes of poverty. Here are some reasons given. Which is your view?

Es gibt Menschen in Not, weil ...

1. Es ist ein unvermeidliche Teil des modernen Lebens
2. Ungerechtigkeit in unserer Gesellschaft
3. Faulheit oder Mangel an Willenskraft
4. Sie sind von Pech verfolgt

Nazi victims demand compensation

Nazi victims demand compensation from  German Railways (Deutscher Bahn)

Polish victims want compensation for their deportation in WWII. The association for Political Prisoners formerly held in Hitler's prisons and concentration camps expects a gesture of reconciliation from Deutsche Bahn.

Here's the intro to the story running on ARD's Tagesschau

NS-Opfer fordern Entschädigung von Deutscher Bahn

Polnische NS-Opfer fordern von der Deutschen Bahn Entschädigung für ihre Deportation im Zweiten Weltkrieg: Der Vereins ehemaliger Politischer Häftlinge von Hitlerschen Gefängnissen und Konzentrationslagern erwartet von dem Unternehmen eine "Geste der Versöhnung".

Read the full story    Listen to the story

Apparently this is not just about money. The 7000 remaining members of the association need humanitarian assistance. The Bahn has already contributed a multi-million Euro figure to a foundation to compensate forced-labourers (Zwangarbeiter). Should they be doing something to help these Polish victims?

You can add comments to the others shown below the story on ARD. One of the contributors says:
Klar haftet an Deutschland leider noch immer die Nazi-Vergangenheit und es ist auch unentschuldbar was damals geschah. Doch was können wir, die 4. Generation nach dem 2. WK, dafür, was vor über 50 Jahren geschah?

Is it realistic for generation after generation to have to pay for the sins of previous generations? On the other hand should more have been done to provide compensation in the immediate post war period?

News News News

One thing I want to do with this blog occasionally is pick up something in the headlines in Germany and make comment on it. Perhaps I'll copy a short extract so my readers can see if it interests them and I'll provide a link to the full piece.

How to keep up with the headlines? Turns out that's easy. Go to InfoLive - Das Nachrichten Portal You'll find the headlines from the main TV and radio stations. Not only that you'll find tabs for Magazines/Daily papers and much more.

Avoiding Colds

From cold to colds - you see how my mind makes connections.

Is there anything you can do to avoid colds? I found some suggestions on http://www.vitawo.de/

I've picked out a few headline points and offer my rough translation. The full article would be a useful German to English translation exercise.

Was tun gegen Erkältungen?

Stärken Sie Ihre Abwehrkräfte
Vorbeugen ist bei Krankheiten besser als Heilen
Glücklicherweise gibt es viele Möglichkeiten, um eine Erkältung zu vermeiden.

• Ziehen Sie sich warm an
• Leben Sie gesund
• Schlafen Sie genügend
• Bewegen Sie sich an der Luft
• Waschen Sie sich oft die Hände

Strengthen you resistance to colds

For illnesses prevention is better than cure.
Fortunately there are many possible ways to avoid colds.

• Put on warm clothing
• Get a healthy lifestyle
• Get enough sleep (if only!)
• Get plenty of outdoor exercise
• Wash your hands frequently

Cold Weather

The snow is beginning to go and I took the car out for the first time in 10 days - started at a touch, much to my great relief.

Having published posts on weather and climate change, I noticed that WDR are showing Fit für die Kälte this week - Quarks & Co (Tuesday and Saturday). I've seen this one before and recommend you download it. You can also download an accompanying PDF file with text and pictures covering the same ground as the video - useful if you need to look up some of the vocabulary used. Look for the words PDF zur Sendung in the sidebar on the right. A little further down you'll also find a link to a related PDF file on Das Wetter.

Save the world

Enough energy for half Europe - that’s what’s claimed for a new type of energy production, a hydroelectric scheme based on osmosis.

The driving force comes from the difference in the salinity (salt content) of river and sea water. In one container you have river water and in another sea water. They’re separated by a membrane. The river water penetrates the membrane to even out the salinity. That causes the water level in the second container to rise. The difference can be used to drive a water turbine. An advantage, if this proves commercially viable, is that it is not dependent on weather (Witterung).

I learnt about this in a short video downloaded from Projekt Zukunft: Das Wissenschaftsmagazin. You’ll find some details about it if you visit http://rss.dw-world.de/xml/podcast_projekt-zukunft and look at the video podcasts for 3 January 2010.

Another video you’ll find under the same date deals with a pilot project which uses micro-algae to bind with CO2 from the waste gases (Abgasen) of a brown coal fired power station.
 
For steps you can take to make your life more environmentally friendly (umweltfreunlich)  I recommend more video - this time podcasts from Quarks & Co which has  three episodes of Die Welt Retten in kleinen Schritten - Save the world in small steps - originally broadcast between 17.11.2009 and 01.12.2009.
 
Now let's have your ideas about saving the world.

Climate Change - Klimawandel

Can we forget climate change now?

I’m sure a lot of people are wondering whether we can still speak about global warming given the cold weather in Britain and Germany. We’ve been freezing but Winters are supposed to get milder. Perhaps I’m stating the obvious when I say climate is not the same as weather but some people just don’t get it. A few weeks when the weather is colder than average will not change the 30 year average much. Climate is about statistics and not about short-term weather events.

Here’s the start of an article by Dr. Tim Steiger which appears on the ARD website.

War‘s das jetzt mit dem Klimawandel?



Wie passt der bisher recht kalte Winter ins Bild einer globalen Erwärmung?
Deutschland friert und trotzdem sollen vor allem die Winter hierzulande immer milder werden? Ein scheinbarer Widerspruch, der dieser Tage wieder leise Zweifel an der globalen Erwärmung hochkommen lässt. Jedoch vollzieht sich der Klimawandel einerseits innerhalb von Jahrzehnten und andererseits nicht nur in Deutschland, sondern weltweit.
 
full article
glossary of weather terms
more environmental issues vocabulary and links to German Umwelt lexicons

What are your views on global warming? Perhaps you could add a comment and express your opinion in German.

Memorising Vocabulary

I just remembered something I meant to include in yesterday's post. Ok, it's easily sorted but reminds me I have a flaky memory. Some people manage to remember things by repeating them over and over. That doesn't really work for me. I get bored, go sleepy, lose concentration.


So how do you build up a good vocabulary (Wortschatz)? Two things have helped me. One is the sheer level of exposure to the German language through reading and listening. The downside is I hardly ever write in German so the gap between my understood and written vocabulary is probably greater than it need be. The second aid to learning has been a program called Teachmaster. You can download this free from http://www.teachmaster.de/ There are instructions and an online manual in English.

Teachmaster has an editor for you to build your own exercises by entering German words or phrases and their English equivalents - or some other pair of languages. Lessons need to be kept to a reasonable size for ease of learning - though you can have several lessons in a single file and as many files as you like. If you are revising stuff you know reasonably well then 30 word pairs per lesson would be fine but if it's new then smaller lessons make learning easier.

The other part of Teachmaster is a teaching program which presents you with the text in one language for you to enter the matching text in another. If you don't get some right first time you'll find they are repeated at the end of the exercise. Those words you don't get right are the ones that need more practice and Teachmaster has a mechanism that lets you concentrate on those if you want.

I was never very good at remember the gender of nouns but by including the definite articles with any nouns in my Teachmaster exercises I've improved enormously. At one time I tried associating genders with cutlery. Don't laugh! - der Löffel, die Gabel, das Messer. I would visualise putting things onto a table next to the spoon, fork or knife according to gender. Some people imagine a 3-storey building and associate words with a particular level. Or if you can live with gender stereotypes - associate masculine with garage or basement, feminine with kitchen and neuter with some shared space like the sitting room. Divisions of labour don't work like that in our household.

If there are things that help you memorise or free software you want to recommend then please let everyone know by leaving a comment.

Virtual Libraries

Sometimes I come across web-sites that are so good I wonder why I didn't find them earlier. Last night I was looking for more information to follow up my previous post about jobs and stumbled upon several useful sites that were new to me. The best of these is a virtual library - Deutsche Internetbibliothek.

Yes, it has plenty about Job & Karriere but there's so much more here. Take a look and I think you'll want to bookmark this.

If you want a particular question answered then you could ask a librarian - at the top of the page you'll find Fragen Sie Bibliothekare. You'll have to ask in German but then you do want to practise using the language. There are some example questions and answers - Bespielfragen und -antworten.

Other virtual libraries of German resources include http://www.uni-karlsruhe.de/Outerspace/VirtualLibrary/ and http://bubl.ac.uk/link/g/germanlanguage.htm

If you are looking for German literary texts you could try:
DigBib.org - a free digital library of works no longer protected by copyright
Project Gutenberg - has many German texts available as free downloads.
Unfortunately its German counterpart Projekt Gutenberg-DE only allows free browsing of texts on a page by page basis

http://www.xlibris.de/ gives useful information about German authors and their works.

There's a comprehensive listing of German literature resources on the German Studies Web
http://wess.lib.byu.edu/index.php/Literature_GSW

Jobs

Listening to Germans speak is a great way to tune your ear to the language. I find this easier if speech is set in a visual context so I like to download and watch videos.

One of my favourite series has 15 minute videos intended for young people thinking about what sort of job they want and how they can train for it.
The series is called "Ich mach's". You'll find the video podcasts if you follow this link.

Each podcast listing has some information in German and at the bottom of the listing you'll see three button controls. The middle one (a down arrow) is for downloading. To start downloading: Right click on it and then choose "Save Target As..."

There is also some accompanying material available from http://www.ichmachs.com/. Just go to the foot of that page and click on Weiter mit: Berufe in Überblick to bring up an A-Z index of jobs. There is text, more video and Die wichtigsten Infos zum Beruf (the most important info about the job or profession)