Eyes

When I had my eyes examined in February my optician was a little concerned about the readings she got when testing for Glaucoma so I had to book another test. That was today and all is well. I'm much relieved but realised there are some limits to my ability to discuss this in German. Glaucoma has a very similar name in German - das Glaukom - and this is also know as der grüne Star. Der graue Star is the cataract, also called der Katarakt.

Last week I was watching some videos about training for jobs from the series Ich mach's and two had some relevance to the subject - Augenarzthelferin 30.03.2009 and Augenoptiker 14.09.2009.  If you want to watch or download these go to BR-alpha Ich mach's and look down the list for the download you want. To start the download: Right click on the down-arrow button and choose Save Target As ... if you are using MS Internet Explorer or Save link as ... if you are using Google Chrome. The guidance in German is: Download starten: Rechte Maustaste und "Ziel speichern unter ..." wählen.

Here's some German vocabulary to look up:

• der ophthalmologische Prüfplatz - der Phoropter - das Ophthalmometer - das Augenrefraktometer - der Sehzeichenprojektor - der Probiergläserkasten
• die Brille - die Brillenfassung, das Brillengestell - der Brillenrand - die Brücke, der Steg - der Nasensteg, der Seitensteg - das Brillenglas - das Brillenetui - der Bügel - das Bügelscharnier
• die harten/weichen Kontaktlinsen - die Aufbewahrungsbehälter - das Pflegemittel, das Reinigungsmittel
• das Auge - das Oberlid - das Unterlid - die Augenbraue - die Pupille - die Iris, die Regenbogenhaut - der Augapfel - die Hornhaut - die Netzhaut - die Wimper

Music

Tuesday afternoon our conversation class will be talking about music. I think most of us are interested in classical and choral music. I don't think we know much about pop music in Britain nevermind in Germany. I've tried to take a look at what is popular at the moment and also to listen to the music of Lena Meyer-Landrut who will be representing Germany at the Eurovision Song Contest in Germany. Musiksuche.de is worth a visit as you can listen to samplers from the Musicload Single Charts - eine Probe anhören. The site also gives the ability to search for lyrics and to download midi files.

A useful listing for music links (pop and classical) can be found on the Musik page of internetbibliothek.de

The music industry's attitude to file sharing and downloads is a matter of current controversy. Proposals for a Kulturflatrate have not gone down well with the music industry in Germany. They came up with 10 Thesen der Musikindustrie gegen die Kulturflatrate and these, together with various responses, can be found in

http://www.netzpolitik.org/

Computers - love them, hate them

Sitting alongside a novice while they got started with a new laptop today reminded me how confusing things must be if your knowledge is very limited. The first instruction in the very brief manual told them to go to the start menu. Fine if you are still using XP because there's a big button at the bottom left that has the Windows logo and the word start but on Windows 7 there's a big round button with no words. How does anyone know to go there rather than anywhere else on the screen?

But this site is about learning German so where might you go for computer and information technology language. I've already mentioned the TV series neues (see my post Computers, Internet and Politics) but if you're after a website to keep up to date then try heise online I have also come across NetComputer Lernen (NCL) which is an association of senior citizens offering advice and training. Perhaps we need more like that in the UK.

For free online videos on computer issues go to PC User Video This really is a significant video portal offering access to hundreds of videos. Why didn't I look at the video on Windows 7 before now?

You could also try some of the online stores for more vocabulary e.g. pc-superstore.de or http://www.dell.de/

A source I quite like is the online presence of a magazine CD_Austria because you can use there archive to view magazine articles in full. They also have some tutorial material that you can download. An example is Microsoft Word für Einsteiger and you can download it as a PDF file Step by step instructions are always a useful language learning aid.

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.