Tomb Raider and the Prepositions

I'm doing some revision on prepositions at the moment and found it useful to be reminded that nach can be used in the sense of towards or in the direction of. For example Ich sah nach der alten Brücke means I looked towards the old bridge. But Nach der alten Brücke means After the old bridge. I thought that nach with the meaning  after  was only used when referring to time, for instance, nach fünf Uhr. It seems I was wrong as I have found several instances where the after meaning is used in travel directions. Perhaps that's because it's used in the sense of kurz nach - shortly after. But I've also found uses where the time reference is implied by an event - Die Brücke nach der Wiederherstellung - Nach der Fertigstellung.

Of course, the more frequently used way of expressing towards is by means of auf ... zu.

I found some interesting examples of prepositions in use. For instance Von dort geht es, aus dem Stand, auf die Brücke mit dem hochgeklappten Teil. This is an extract from tombraidergirl's walkthrough http://www.tombraidergirl.de/. The site has both German and English pages and the Forum allows contributions in either or both languages.

Sites that tell you the solutions to games are great for finding examples of prepositions in use. See if you can find what this next example is about:

Anschließend müssen Sie sich auf der mittleren Rampe weiterbewegen, um dort auf dem Kontrollpanel viermal Lila, zweimal Gelb, einmal Rot und den dreieckigen Knopf links zu drücken. Danach müssen Sie die vorherige Einstellung mit dem linken Knopf löschen, fünfmal Lila, viermal Blau und einmal Rot eingeben. Die Aktion wird dann wieder mit dem linken dreieckigen Knopf ausgeführt. Betreten Sie jetzt die erste offene Tür in der Haupt- höhle und drücken den Knopf nahe dem Graben - eine Untergrundbahn erscheint...

Put some of the quoted text into your favourite search engine and you should find the source.

Fun and games and more

If you're looking to have fun while you learn German then you might like to visit http://www.guteseiten.com/ This is a wide ranging collection of internet sites grouped under various topics including Spass which lists many sites with jokes and cartoons and Spiele which recommends sites for computer and online games. Want to train your mind or test your logic skills with puzzles? Then Denksport is the page for you.

I've put an image of the site navigation alonside so you can see what the topics are but to really appreciate all that's on offer you need to visit the site.

Have fun and let me know what you enjoyed most.

Time travel

Thanks to Planet Schule time travel (Zeitreise) is possible. This site aims to help German children learn about a variety of subjects and the offerings include simulations, interactive animations, educational games and much more. Well worth a look if you want to learn German to talk or write about the topics covered. You may no longer be a child but you can still enjoy and learn from these. Perhaps human cultural development in the early stone age (Kulturelle Entwicklung des Menschen in der Altsteinzeit) isn't going to take you far in the streets of a modern German city but it might help you in a museum.

I'm interested more in recent history and so two Zeitreisen were of particularly interest Chronologie des Mauerfalls and Kriegskinder You can pick out years for which you want more information and click on pictures to bring up more information.

Happy time travel!