Focus

Looking for reading material to help you learn German? Try Focus magazine which makes all its past issues freely available online - Focus Archiv

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.

Deutschlern.net

Jeckylls Heft has links to exercises from many sources. What I plan to do is review these occasionally. I'm also conscious that I need to work through exercises myself. When you learn German your motto has to be üben, üben, üben! - practise, practise, practise!

What I like about Deutschlern.net is the way it uses video and other images to help with learning. So today I looked at some exercises for Fortgeschrittene based on reports about the recent extremely cold weather in Europe. They were not particularly difficult but would help with revision on the associated vocabulary.

When you first go to the site you are asked to register - anmelden. This is easy. Just choose a user name, enter a password and confirm it. You don't have to give any other detail if you wish not to. However, I do recommend giving an email address in case you forget your password.

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!

The wrong trousers and old clothes

What do you do with your old clothes? I guess many of us take them to charity shops if they're in a reasonable condition. I'm not certain there's an equivalent in Germany so let me know if I'm mistaken.

I did come across something about collecting clothing on a German church website

Was tun, wenn die Hosen nicht mehr passen oder einfach nicht mehr modisch sind. Bloß nicht wegwerfen, sagt Bettina Körtge vom Diakonischen Werk Jerichower Land. Tragbare Kleidung nimmt die Diakonie in Burg gerne

Burg is a town in Sachsen-Anhalt. There's an audio report accompanying the piece so take a look at http://www.ekmd.de/aktuellpresse/nachrichten/20018.html and learn German words about to do with helping the needy - Bedürftige

Plan your dream kitchen

I can find my way around the kitchen fairly well and my roast potatoes today were brilliant (says he modestly). But I was trying to use German to describe some of the things in the kitchen. We have a gas hob - eine Gaskochmulde - with an extractor  in the cupboard above - eine Dunstabzug in Oberschrank. I think I shall continue to practise naming objects in the kitchen over the next few days just to make sure I have them well impressed on the memory. And I'll try to incorporate the words into simple sentences, perhaps being more descriptive - size, shape, colour, postion, relationship to other objects.

You can plan your dream kitchen online and learn German at the same time. Koch Atelier Küchenplanung is a good place to start as it gives you details about lots of different kitchen equipment - Küchengeräte - cupboards - Schränke and plenty of tips and product information. Give it a try and cook up some dream ideas. How would you tell someone in German what your dream kitchen is like and why you chose that particular design?

As you can see from the graphic showing their website navigation,  Koch Atelier offers much more. Why not take a look at Der gedeckte Tisch and decide what you want on your table?

Pencil in some time for new vocabulary

Memorising vocabulary is not easy if you are working with a random list of words. Meaning helps memory and so does activity. If what you learn is associated with images and, better still, with activity, then you are more likely to be able to recall words and phrases. Doing a practical task using German instructions and repeating them out loud as you go through each step could be a great way to learn. For instance, cooking using a German recipe, especially something that you will do quite frequently, will soon have you muttering the instructions as you do familiar tasks. Burn into your memory not in the oven.

Yesterday I included a video about watercolour painting. With that you might need to note down the phrases used but then you could read them out loud as you try to paint.

Sequences for processes can help you acquire and memorise vocabulary more readily. Following yesterday's art theme I visited the Faber-Castell website and found they have an animation about pencil production and what they are doing to protect the environment. This is intended for children but presents a single sentence with each step through the manufacturing process. Try following it through several times and see if you can then write down the process in your own words or with phrases you've remembered. So follow the invitation "Besucht mit uns die Bunstiftfabrik!"

If you do want to learn some vocabulary while practising some drawing techniques then you could try looking at some of their product descriptions. A good example would be Malen und Zeichnen mit Grip Stiften which illustrates some possibilities and has the description alongside. While you do it you can describe the process in the present tense and afterwards you can practice using a past tense - simple past when writing, perfect for speech. Notice the use of werden passive in the example here.

Painting with watercolours

Yesterday it was work during the day and watercolours in the evening - so no blogging yesterday. I also realised I need to learn more German so I can speak about painting and arts & crafts. So I fished out 5 language visual dictionary (Dorling Kindersley) and reminded myself of the basics.

Then I thought let's put some of these words into a search engine and see what I come up with. Product catalogues are sometimes better than visual dictionaries. Aquarellefarbe was my first entry and right near the top of the list was Aquarellmalerei - Bilder mit Aquarellfarbe malen von Martin Mißfeldt.  Working with an online article like this should help me develop more vocabulary and feed my interest in watercolour painting.  But there's more to this site than watercolours so take a look at Gouache Bilder malen Tutorial and Zeichnungen - Die Kunst, Zeichnen zu lernen and his blog and whatever else takes your fancy.



I also found several videos on You Tube which demonstrate watercolour techniques and some have German commentaries. Here's an example about painting cumulus clouds -

Kirchentag

The theme of this year's Kirchentag, to be held in Munich 12-16 May, is "That you may have hope" Damit ihr Hoffnung habt.  Topic areas include:

• Acting responsibly-being Christian in one world
• Living together-being Christian in an open society
• Seeking and finding--being Christian alongside a variety of worldviews
• Living our faith-being Christian in a variety of Churches

 Full details on the website of 2. Ökomenische Kirchentag You don't need to be able to speak German to take part but it could be a good opportunity to practice and learn German as you should get to stay with a German family. The organisers are looking for 15,000 beds.

Der 2. Ökumenische Kirchentag sucht ab sofort 15 000 kostenlose Schlafplätze in privaten Haushalten. Benötigt werden die Betten für die Teilnehmenden des 2. ÖKT, vor allem für ältere Gäste, Familien mit Kindern und Menschen mit Behinderung. Gesucht wird im gesamten S-Bahn-Bereich Münchens.

If you happen to live in Worcestershire or Dudley it's still not too late to join a group organised by Worcester Diocese - see details

Magdeburg Cathedral - The English Connection

English newspapers this week carried stories about the discovery of the body of Editha (also Eadgyth, Edgitha, Edgith or Edith) in the Magdeburger Dom. She was the sister of Athelstan, King of England, and a grand-daughter of Alfred the Great of Wessex. I'm a 'Moonraker' (that means I'm from Wiltshire) I knew about Athelstan's connection with Malmesbury but completely failed to make the connection with Editha when I was told, back in 1976, that she was buried in Magdeburg. It was a fascinating tour led an older member of the congregation who clearer loved the church and its history and was able to talk about her father's involvement in hiding the memorial to those who fell in WW1 created by Ernst Barlach (Ehrenmal für die Gefallenen des Ersten Weltkrieges).  My visit was with a group from the Diocese of Worcester They have a link - Partnerschaft - with the Evangelischen Kirchen in and around Magdeburg -find out more from News of the Magdeburg link It was this visit that got me started on learning German.

I'm still puzzled about why this story was news this week. You can find reports about this on German sites a good year back for example Mutmasslicher Sarg der Königin Editha endeckt - Weiterer Sarkophag unter dem Edithagrab im Magdeburger Dom entdeckt

You might also be interested in an English language report Did Editha, queen of Otto I, suffer a genetic disorder? posted last August on the Passionate About History blog

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!