The BEOLINGUS dictionary is a useful German-English dictionary from TU Chemnitz. You can see examples of words in use and you can hear the pronunciation for many words. It's also possible to incorporate it into websites and there are add-ins for most browsers. Though I have yet to try it out, there is a facility for practising vocabulary.
Monday, 27 September 2010
Wednesday, 22 September 2010
New words
I've starting learning how to use the Natural Language Toolkit (see http://www.nltk.org/) and then started looking for corpora and other resources in German. One of the sites I found Die Wortwarte which shows the very latest in new German words. There were 20 listed today. Click on any of the words and you can see them used in context. For more resources for German than visit the ACL wiki
Monday, 13 September 2010
Satiren aus Israel
I came across a quote from Ephraim Kishon on zitate.net which amused me.
My passport has only about a year to run so my picture is a very much younger me. Strangely, I seem to have worn the same sweater for the photo as I did for the previous passport in 1992 ... and I still have the sweater in my wardrobe.
The reason the quote stood out for me is because I have recently bought two of his books: Drehn Sie sich um Frau Lot and Nicht so laut vor Jericho. I found the first of these in the Amnesty bookshop in Malvern (a good source for secondhand German books). I read a few stories immediately and found them highly amusing - so much so that, when I saw the second book the very next day in the Oxfam bookshop in Hereford, I had to buy it.
I think some of the stories would be better described as farce than satire and it does seem that die Satire can encompass meanings around lampoon and mockery. The advantage of books like these is the stories are brief, generally four or five pages, and not too demanding. If you can only spare a few minutes a day to read something auf Deutsch then short stories such as these are well suited and books like these can be found for about £2 each.
I must share a quote about the exodus from Egypt that starts the story MIT MAZZES VERSEHEN
I have to confess I'm old enough to remember the second exodus.
Wenn man beginnt, seinem Passfoto ähnlich zu sehen, sollte man in den Urlaub fahren.
My passport has only about a year to run so my picture is a very much younger me. Strangely, I seem to have worn the same sweater for the photo as I did for the previous passport in 1992 ... and I still have the sweater in my wardrobe.
The reason the quote stood out for me is because I have recently bought two of his books: Drehn Sie sich um Frau Lot and Nicht so laut vor Jericho. I found the first of these in the Amnesty bookshop in Malvern (a good source for secondhand German books). I read a few stories immediately and found them highly amusing - so much so that, when I saw the second book the very next day in the Oxfam bookshop in Hereford, I had to buy it.
I think some of the stories would be better described as farce than satire and it does seem that die Satire can encompass meanings around lampoon and mockery. The advantage of books like these is the stories are brief, generally four or five pages, and not too demanding. If you can only spare a few minutes a day to read something auf Deutsch then short stories such as these are well suited and books like these can be found for about £2 each.
I must share a quote about the exodus from Egypt that starts the story MIT MAZZES VERSEHEN
Zweimal im Verlauf unserer Geschichte sind wir aus Ägypten ausgezogen: das erstemal einige Jahrtausende vor der britischen Verwaltungsperiode und unter der Führung Gottes, das zweitemal einige Jahre nach der britischen Verwaltungsperiode und unter dem Druck der UNO.
I have to confess I'm old enough to remember the second exodus.
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