Flash Cards

quizlet.com lets you create and share your own online flash cards as well as providing plenty of Germany vocabulary with which to learn and test yourself. You can read about quizlet's features or just dive in an give it a try.

If you want to pick and mix and save yourself some typing then it looks like you can lift some of the entries from other people's flashcard sets.

Volcanic ash stops flights

Der isländische Vulkan schleudert weiter Asche in die Luft, allerdings mit etwas weniger Kraft. Man kann die Aschwolke nicht sehen, aber viele Flughäfen sind geschlossen. Die Aschepartikel sind eine Gefahr für Flugzeuge, weil sie sich auf den Triebwerksschaufeln festsetzen kann.

If you want to discover more about volcanoes then you might like Der Quarks Vulkan which has a simulation of a volcano and answers questions such as:

Warum sind manche Vulkane explosiv und andere kaum?
Was hat die Zusammensetzung des Magmas mit der Explosivität zu tun?
Welchen Einfluss haben die vulkanischen Gase?
Was ist ein Schild- und Schichtvulkan?

You can also watch the video of the whole Quarks broadcast about volcanoes and test your knowledge  with the 8 questions in the Quarks-Vulkane-Quiz

Quiz

I wonder what the plural of Quiz is in German. Quizzes in English but is it Quizen auf Deutsch? Anyway, whatever ever the plural is you'll find plenty of them in the  quiz section of Google Directory - though there are some broken links. One bonus I gained from following one of these links was the discovery of Das Deutschland-Portal which is a good way of finding out about Germany - but I didn't find their quiz!

For a gentle introduction to online quizzes try something for children QuizKids has some other games as well and you can even write your own online quiz if you feel particularly confident.

Spring Flowers

Today I visited the Weir Garden, a National Trust property in Herefordshire, to see the magnificent masses of snowdrops. Some of the primroses were also in bloom. I'm not so hot on flower names in German. I'm not very good in English either - and don't ask me for Latin names.

snowdrop  is das Schneeglöckchen and primrose is die Schüsselblume

What I really need is an illustrated guide to spring flowers and I found just the thing on an Austrian website vs.schule.at Österreichs Schulportal für Volkschule. This site has brought together lots of material about and pictures of spring flowers under the heading Frühblüher.

Sobald die Temperaturen wieder steigen, der Schnee von den Wiesen verschwindet, werden wir sie wieder entdecken - die Frühblüher. Wir haben für Sie verschiedene Links und Unterrichtsmaterialen zur farbenfrohen Frühlingspracht zusammengetragen.

This material is aimed at younger children and their teachers - just the right level for oldies like me.  I particularly recommend Heimische Frühblüher which is an illustrated quiz in Powerpoint format and you can click the i button on the slides to get more information about each plant.

I learn something new everyday. Daffodils have several names in German - Gelbe Narzisse, Märzenbecher, Osterglocke

Try wikipedia for a more academic approach to Frühblüher oder Frühjahrsblüher oder Frühlingsgeophyten


I also found a PDF file with German flowernames and their English translations produced by schulklick.de

Exercises from Finland

I've just work with some exercises on Michis Übungs-Site and realised I was not as good as I should be with some of the exercises on verbs. It shows I haven't put in enough practice but the really useful thing is it shows some areas where I need to do some revision. If your results in an exercise are a little disappointing don't lose heart but use your mistakes as an incentive for revision or further learning. There's no point in beating yourself up, the whole point about correction is learning to be correct.

The site I was using as a reasonable range of grammatical exercises. Many take the form of supplying the missing word or words in a sentence (Lückentext) but there are also some where you have to put words in the correct order (Zuordung) and others take the form of a simple quiz (Kurzantwort-Quiz). Under the heading Sprache you'll find some exercises on writing letters and on invitations and how to reply. Wortschatz has some thematically organised exercises to test general vocabulary and a useful set on Redewendungen - colloquial expressions.