[Allen Deutschmuttersprachlern: Es tut mir leid, wenn ihr hier zufällig gelandet habt. Mein Blog ist kein Fansite für diese Sendung! Es ist nur ein Art Tagesbuch, in dem ich über meine Erfahrungen mit Deutsch schreiben. ABER - wenn ihr mir helfen könnt, wie man Sat1-Sendungen online und kostenlos anschauen kann, ohne in Deutschland zu leben, dann wäre ich super-dankbar!]
Just a quick one to share a link to a funny show that you can watch online for free - and you don't have to live in Germany!
It's called Knaller Frauen. Not sure what it means exactly - maybe "Firecrackers", or "Bombshells"? Not sure. It's just a comedy sketch show - some hit, some miss, but I found it very easy to follow so I'm sure others will as well. Here's a link to a recent episode.
There are plenty of other shows there - not sure what's available to watch in full yet, but when I get a chance I'll try to check it out more.
Now I've got to go practice the long written part of the exam. And yes, I'm writing it out by hand, because I'll have to for the real exam. Sigh...
Just about 18 days to go till my B2 exam, by the way...
[UPDATE: As of today, none of the tv shows on the sat1 website are available outside Germany (or at least, in Australia!) anymore. I was watching part of a show last night "Der letze Bulle" which was pretty good. Man. Why can't shit just be free, and freely available? Copyright sucks :-) ]
Friday, March 30, 2012
Thursday, March 29, 2012
The countdown is on...
In just under three weeks from today I should be sitting the Goethe Zertifikat B2 exam. Registration form emailed in and confirmed! I haven't been revving up in the way I was planning too, but I need to now!
I have finished Der Beobachter at least. In fact, I used the silly graph I posted last time to predict when I would finish it and that actually worked! It said I would finish on the 21st of this month, which is precisely what happened. Then again, when I got close to the date and I still had 30 pages to go, I picked up my pace. Anyway, good, I finished it - my first full novel in German, all 652 pages of it. I think that knowing I can enjoy a proper, normal, everyday sort of book gives me a confidence boost ahead of the exam. And besides, I really did enjoy it!
Since I got sick a few weeks ago, I haven't got back into my study as much as I need to. I had been using all my available lunchtimes to read Der Beobachter. Now I need to get back into the habit of doing some exam style questions for practice at lunchtime. Today I did manage to do some of the B2 practice exams - just the second part of the Schriftlicher Ausdruck section for two practice exams. This is the part where you need to correct the mistakes in a letter written by a non-native speaker (well, that's the scenario - I'm sure they're not real!!). You get 15 minutes in the real exam, and I took about 9-10 minutes for both of them. I got 10/10 for one and 9/10 for the other, so I feel pretty good about this part. Hence, I've decided to focus my "study time" on practising the writing section. I guess it would be too much to ask to get a computer to type my answers on, so I suppose I should practice writing my answers on paper. Sigh. I hate writing by hand in exams :-)
I have managed to read some more of my German grammar book, as well as doing one more lesson from Perfectionnement Allemand. In fact, I skipped lesson 19 in the end because it was just boring me too much (some bollocks about the history of the German and Austrian national anthems - in fact, I wanted to know about the topic, but the ratio of boredom to information was too high) so I moved on and did lesson 20. It's silly, but in a way that made it easy to get through. I actually feel that now I don't get as much out of Assimil at a higher level. I would get much more out of it if my French was better, but now that I can listen to and read more interesting things that aren't designed for learners, I often prefer to do just that. Still, the reason I went back to Assimil is because I haven't been getting the speaking practice I need, and even though it's not interactive, I have definitely always found it to be really good for getting the words to roll off the tongue. So, lesson 20 done, and review lesson 21 is also now complete.
So, anyway, better get on with it. I'll try to update more frequently as I make my final preparations.
I have finished Der Beobachter at least. In fact, I used the silly graph I posted last time to predict when I would finish it and that actually worked! It said I would finish on the 21st of this month, which is precisely what happened. Then again, when I got close to the date and I still had 30 pages to go, I picked up my pace. Anyway, good, I finished it - my first full novel in German, all 652 pages of it. I think that knowing I can enjoy a proper, normal, everyday sort of book gives me a confidence boost ahead of the exam. And besides, I really did enjoy it!
Since I got sick a few weeks ago, I haven't got back into my study as much as I need to. I had been using all my available lunchtimes to read Der Beobachter. Now I need to get back into the habit of doing some exam style questions for practice at lunchtime. Today I did manage to do some of the B2 practice exams - just the second part of the Schriftlicher Ausdruck section for two practice exams. This is the part where you need to correct the mistakes in a letter written by a non-native speaker (well, that's the scenario - I'm sure they're not real!!). You get 15 minutes in the real exam, and I took about 9-10 minutes for both of them. I got 10/10 for one and 9/10 for the other, so I feel pretty good about this part. Hence, I've decided to focus my "study time" on practising the writing section. I guess it would be too much to ask to get a computer to type my answers on, so I suppose I should practice writing my answers on paper. Sigh. I hate writing by hand in exams :-)
I have managed to read some more of my German grammar book, as well as doing one more lesson from Perfectionnement Allemand. In fact, I skipped lesson 19 in the end because it was just boring me too much (some bollocks about the history of the German and Austrian national anthems - in fact, I wanted to know about the topic, but the ratio of boredom to information was too high) so I moved on and did lesson 20. It's silly, but in a way that made it easy to get through. I actually feel that now I don't get as much out of Assimil at a higher level. I would get much more out of it if my French was better, but now that I can listen to and read more interesting things that aren't designed for learners, I often prefer to do just that. Still, the reason I went back to Assimil is because I haven't been getting the speaking practice I need, and even though it's not interactive, I have definitely always found it to be really good for getting the words to roll off the tongue. So, lesson 20 done, and review lesson 21 is also now complete.
So, anyway, better get on with it. I'll try to update more frequently as I make my final preparations.
Wednesday, March 14, 2012
Obsessed with Der Beobachter
OK, so now I'm nearing the end of "Der Beobachter" and it's been taking most of my focus in my German studies. I haven't done any more exam practice since my last post, mainly because I've been off work sick twice since the last post, and have been pretty ill for about half of the intervening days. Pretty shitty really. It's taken away my lunchtimes, and my time at home has been split between looking after my daughter, lying in bed sick, and family things. I had started to pick up my training for the Shark Island Swim this Sunday (I'm only doing the 1km event!), but I haven't done anything for that in 2 weeks now.
But the pause has been good in a way. When I read my book, I don't feel like I'm studying. It's not at all a struggle, and I'm just enjoying the story. I've never actually read a crime novel in English, so it's a novel experience all round (no pun intended). I'm up to page 570 which leaves just 81 pages to go! I think I'll have it knocked over in the next few days - I've been reading it at lunchtime and before bed whenever I can. Then I can get back to thinking about where to focus my study attention.
Something I've just noticed that youtube seems to have a lot of full-length German movies, like this one about Goethe. Don't know how I've been missing this all this time! Maybe the copyright owners don't look too hard for movies in the smaller markets? Whatever the reason, I'm going to start taking advantage of it as often as possible!
And finally, just because everyone loves a good graph, I've whipped up a graph of my reading progress in Der Beobachter by searching through my posts for where I've reported it. I couldn't have done this if I wasn't keeping a blog - so useful!
But the pause has been good in a way. When I read my book, I don't feel like I'm studying. It's not at all a struggle, and I'm just enjoying the story. I've never actually read a crime novel in English, so it's a novel experience all round (no pun intended). I'm up to page 570 which leaves just 81 pages to go! I think I'll have it knocked over in the next few days - I've been reading it at lunchtime and before bed whenever I can. Then I can get back to thinking about where to focus my study attention.
Something I've just noticed that youtube seems to have a lot of full-length German movies, like this one about Goethe. Don't know how I've been missing this all this time! Maybe the copyright owners don't look too hard for movies in the smaller markets? Whatever the reason, I'm going to start taking advantage of it as often as possible!
And finally, just because everyone loves a good graph, I've whipped up a graph of my reading progress in Der Beobachter by searching through my posts for where I've reported it. I couldn't have done this if I wasn't keeping a blog - so useful!
Sunday, March 4, 2012
Quick little update - a bad listening test result!
So, last Friday I got round to doing the practice test 03 for the B2 exam (click "set of practice exercises") but I only got 17.5 out of 25. This is sailing awfully close to the pass/fail line of 15/25 for listening comprehension. The funny thing was that I didn't find it all that difficult. It seemed a little harder than the other practice tests they had provided). It was definitely faster and I just made a couple of silly mistakes. Still, a silly mistake in an exam is a point lost!
In better news, my Austrian friends got married last Thursday night (HOORAY!) and I was lucky enough to get invited, and to sit next to the Best Man (der Trauzeuge) for the whole night. He was just as polite, easy to talk to and friendly as the newlyweds have always been to me, so I spent a lot of the night enjoying his company in German! I also played handball (schoolyard rules) with some of the young kids there, and we all spoke in German too, even though they are really native English speakers (they're grown up in Australia). The key was that I started in German and never switched back, so they stuck with it too. It's just natural to them to respond like that, I guess.
I was filled with admiration for all the non-native English speakers involved in performing a wedding ceremony (albeit a relatively casual affair) in their second language. These things are hard enough in your first language! Even the best man gave his speech in English, and I was thoroughly impressed. Awesome :-) One funny moment came when the marriage celebrant asked the best man if he had the wedding rings and he said, with typical deadpan, "of course". The celebrant, for whom cultural sensitivity seemed to be a foreign concept, said "what do you mean 'of course'? Not 'of course' at all, otherwise I wouldn't ask!" She was a bit of a crank. I explained to him later why this sounds funny in English. A note to any passing German readers: if in doubt, don't say "of course" :-)
I let myself laugh at it, in the same vein as my German-speaking friends often feel free to laugh when I mix up a phrase like "Mir ist heiss" and "ich bin heiss". Actually, I don't make this mistake much, but when it gets a little more involved - like saying "it depended on how hot I got", then things can get whacky and, apparently, hilarious :-)
In better news, my Austrian friends got married last Thursday night (HOORAY!) and I was lucky enough to get invited, and to sit next to the Best Man (der Trauzeuge) for the whole night. He was just as polite, easy to talk to and friendly as the newlyweds have always been to me, so I spent a lot of the night enjoying his company in German! I also played handball (schoolyard rules) with some of the young kids there, and we all spoke in German too, even though they are really native English speakers (they're grown up in Australia). The key was that I started in German and never switched back, so they stuck with it too. It's just natural to them to respond like that, I guess.
I was filled with admiration for all the non-native English speakers involved in performing a wedding ceremony (albeit a relatively casual affair) in their second language. These things are hard enough in your first language! Even the best man gave his speech in English, and I was thoroughly impressed. Awesome :-) One funny moment came when the marriage celebrant asked the best man if he had the wedding rings and he said, with typical deadpan, "of course". The celebrant, for whom cultural sensitivity seemed to be a foreign concept, said "what do you mean 'of course'? Not 'of course' at all, otherwise I wouldn't ask!" She was a bit of a crank. I explained to him later why this sounds funny in English. A note to any passing German readers: if in doubt, don't say "of course" :-)
I let myself laugh at it, in the same vein as my German-speaking friends often feel free to laugh when I mix up a phrase like "Mir ist heiss" and "ich bin heiss". Actually, I don't make this mistake much, but when it gets a little more involved - like saying "it depended on how hot I got", then things can get whacky and, apparently, hilarious :-)
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