Friday, August 30, 2013

Day 6

Lektion 7
I continued to go over Reflexive Verben and did not move onto a new topic as of yet.

Wednesday, August 28, 2013

Day 5: Der Tagesblauf

Today I went over reflexive verbs and then reviewed German pronouns.
Lektion 6
Reflexive Verben: Introduction
Germans often use "reflexive verbs" when describing daily routines or when talking about personal hygiene. It would be the English equivalent of saying "I Shave myself".

Later on you will need both the accusative and dative personal pronouns.

Nominative:  ich  | du   | er   | sie (sg)| es    | wir |ihr   |sie(pl.)
Accusative: mich | dich | ihn | sie       | es    | uns|euch| sie
Dative:        mir   | dir  | ihm | ihr      | ihm  | uns|euch|ihnen

Monday, August 26, 2013

Day 4 Der Tagesablauf

Today I continued learning about cognates and more in depth about parts of speech and parts of words. I also learned about similar suffixes that can be recognized with understanding of English.
Lektion 4-Lektion 6
Review of cognates you already know

English-German
Action-Aktion
fraction-faktion
artist-artist
communist-kommunist
reality-ralität
authority-autordät
decorate-dekorieren
plastic-plastik

Some endings are the same; some change slightly

English-German
-tion=-tion
-ist=-ist
-ty=-tät
-ate=-ieren
-ic=-ik

There are always exceptions to the rules but memorizing these patterns will often allow you to recognize and understand new vocabulary.


False Friends; Falsche Freunde
Avoid these pitfalls, or avoid confusing these words with their English versions other as it can be tricky because they mean something different in German/Deutch
English word-means in German-looks like-but really means
actual-(wirlich,tätsachlich-aktuell)-current
also-auch-also-so...
arm-arm-arm-poor
art-kunst-art-(way,sort,know)


I also took my first test of German language knowledge.
It was a quick 20 question quiz where it reviewed my knowledge of cognates, parts of speech and how to properly introduce yourself in German/Deutch.
such as correctly saying I am=Ich heiß or where you are from=Ich komme aus.

The definition of what cognates are was also questioned(words that have the same origin).
It tested my knowledge of Falsche Freunde(Words that have similar origin but different meanings)

It also had a few true or false questions about how some words are spelled and how some sentences should be written in German.

                                             That is it for now. Gut Germatch.


Day 3 Der Tagesablauf

Lektion 2 and 3
Cognates: Introduction
Consistency is vital to learning a foreign language.
Start making a list of Deutch, Vocabulary, that is new to you.

Useful information:
Die Umlaute and the Essetset
Writing in German Requires vowels called Umlaute and the Consonant essetset
ä=Alt+132=Bär=Bear
ö=Alt+148=Eichhörnchen=Squirrel
ü=Alt+129=hübsch=pretty
ß=Alt+225=heiß=hot
Ä=Alt+142=Äpfel=Apple
Ö=Alt+153=Öl=oil
Ü=Alt+154=Übermensch=Superman
€=Alt+0128=Euro

Objectives
1.Be able to introduce yourself in German and express expectations for learning German.
2. Identify Cognates, recognize and predict the ending patterns between English/German

English-German
My name is _                =Ich heiß Jonathan Solares
I am from_                   =Ich komme aus California, Amerika
I want to learn_             =Ich will lernen Deutch
I enjoy learning German =Ich learne gerne Deutch

Cognates: Verwandte Wörter
Cognates are words that have a common origin and look similar to words in another language. Often but NOT always, they have a similar meaning. Learning these pattersn of xognates can be very helpful; it also allows to build vocabulary quickly.

Many words that have a -ch in German have a -gh in English
English words - German Words
eight              -acht
laugh             -lachen
light               -licht
freight            -fracht
daughter         -tochter

Cognates can help you recognize words, but they often tempt you into making wrong assumptions about the pronunciation of a word.

                                                       Gut Gemacht

Wednesday, August 21, 2013

Day 2 Ein: Der Tagesablauf

Lektion Ein
Numbers:

Today I mastered numbers. Unconventionally I did this while exercising. While counting reps I made myself believe that my life depended on counting perfectly in German and so this has helped me immensely to memorize the numbers in German. This is due to the fact that it by not saying the number in German the right way it can lead to performing an incomplete or wrong exercise which could make me injure myself grievously.


  1. ein
  2. zwei
  3. drei
  4. vier
  5. funf
  6. sechs
  7. sieben
  8. acht
  9. neun
  10. zehn
  11. elf
  12. zwold
  13. dreizehn
  14. vierzehn
  15. funfzehn
  16. sechzehn
  17. siebzehn
  18. actzhen
  19. neunzhen
  20. zwanzig
  21. einzwanzig
30. dreissig
40. vierzig
50. funfzig
60. sechszig
70 siebzig
100 hundert
200 zweihundert
300 dreihundert
1000 tausend



Tuesday, August 20, 2013

Day 1

I am going to chronicle all the work I do toward accomplishing my goals of attempting to learn the language of German.
I will accomplish this with an array of various books and many notebooks. I will present everything I do and eventually begin posting in German once I have a great enough knowledge and use of the language.

I am going to use this blog as proof of my work and effort into learning this language.
The books that I will utilize in my quest of learning a new language through and through are the following.

Messinger, Heinz, Gisela Türck, and Helmut Willmann. Langenscheidt's Standard German Dictionary: German-English, English-German. New York: Langenscheidt, 1993. Print.

Graves, Paul G., and Paul G. Graves. German Grammar. New York: Barron's Educational Series, 1990. Print.

Taylor, Heimy F., and Werner Haas. German: A Self-teaching Guide. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley, 2007. Print.

Christensen, Paulina, and Anne Fox. German for Dummies. Foster City, CA: IDG Worldwide, 2000. Print.

Foster, Wendy. Intermediate German for Dummies. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley Pub., 2008. Print.