Before each noun, there is an article (der-Masculine, die-feminine, or das-neuter....die-plural). And you have to memorize it for each word. In english, its just "the". Thats it. I have become pretty good at guessing the articles though. Im not sure why. There are some patterns but there are enough exception to make them useless. It kind of like that "I before E except after C" thing. Everybody says it but it is rarely true.
Then after memorizing all of these articles for every noun, they change. There are 4 differnt cases in the German language. Nominative, Akkusative, Dative, Genitive.
For each case, the articles changes. For each article, there are 4 things it can change to! So 16! For example. In the Akkusative case, der changes to den. in Dative, der changes to dem.
Its not to hard to memorize all of these but its hard to figure out what to change it to when you don't understand the language!
Indefinite articles change (a). So do the endings of adjectives depending what case it is using...
Word order is also difficult as well but i'm hoping it will come with time.
There are some good things about the german langauge. Well...i can only think of one!
There are many words the resemble english words.. (cognates i think?) For example. testen meens to test. die Katze- Cat. die Maus- Mouse. Sometimes it makes memorizing words extremely easy. There are also big words in german that look complicated but if you break them down, they make sense. verantwortlichkeit meens responsibility. but literaly it meens responsible ability. thats not the best example and there are plenty more but i cant think of them now.
Train Ride to MagdeburgI didnt have school this week. Instead i went to Magdeburg with leo everyday to a bloodbank in a university. Maybe i will write about it in a few days. I will also post a picture of Sylvia (hostmother) in a bavarian dress before she went to an oktober fest celebration.
4 comments:
One: That was a very well-written post. Color me impressed.
Two: That picture of Obie cracked me up.
If Obie can study, so can you. Don't worry, you'll pick it up. I'm still trying to learn Minnesotan 'don't cha know?'
yes john good to see you've finally gotten the english language down..really good job i mean super.
obie like everyone else is just trying to save sierra leone. or maybe he was just trying to find that biscuit we put inside the book..
All I can say is that after reading that entry, I think you must be the smartest person I ever met - bilingual or not:)
And because you are that smart you will be bilingual - and I predict 4 months is not crap for you - one day its just all going to start clicking.....
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