Das Faultier der Deutschen Sprache

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WalkingAlone13
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Re: Das Faultier der Deutschen Sprache

Postby WalkingAlone13 » Sat May 20, 2017 11:48 am

I currently feel so Kaputt! Slowly I am working my way through deadlines and completing my exams, but for the life of me, I cannot fathom why it is not possible to schedule exams and such so that you do not end up having to fill in 20 to 30 different mandatory forms, requiring signatures from several different departments, etc. concurrently.

I chose to seek private accommodation because I relish the chance to live with natives and, uniquely, to live as close as possible to my friends that live there. I did not expect the vetting to be so extreme, unless I have just happened to have an unlucky first experience. I posted on the websites, facebook groups, etc. that delineate property and that in itself is fine. There appears to be no shortage of property, however, and I do not know if this is widespread or just the city I will be staying in, but the vast majority of house shares and such only accept females. I used to read through the ads in their entirety before glancing up and seeing that only females are accepted. I now just go straight to that part and save a lot of time.

I am currently still in talks over my new accommodation, it has been two weeks and I am still being asked various questions about myself, etc. before they decide whether or not to take my money. Here, in England, it would basically be a case of "Hey! Are you a criminal?" "No." "Great, sign these and we are done!".

If I do manage to pass the interviews and whatever else is thrown at me, I should hopefully be on track to move out there early in June, which will give me a few months to acclimatise to the city, get my bearings and catch up with my friends, both in the city and those in other cities throughout Germany.
This will hopefully help my speaking come along leaps and bounds before I take the Vorbereitungskurs in September.

My Uni puts my skills at B1 across the board. I would personally posit that my comprehension is B2 at least, as even speaking with friends that study medicine and sciences, the inner workings of the human body and how to determine what disease is present in a cell under a microscope, etc. I have not too much difficulty expressing this and being understood.
Still, I am reasonably happy with a reasonably solid B1 across the board. I am so used to seeing all of you guys reach crazy levels in a very short time frame and almost feel disappointed in myself, before reminding myself that B1 isn't all that bad and although it took me close to two years to reach, there are people who have studied longer than me as well as shorter than me, to reach the same level. I really want to go into overdrive as soon as my last exams and paperwork are out of the way, and just run with it. I do not know how realistic it is - okay, secretly I realise that it is unlikely - but I would like to aim to reach a B2 level before my Vorbereitungskurs in September.

So my goal is basically;
June - mid September attain a B2 level.

Mal sehen :P
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Re: Das Faultier der Deutschen Sprache

Postby sjintje » Sat May 20, 2017 12:25 pm

WalkingAlone13 wrote:I am currently still in talks over my new accommodation, it has been two weeks and I am still being asked various questions about myself, etc. before they decide whether or not to take my money. Here, in England, it would basically be a case of "Hey! Are you a criminal?" "No." "Great, sign these and we are done!".


A recent post on reddit about getting a dossier together for accommodation seeking.

https://www.reddit.com/r/berlin/comment ... rtment_in/
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Re: Das Faultier der Deutschen Sprache

Postby Elenia » Tue May 23, 2017 4:29 pm

Sorry to hear about apartment woes! I hope you find someplace suitable soon!
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Re: Das Faultier der Deutschen Sprache

Postby WalkingAlone13 » Thu Jun 15, 2017 6:24 pm

Just some notes that I will write up once I can use my laptop again.

Plane delayed die to Air Traffic control problems.

Arrived too late for connecting Train from Leipzig to Erfurt (reconsider Leipzig for next time)
Incredibly Kind Student helped me sort out emergency Backup Train, spending about an hour helping me out of the goodness of her heart before finally walking home.

Thank yayness for 24 hour McDonald's. + Brandon Girl with Tim Burton BAG, that I randomly had the courage to start talking to. Probs just over an hour (German, of course)

Arriving in Erfurt at 6am with 27 hours no sleep does wonders dir ones body clock.

Even German cats love me ❤

Appartment pictures are very desceptive.

My God is it Hot in Germany.

Forgot some stuff.

Met up with a Friend, after she was two hours late and sent two of her Friends to Intercept me.

Don't believe all stereotypes.

Random old English guy started talking to me about a German guy talking to his Bike.

Art meetup Partys in Germany are incredibly reminiscent of Silent Hill.

Feet are dead after walking 12 hours non Stop.

Probably best not to accidently offend a Potential flatmate during spontaneous wg viewing.

Bamberg on Samstag
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Re: Das Faultier der Deutschen Sprache

Postby WalkingAlone13 » Wed Jun 21, 2017 7:07 pm

Wann in deutschland, fang ein überflüssig Blog an, oder? Genau!

http://dasfaultierderdeutschensprache.blogspot.de/

So yeah, since I have been here, I have made sure to do everything in German. The only exceptions being messaging family, for obvious reasons, and the odd Youtube video, and now here. But, the day I described in my blog, for example, where I visited a Friend in Bamburg and then went to watch the fireworks here in Erfurt, was entirely me speaking German. That is from roughly 8AM to 1AM. Even I find that impressive and I have ridiculously high standards for myself.

Interestingly, I have also been doing roughly 40 words per day on Memrise, odd bits of the DW courses, including retaking the tests for each level to see whether I had improved since last time. I have massively. And also binge reading my Buffy book. I did not have chargers with me for the first week, so that served me well. I also watch a few episodes of Buffy a day. The rest of my computer time is mostly checking other apartment websites and budgeting, checking results, etc.

I spend a lot of time exploring the city and buying water. It really is far too hot for me here at the moment. If I open my window I get what looks to be hornets coming into my room. My room is tiny so they are most definitely not welcome.

Back to Buffy :)

Oh, and expect my blog to be riddled with mistakes. I very rarely write anything in German, mostly exams and that is it. Hopefully it is at least understandable. I figured it might be nice to write it as often as possible, assuming I did something interesting on that day, and look back on it later to see if I can notice any improvements.
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Re: Das Faultier der Deutschen Sprache

Postby WalkingAlone13 » Sun Jun 25, 2017 4:56 pm

So I just completed a test from Erasmus for university students that wish to partake in the programme. It is based entirely on CEFR and is how the university, sending and receiving, gauge the level of proficiency the student has in the target language. I tested as B2 which now means that I can take every subject course, that I selected. They were all provisional dependant on level.

Anyway, that is one less thing to worry about. I also updated my blog to moan about shopping : P Okay, not just that.


Oh, and my navigation skills are improving massively!
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Re: Das Faultier der Deutschen Sprache

Postby WalkingAlone13 » Fri Jun 30, 2017 7:09 pm

So things have not been going so well for me as of late, health problems back home with the family as well as some of my own due to a lot of stress that has suddenly landed itself on me. Due to these reasons I will be flying back home in a couple of weeks to offer support and try to sort some of my own problems out.

But hey, you know when you are having a lot of bad luck, and then out of nowhere it all seems to accumulate at the same time? It definitely feels like one of those moments. I had been having migraines the past two days, more than likely due to the recent stress I mentioned. Today I was determined to go out and spend a good chunk of the day outside getting some air, now that my head does not feel like it wants to explode into a billion pieces. So I did. Naturally after several hours of walking, it is often a good idea to take a pew and rest for a while, especially seeing as the rain has subsided for a bit.

I was sat for about 5 minutes when a guy sat himself down beside me. He did not say anything, just proceeded to smoke his cigarette. Then he reached out and tapped me on the arm. I immediately looked over at him, then he started speaking aggressively to me. I figured he had just had a bad day so did not take too much notice. He then said something in dialect which I did not understand, so I politely stated I did not understand. This was to lead to my mistake.
He asked were I am from, and I replied without much thought that I am from England which immediately pissed him off further. He then asked me whether or not I like to fight to which I realised quite quickly where this was ultimately leading which meant I could prepare myself mentally. He stated how his grandfather fought for Germany and that I should in not very polite terms, go back to England and never come back to Germany. Before grabbing me on the arm. I pushed him away and casually said "Hande Weg" no idea why I was still remaining polite at this point, I definitely would have said something stronger back home. He repeated what I said in an irate tone and went to punch me. I moved out of the way and gave him a firm shove to show that I was not going to take any crap from him. Once he realised that I was able to handle myself, he started walking away swearing at me before giving me the Nazi salute.
Some guys came over to me afterwards to check I was okay and a whole bunch of people were just laughing at the guy telling him where to go basically.

I realise this must happen very rarely, but it got me thinking how it could have ended very differently had I not been able to understand pretty much everything he was saying, despite the parts of dialect and ready myself. If similar were to happen to an everyday tourist with basic knowledge of German I could see it ending quite easily with them being sucker punched. I am definitely going to be a little more weary of people over the next two weeks which is unfortunate. But at the same time, it was awesome to see so many people tell him where to go once the initial skirmish was out of the way.

And now I just hope I can get a little good luck to finally balance out my massive run of misfortune that seems to have bound itself to me.

Some good news at least, I get to visit a friend in Frankfurt next week and I am pretty excited to finally meet her! Something to look forward to at least. :)
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Re: Das Faultier der Deutschen Sprache

Postby Elenia » Sun Jul 02, 2017 3:06 pm

I'm very sorry to hear about that episode! I hope that the next few weeks treat you better, and that your time back at home sees an improvement in health all round.
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Re: Das Faultier der Deutschen Sprache

Postby WalkingAlone13 » Fri Jul 07, 2017 6:43 pm

Elenia wrote:I'm very sorry to hear about that episode! I hope that the next few weeks treat you better, and that your time back at home sees an improvement in health all round.


Thanks, Elenia! Today I had a bit of a reprieve so to speak, so at least a tiny portion of the aforementioned stress has dwindled. No doubt soon to be replaced by something else, but it's good to live in the now sometimes so I shall take that.

Heute war ganz schön. Ich erinnere mich nicht, ob ich schon erklären habe aber die meisten Leute die ich hier kenne sind momentan sehr beschäftig, weil es Klausur und Prüfung Saison ist. Ich lerne normalerweise in meinem Zimmer und oft mache ich spöntan Besüche zur Geschöfte oder einfach gehe Spazieren. Heute früh habe ich eine SMS von eine Freundin von mir gekriegt und war sehr froh darauf. Sie hat mich gefragt, ob ich mit sie ein bisschen shoppen gehen wollte. Natürlich habe ich ja gesagt!
Ich war gleich unterwegs und ein bisschen später haben wir uns getroffen. Sie müsste was umtauschen also haben wir zuerst das Geschaft wo sie die Kleidung gekauft hat besucht. Nachher haben wir spöntan shoppen gemacht und ich habe endlich ein Fohn gekauft! In DM glaube ich, sie verkaufen Reiseföhne für nur 10 Euro. Ich wünschte, dass ich das früher gewusst habe. :P Mein Haar sieht immer schrecklich aus wenn ich die nicht trocknen kann.
Denn haben sie mir ein paar Geschöfte die ich noch nicht besucht habe und war ich sehr gefreuet! Ich bin ein Geek, also wenn ich Geek Geschäfte finden kann bin ich immer glücklich. Wir haben ein Geschäft mit viele Star Wars, Zelda, Marvel, Studio Ghibli, usw. usw. besucht und ich könnte fast den ganzen Tag da drin stehen. Wir besuchten auch Gamestop und gab es auch da eigentlich viel.
Wir beiden hatten bärenhunger also haben wir Burger King besucht und des Königsmonates Menu gekauft. Unter fünf Euros für den ganzen Mahlzeit finde ich Supi. Wir waren sehr lang in Burger King, weil wir viel gesprochen haben und sie hat mich auch zu ihre Feiern am Donnerstag eingeladen.
Ich bin kein Party Typ aber ich habe sie versprochen, dass wenn ich nicht so furchtbar aussieht am Donnerstag würde ich sehr gern mitkommen. Ich habe noch nichts alles dabei (Kein Fohn beispieleweise) und fühle mich ziemlich oft selbsbewusst um wie ich aussehe. Hoffentlich geht alles gut und denn gehe ich mit.

Morgen muss ich sehr früh aufstehen, weil ich eine Freundin in Frankfurt besuchen werde. Ich bin sehr gespannt dafür! Wir haben uns noch nicht persönlich getroffen aber wir haben so viel gesprochen es wäre ganz toll sie endlich zu sehen. Ich schreibe wahrscheinlich mehr in meinem Blog :)
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Re: Das Faultier der Deutschen Sprache

Postby WalkingAlone13 » Wed Jul 19, 2017 12:22 am

I had a few interesting experiences before my visit home, so I have yet to write up my Frankfurt visit but will definitely do so as it was one of my better experiences. I also had a nice meet up with a few friends two days prior to my flight which I will probably write up as well.

The most unpredictable element of the last week has been that after researching my possible activities outside of university in Germany, and reminding myself that I can actually take Swedish as an evening class, I have suddenly jumped back into Swedish. This also led to a strange coincidence that one of my oldest friends who introduced me to one of my favourite bands expressed an interest in visiting me so that we could go together as they are on tour during September and October. So, yeah I have now set myself a mini goal of reactivating my Swedish by mid September or early October. This will not change my German routine at all, just means more language study as a whole throughout the day. It seems to be going okay, well, relatively okay, with the exception of the future perfect on Duolingo which caused a little frustration. I can't really complain though as it has been a very long time since I have used Swedish.

Since being back I have mostly been using Memrise as my only source for learning, with a little bit of review on Duolingo and my usual youtube videos and reading, both online and offline. It is actually a little odd how one can develop a routine with certain aspects heavily ingrained without actively setting out to do so. Sometimes I almost feel like I am slacking, but then I add up all the time I spend writing to friends, watching videos, reading, etc. and it is several hours alone, without including my active study time. So even when I am slacking off it is nice to know that I am still using the language more than I realise. Still, once I finish off some of the things I need to sort out for life, Uni, family, etc. tomorrow, I can study a little more proactively once more. And write up stuff. All in all, I am quite excited with how things could potentially work out with my year abroad.

***Edit
I have now completed Duolingo Swedish :D
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