German group

An area with study groups for various languages. Group members help each other, share resources and experience. Study groups are permanent but the members rotate and change.
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M23
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Re: German group

Postby M23 » Thu May 31, 2018 12:13 am

I have been doing the Nico's Weg program from DW so the videos in that course are all I have really been watching with the occasional episode of Peppa Wutz.

In the book department I picked up a couple of One Punch Man mangas while I was in Hamburg this past December. I'll be getting to those once I can get through more short stories in my German Reader (for beginners) without so much struggle.
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hedgehog.chess
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Contemporary literature

Postby hedgehog.chess » Mon Jun 18, 2018 7:13 am

Hi!
I’ve made a list of German speaking contemporary authors known to me according to genres(although sometimes it’s hard to classify them). Could you share your favorite authors/books and help me filling in the gaps? Or maybe I've missed your favorite genre? Native speakers help will be most welcome. What are people in Geman speaking countries currently reading?

Science fiction: Frank Schätzing, Andreas Eschbach, Andreas Brandhorst, Thomas R. P. Mielke
Satire/Comedy: David Safier, Marc-Uwe Kling, Ellen Berg, Florian Schiel, Timur Vermes, Tommy Jaud, Sebastian Niedlich
History: Rebecca Gablé, Ulf Schiewe, Sebastian Fleming, Daniel Kehlmann
Action and Adventure: (?)
Mystery(Krimi): Nele Neuhaus, Jacques Berndorf, Akif Pirinçci, Arno Strobel, Michael Moritz, Volker Kutscher, Klaus-Peter Wolf, Volker Klüpfel / Michael Kobr
Thriller: Sebastian Fitzek, Marc Elsberg, Martin Suter, Daniel Dersch
Biographies & Autobiographies: Udo Jürgens ('Der Mann mit dem Fagott'), Gregor Gysi ('Ein Leben ist zu wenig'), ('Hape KerkelingDer Junge muss an die frische Luft: Meine Kindheit und ich')
Fantasy: Walter Moers, Wolfgang Hohlbein, Kai Meyer, Markus Heitz
Young adult fiction: Cornelia Funke, Michael Ende, Kerstin Gier, Ursula Poznanski, Wolfgang Herrndorf ('Tschick')
Non-Fiction: Peter Wohlleben, Stephan Orth, Hamed Abdel-Samad,Hans Leyendecker ('Helmut Kohl, die Macht und das Geld'), Giulia Enders ('Darm mit Charme')
Roman: Karen Duve, Robert Seethaler, Robert Menasse

EDIT: added sugesstions from Kat and gsbod.
EDIT II: added the category ,Roman'
Last edited by hedgehog.chess on Fri Aug 31, 2018 6:27 am, edited 6 times in total.
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gsbod
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Re: German group

Postby gsbod » Sat Jun 23, 2018 11:55 am

I can add a few names to the Krimi authors:

Volker Kutscher - wrote the Gereon Rath novels that have now become Babylon Berlin on TV
Klaus-Peter Wolf - wrote the Ostfriesenkrimis
Volker Klüpfel / Michael Kobr - wrote the Kluftinger series

As for other authors I have enjoyed, I really like the books I've read by Karen Duve, although I don't know where they would fit in your list of genres. And Wolfgang Herrndorf's Tschick is a young adult novel that I found to be surprisingly uplifting.
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hedgehog.chess
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Re: German group

Postby hedgehog.chess » Sat Jun 23, 2018 4:17 pm

gsbod wrote:I can add a few names to the Krimi authors:

Volker Kutscher - wrote the Gereon Rath novels that have now become Babylon Berlin on TV
Klaus-Peter Wolf - wrote the Ostfriesenkrimis
Volker Klüpfel / Michael Kobr - wrote the Kluftinger series

As for other authors I have enjoyed, I really like the books I've read by Karen Duve, although I don't know where they would fit in your list of genres. And Wolfgang Herrndorf's Tschick is a young adult novel that I found to be surprisingly uplifting.

Thank you very much for you suggestions gsbod. I will add them to the list if you don’t mind. As for Karen Duve, could you maybe suggest her best book and say to what genre it belongs? I think it would be better than to left her in the ‘Other’ category. For example Markus Heitz writes fantasy, thriller and sci-fi, but I think he is best known for his ‘Zwergen’ Zyklus so he landed in ‘Fastasy’.
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gsbod
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Re: German group

Postby gsbod » Sat Jun 23, 2018 5:07 pm

hedgehog.chess wrote:Thank you very much for you suggestions gsbod. I will add them to the list if you don’t mind. As for Karen Duve, could you maybe suggest her best book and say to what genre it belongs? I think it would be better than to left her in the ‘Other’ category. For example Markus Heitz writes fantasy, thriller and sci-fi, but I think he is best known for his ‘Zwergen’ Zyklus so he landed in ‘Fastasy’.


If I was looking for her books in a book store I would expect them to be filed under "fiction" - nothing more specific than that. I agree that Markus Heitz belongs in fantasy.
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Cavesa
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Re: German group

Postby Cavesa » Thu Jul 26, 2018 8:54 pm

Hi guys, it looks like our group has been rather dormant! I hope your personal studies have not! Unlike mine.

I could do with a tiny bit of advice on a few matters, if you'd be so kind, please.

1.I could do with some listening stuff
-it needs to not be too hard. Something A2ish B1ish.
-please, not an audio or video course of the language, I know far too many already. Stuff like easier news, popular science, history, anything
-either audio, or video.
-not too hard audiobooks could do. However, remember I am not allowed to buy any due to stupid geoblocking, I am not even allowed to get the free audiobook samples on amazon.
-something enjoyable. I trust you are good judges of that and I am looking forward to your recommendations.

2.I could do with a bit of encouragement. German is somehow really hard for me. And due to all those stupid breaks, I am at that point at which a lot of stuff bores me, as it is too known to be fascinating, and at the same time is a challenge, as I simply suck. Any tip on getting out of this point, please?

3.Any tips on free comics online? There is a German library in Prague, I've visited it. I cannot remember having seen any comic books at all (and that was not the only fun and useful thing missing, the librarians almost everywhere are too conservative!). And the normal ones would be too pricey to buy and have delivered. Oh, but if I choose to get a few anyways, do you know any fun original German comic books? So far, I've only got experience with the american, french, belgian, polish, and czech ones. Actually, I know Maus, but that is the only one and it is pretty exceptional (in the good sense). Perhaps I should get it in original!

Btw, here's one tip from me, to not just ask this time: Goethe Insitut has financed a few games for learners. You know, those can be pretty boring, sure. But this one is definitely not. Lernabenteuer Deutsch feels like the Broken Sword 1 or 2! Sure, nothing can be as good as Broken Sword (except for the Longest Journey) in this genre, and this is still a learning game, but I am enjoying it and it works as some more exposure to German without feeling tortured.
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Chung
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Re: German group

Postby Chung » Thu Jul 26, 2018 9:35 pm

Cavesa wrote:Hi guys, it looks like our group has been rather dormant! I hope your personal studies have not! Unlike mine.

I could do with a tiny bit of advice on a few matters, if you'd be so kind, please.

1.I could do with some listening stuff
-it needs to not be too hard. Something A2ish B1ish.
-please, not an audio or video course of the language, I know far too many already. Stuff like easier news, popular science, history, anything
-either audio, or video.
-not too hard audiobooks could do. However, remember I am not allowed to buy any due to stupid geoblocking, I am not even allowed to get the free audiobook samples on amazon.
-something enjoyable. I trust you are good judges of that and I am looking forward to your recommendations.


I'm not sure if this is what you're thinking about, but I found these after typing "leicht Deutsch hören" in Google. I'm sure that you could find more if you add "hörverstehen" or similar in the search.

- https://www.deutsch-to-go.de/infos/ (click on "Hörtexte A (einfach)" on the right)
- Hörverstehen Deutsch – Übungen zum Hörverstehen A1 bis C2
- Nachrichtenleicht
- Audio Lingua - Zahlreiche Tondateien (you can choose different CEFR levels of the recordings using the pull-down menu under "Erweitere Suche" on the far right of the screen. The recordings seem to be of sometimes ordinary things by ordinary people, so nothing too complicated, but perhaps more relatable sometimes than listening to news reports in slow/easy German)

Cavesa wrote:2.I could do with a bit of encouragement. German is somehow really hard for me. And due to all those stupid breaks, I am at that point at which a lot of stuff bores me, as it is too known to be fascinating, and at the same time is a challenge, as I simply suck. Any tip on getting out of this point, please?


Ummm.... Jen tak dál? Sorry, I'm not the most rah-rah guy in the world :?

Cavesa wrote:3.Any tips on free comics online? There is a German library in Prague, I've visited it. I cannot remember having seen any comic books at all (and that was not the only fun and useful thing missing, the librarians almost everywhere are too conservative!). And the normal ones would be too pricey to buy and have delivered. Oh, but if I choose to get a few anyways, do you know any fun original German comic books? So far, I've only got experience with the american, french, belgian, polish, and czech ones. Actually, I know Maus, but that is the only one and it is pretty exceptional (in the good sense). Perhaps I should get it in original!

Btw, here's one tip from me, to not just ask this time: Goethe Insitut has financed a few games for learners. You know, those can be pretty boring, sure. But this one is definitely not. Lernabenteuer Deutsch feels like the Broken Sword 1 or 2! Sure, nothing can be as good as Broken Sword (except for the Longest Journey) in this genre, and this is still a learning game, but I am enjoying it and it works as some more exposure to German without feeling tortured.


I don't know of any free comic books online in German like Maus, but I do browse the following when I want a bit of a laugh or read something just to kill a minute or two (e.g. checking my phone while waiting for someone). Whenever I add a comic strip in German to my log entry, I draw on the following sources. Feel free to bookmark whatever ones you like, but the ones that I like a lot are followed by :mrgreen:

- “Auweia!” von Nico Fauser
- “Süßes und Saures” von Steffen Gumpert
- “Buckles” auf Deutsch von David Gilbert
- “Flix Heldentage 2.13” von Felix Görmann
- “Die Dramatik der Dinge” von Katharina Greve :mrgreen:
- “Am Rande der Gesellschaft” von Elias Hauck und Dominik Bauer
- “Kobi Köter” von Raphael Hofer
- “Kevin & Kell” auf Deutsch von Bill Holbrook
- “Touché” von Thomas Körner
- “xkcd” auf Deutsch von Randall Munroe
- “Shit Happens!” von Ralph Ruthe :mrgreen:
- “Frühreif!” von Ralph Ruthe :mrgreen:
- “Medi-Learn Comics” von Rippenspreizer (Cavesa, you may like these because they're panels with medical personnel)
- “NICHTLUSTIG” von Joscha Sauer
- “Ahoi polloi” von unbekannten Autoren / Autorinnen
- “Wumo” (vormals “Wulffmorgenthaler”) von Mikael Wulff und Anders Morgenthaler
- “Haiopeis” von Thomas Siemensen
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Cavesa
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Re: German group

Postby Cavesa » Fri Jul 27, 2018 2:49 pm

Thank you so much! This is exactly what I was hoping for! You're awesome!
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M23
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Re: German group

Postby M23 » Sun Jul 29, 2018 11:26 pm

Cavesa wrote:Hi guys, it looks like our group has been rather dormant! I hope your personal studies have not! Unlike mine.


Unfortunately I am in the same boat with you. The summer semester kept me really busy and all I had time to do during the day was breeze through a Duolingo lesson really quickly in between studying and homework. We are on break now so I hope to get a little Deutschlernen in before fall starts up.
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Brun Ugle
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Re: German group

Postby Brun Ugle » Mon Jul 30, 2018 5:57 am

I finally got around to finishing the Duolingo course, which is really easy to do now that you can test out of everything. The tests are really easy too. In one of them I only had to answer two questions to test out of the level. And since you’re allowed four mistakes, I wonder how it would have gone had I gotten both questions wrong. Would I still have gotten to test out? I got the last question wrong on one of the tests and it didn’t ask me a new question or anything. The test just ended anyway.
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