A language learners’ forum

lordwea123 wrote:Beloved brothers! Perhaps our art is soon to mature,
For, since our times of youth, for long it has been brewed,
Soon to stand in calm beauty;
Be only pious, as the Greek were!

It depends on how close you want to stay to the German version. I've looked at two English versions of this poem and both stray pretty far from the original.
"Lieben Brüder!" is not a form of address. This usage is very unusual and one of the reasons I looked the poem up in the first place. I wanted to make sure that it's not a typo (it's not). If you wanted to say "Dear brothers!" (Liebe Brüder!) or "Beloved Brothers!" (Geliebte Brüder!) there would be no "n" at the end of the word. So to me this line sounds more like "To love, brothers!" however, the English versions of the poem take exactly the same approach as you did.

"Times of youth" is not literal either. In the German version Hoelderlin doesn't speak of a time period, he compares the art that matures to a young person.

I'd switch "be only pious" around to "only be pious" or "just be pious".

Disclaimer: I'm really not a expert on poetry in general or on Hoelderlin specifially. So please take everything I say with a grain of salt.

lordwea123 wrote:Also, about how difficult this text is, I wanted to try myself with harder texts and noticed that short poems are far more fun and gratifying than trying to read a 40 pages long boring graded text. I guess that getting to read something beautiful encourages me more than the discouragement I get from the difficulty of the text if that makes any sense.

I understand.
Still, if it's not Hoelderlin in particular that fascinates you, I'd try some other materials to accomplish this.

A few suggestions:
1) Try other poets that use more modern language. As I said, I'm not an expert on poetry, so I can't really give you proper advice which ones would be suitable. Spontaniously, I thought of Kaestner or Brecht but they have a completely different writing style in comparison to Hoelderlin, so you might not like them.

Bertolt Brecht: Der Radwechsel

Ich sitze am Straßenhang.
Der Fahrer wechselt das Rad.
Ich bin nicht gerne, wo ich herkomme.
Ich bin nicht gerne, wo ich hinfahre.
Warum sehe ich den Radwechsel
Mit Ungeduld?

2) Try traditional German songs. The often have nice lyrics that come close to a poem. You'll still have to deal with old-fashioned expressions but the structures are a lot simpler. To give you a possible starting point:

Der Lindenbaum (Am Brunnen vor dem Tore)

Am Brunnen vor dem Tore da steht ein Lindenbaum.
Ich träumt' in seinem Schatten so manchen süßen Traum.
Ich schnitt in seine Rinde so manches liebe Wort.
Es zog in Freud' und Leide zu ihm mich immer fort, zu ihm mich immer fort.

You can find the complete lyrics here and at Youtube you can listen to the music (with the German and the English lyrics displayed). There are better English translations, in my opinion, but this one stays very close to the original lyrics.

3) Try songwriters. Sometimes they use very poetic lyrics but usually the language is more modern and the structures are simpler. If you want to try this, you could look at songs by Reinhard Mey, for example. Some options:

Herbstgewitter über Dächern
To read
To listen

Wie ein Baum, den man fällt
To read
To listen

Zeugnistag
To read
To listen

I’m trying to think of ways to improve my German pronunciation. I ran across this advice in the Internet:

“Hold your mouth more tightly shut!
Imagine that your mouth could either be forming the shape of a large O or a small lowercase u when you open it. Try to find a video of a German speaking and take note of their mouth’s shape while speaking. Put on your favorite German movies and pay close attention. Note how much tension they have in their cheeks.”

And this:

“German uses the front of the mouth for articulation. Take the word ‘bal’. The English word ‘ball’ is pronounced towards the back of the mouth whereas the German ‘Ball’ is pronounced right at the front of the mouth with the tip of the tongue immediately behind the front teeth.”

Just to see what would happen, I started repeating after FSI drills, keeping my mouth opening to a minimum and enunciating as close to the front of my mouth as possible. The results were surprisingly dramatic.

Some sounds obviously can’t be made at the front of the mouth (the uvular r and the hard ch, for instance), but I found that by making a conscious effort to keep things more towards the front, I could speak faster and with crisper articulation. Maybe if I practice enough, I’ll be able to get this mouth position to go automatic and become my unconscious default German embouchure.

What do you guys think of Germanpod101? I want to translate the dialogues to Afrikaans and use the audio for shadowing and repeated listening practice.

Jaleel10 wrote:What do you guys think of Germanpod101? I want to translate the dialogues to Afrikaans and use the audio for shadowing and repeated listening practice.

The dialogs themselves are fine, and there's a ton to choose from. It's generally a male and female--the female is a native speaker that speaks very clearly and is wonderful to listen to. The male is an American with to my ears not a very good accent.

CarlyD wrote:The dialogs themselves are fine, and there's a ton to choose from. It's generally a male and female--the female is a native speaker that speaks very clearly and is wonderful to listen to. The male is an American with to my ears not a very good accent.

Thanks, Carly

Jaleel10 wrote:What do you guys think of Germanpod101? I want to translate the dialogues to Afrikaans and use the audio for shadowing and repeated listening practice.

Try Slow German mit Annik Rubens if you want to give shadowing a go and repeated listening practice. The topics she covers are awesome, the entire transcript is there on her site, and she has a lovely speaking voice and speaks very clearly and slowly. Such a great resource.

So you've decided to learn German? Nice one!

Chmury wrote:Try Slow German mit Annik Rubens if you want to give shadowing a go and repeated listening practice. The topics she covers are awesome, the entire transcript is there on her site, and she has a lovely speaking voice and speaks very clearly and slowly. Such a great resource.

So you've decided to learn German? Nice one!

, this seems perfect. Thanks, Chmury

Yeah, I'm looking forward to the challenge!

If you are looking for reading suggestions, a couple of months ago Deutsche Welle launched a list of "100 German must-reads" - comprising 100 German language novels published since 1900 that have been translated into English: https://www.dw.com/en/top-stories/100-must-reads/s-43415865

The forum book club will be reading Metro 2033 in February and I will be reading the German translation. Naturally, I would love the company of other German readers. In case you'd be interested in joining us, check out the group page here (queued to the page where February's read will likely begin).

For German, there are many book vendors who sell physical, ebook, and audiobook versions of Metro 2033. The prices seem to be standard across the different sites (9.99eur for the book, 25.95eur for the audiobook):
https://www.buecher.de/shop/science-fic ... /34508844/
https://www.thalia.de/shop/home/artikel ... 16455.html
https://www.weltbild.de/artikel/buch/me ... 17145850-1
https://www.hugendubel.de/de/taschenbuc ... 1704352699
https://www.arvelle.de/Buch/Metro-2033- ... 45352968A/
(And, of course, it is also on amazon.)