Thursday, August 02, 2007

progress



One of my Projects while I'm over here is to learn German - or at least, to start learning German. I have now been to two lessons and done all my homework and here is an example of my prowess:

A: Guten Tag! Ich heiβe Allie. Wie heiβen Sie?
B: Ah, guten Tag! Ich heiβe B. Woher kommen Sie?
A: Ich komme aus Neuseeland. Aber ich wohne in Perth. Und Sie?
B: Ich komme aus Australien.

Hooray! I wrote all that from memory. It's very very likely therefore that there are mistakes, but still, I feel quite pleased.

The classes are fun; I have met several people around my age who are really nice and interesting sorts of people. There is one man in the class from Croatia who obviously finds the pronunciation a little easier or who has done some German before (I don't know why he has to be in the Elementary I class), and he is one of those students who has to answer every single question before everyone else, or repeat phrases as fast as is physically possible. It's very annoying but also a little amusing.

In other news, my niece has learnt to crawl. Only about three days ago she was still sliding backwards whenever she tried to make a movement - now she is zooming round the place in a sort of lopsided, hobbling crab crawl. It's been amazing to watch her but now we are all feeling the effects of having to watch what she can get her hands on. Sigh.

4 comments:

LEstes65 said...

German and crawling. I'm impressed with BOTH of you!!

Patty said...

Allie, WOW, it's been an eternity since I've commented here! Hope you got my replies a while back to all your past comments, let me know if you didn't. I haven't read all your posts(like the Harry Potter spoiler one, and some others), but I have read sooo many of them. I greatly enjoyed your July 18th and 11th post! :D Loved the beach/rocks photo right above that post...I see you're now in Australia!!! Hope you're having a super amazing time! I enjoy cemeteries, but only to take photos, not to hang out. I liked the shots you took of that fancy one with its own cafe(interesting)! I went to one I've never been to before this past Monday to get photos, but I've got to have my camera cleaned in Dallas this weekend before I can go out taking any more photos, darnit. I hope to start commenting here again, whenever I'm not busy. I'll be starting classes again in a month, but since I don't plan on getting a job just yet, I don't expect to be crazily busy. German is my favorite foreign language! I used to know a lot, I taught myself, but now I just know a lot of random words. The Croatian man sounds funny. :) That's terrific about your niece, babies and toddlers are so cute...occasionally. :) I read your baby post-ha. Love the photo you've added for this post! All the best with everything that you've got going on!!!

~Patty

Trish Ryan said...

Hey, even if there are mistakes, it looks like German to me - good for you!

Take your niece as inspiration - soon you'll be scooting all over the place speaking German like a native :)

Unknown said...

I don't know how to make those funky esset signs, the double S or backwards B or whatever you call it - but I can remember quite a bit of German from school and I'd say you are WELL on your way to fluent Deutsch-dom. ;o)

xox