I haven't been feeling great these past couple of weeks. My back has been giving me issues, but it's probably nothing[other than that I'm eighteen going on eighty at this point]. That's been translating to unfortunately neglecting
this blog [which has nonetheless managed to reach over 2000 views. Here's another shoutout to everyone reading this! :) ]
At least with autumn spontaneously dumping buckets of rain over here, settling in for a Seattleite has never been easier.
Scheiß' Wetter, they call it, but curling up with a cappuccino and a Starbucks mug [of course] and listening to the rain curbs those little hints of homesickness nicely.
Although more often it's tea in my Starbucks mug because we drink tea here like five times a day and then some.
A couple blog posts ago, I talked about the German school system, but I'm getting little more personal today.
Sitting in class in a foreign country is miles away [ha] from taking that language at home; In a nutshell, how much you know doesn't translate to how much you can understand.
Technical terms in every subject- 'fachbegriffe', literally translating to 'subject vocabulary'- are absolutely terrible. It's bearable when you leave the class with notes, or a reading assignment that can be later translated [even though that's still horrid because translating every technical term makes everything take three times longer than it should]- but discussion based classes.
Nope.
Not a chance.
So~ooo. Here's a rundown of my classes; the good, the bad, and the just plain ugly.
Math
Decimals are commas, and commas are decimals.
Ones look like sevens.
I can't read the teacher's handwriting.
Otherwise, so far so good! As in, I've done the current unit before [ew, optimization] and it's not too bad-- oh, who am I kidding? I get the math part, but of course advanced math is rarely just about that. It's all story problems with blocks of text for me to translate. Bratwurst vendors trying to maximize profit, farmers trying to make sheep pens with the largest possible area...
And standard calculators here are different from our lovely TI-83s. So, calculator work doesn't happen either.
But for the rare occasions where we actually work with numbers, it's fine(:
Biology
I love biology. I adore it.
Too bad my little English-German pocket dictionary doesn't translate big juicy words like chlorophyll, poiklithermic and homeothermic, oxygen/carbon dioxide exchange rates, and metabolism.
On the other hand, enough words are similar that it's not a total nightmare. Photosynthesis, glucose, chlorophyll, und so weiter.
Translating material from this class isn't too much of a chore, and I can follow the discussions here pretty well.
Art
Art speaks for itself, but we actually do quite a bit of theory and discussion of techniques/ time periods of art as well. There's always plenty of visuals, which works for mee.
It's also fascinating, seeing how art is taught here as opposed to the U.S. There's still artistic freedom, but there's more focus on technique and using that to further artistic growth rather than encouraging wild creativity. Both are good, and arguably equally effective, and I'm so happy to be seeing both sides.
English
Oh, English.
I believe I've learned more about America in this class than I ever did back at home. We went so in depth with the American dream, American icons, American stereotypes and mentalities, that several points were actually new to me.
Seriously though, we never learned about the American dream in school. Did we?
Also, students here learn British-English.
Which translates to this adorable half-British, half-German accent.
Which also translates to nobody understanding me when I speak 'American'. Apparently.
History
Absolutely no clue.
This class is entirely discussion based.
I can't read the teacher's handwriting from the board notes.
Actually, I can't read anyone's handwriting.
It's this loose cursive where, to quote a friend:
"80% of the consonants are just completely interchangeable. N? K? L? T? R? S? It doesn't matter, just put a squiggle and call it good!"
French
I'm a double foreigner here.
It's the advanced french class, and we speak only french there... but when there's something we don't understand, it's cleared up in German.
Oh, that helps.
We were reading a text once, and our teacher brought in dictionaries.
I was excited for a brief moment.
Nope.
German-to-French dictionaries.
I can't win.
German
Absolutely, entirely no clue.
:)
We're reading Iphigenie auf Tauris.
[It's one of those Greek tragedies where everyone is related to and sleeps with everyone else and everyone dies.]
It's written by Goethe.
Goethe is the German equivalent of Shakespeare.
Now how many of you native English speakers understand Shakespeare?
....
That's what I thought.
At least with autumn spontaneously dumping buckets of rain over here, settling in for a Seattleite has never been easier.
Scheiß' Wetter, they call it, but curling up with a cappuccino and a Starbucks mug [of course] and listening to the rain curbs those little hints of homesickness nicely.
Although more often it's tea in my Starbucks mug because we drink tea here like five times a day and then some.
 |
| Aaand this is a picture of our dog. |
Sitting in class in a foreign country is miles away [ha] from taking that language at home; In a nutshell, how much you know doesn't translate to how much you can understand.
Technical terms in every subject- 'fachbegriffe', literally translating to 'subject vocabulary'- are absolutely terrible. It's bearable when you leave the class with notes, or a reading assignment that can be later translated [even though that's still horrid because translating every technical term makes everything take three times longer than it should]- but discussion based classes.
Nope.
Not a chance.
So~ooo. Here's a rundown of my classes; the good, the bad, and the just plain ugly.
Math
Decimals are commas, and commas are decimals.
Ones look like sevens.
I can't read the teacher's handwriting.
Otherwise, so far so good! As in, I've done the current unit before [ew, optimization] and it's not too bad-- oh, who am I kidding? I get the math part, but of course advanced math is rarely just about that. It's all story problems with blocks of text for me to translate. Bratwurst vendors trying to maximize profit, farmers trying to make sheep pens with the largest possible area...
And standard calculators here are different from our lovely TI-83s. So, calculator work doesn't happen either.
But for the rare occasions where we actually work with numbers, it's fine(:
Biology
I love biology. I adore it.
Too bad my little English-German pocket dictionary doesn't translate big juicy words like chlorophyll, poiklithermic and homeothermic, oxygen/carbon dioxide exchange rates, and metabolism.
On the other hand, enough words are similar that it's not a total nightmare. Photosynthesis, glucose, chlorophyll, und so weiter.
Translating material from this class isn't too much of a chore, and I can follow the discussions here pretty well.
Art
Art speaks for itself, but we actually do quite a bit of theory and discussion of techniques/ time periods of art as well. There's always plenty of visuals, which works for mee.
It's also fascinating, seeing how art is taught here as opposed to the U.S. There's still artistic freedom, but there's more focus on technique and using that to further artistic growth rather than encouraging wild creativity. Both are good, and arguably equally effective, and I'm so happy to be seeing both sides.
English
Oh, English.
I believe I've learned more about America in this class than I ever did back at home. We went so in depth with the American dream, American icons, American stereotypes and mentalities, that several points were actually new to me.
Seriously though, we never learned about the American dream in school. Did we?
Also, students here learn British-English.
Which translates to this adorable half-British, half-German accent.
Which also translates to nobody understanding me when I speak 'American'. Apparently.
History
Absolutely no clue.
This class is entirely discussion based.
I can't read the teacher's handwriting from the board notes.
Actually, I can't read anyone's handwriting.
It's this loose cursive where, to quote a friend:
"80% of the consonants are just completely interchangeable. N? K? L? T? R? S? It doesn't matter, just put a squiggle and call it good!"
French
I'm a double foreigner here.
It's the advanced french class, and we speak only french there... but when there's something we don't understand, it's cleared up in German.
Oh, that helps.
We were reading a text once, and our teacher brought in dictionaries.
I was excited for a brief moment.
Nope.
German-to-French dictionaries.
I can't win.
German
Absolutely, entirely no clue.
:)
We're reading Iphigenie auf Tauris.
[It's one of those Greek tragedies where everyone is related to and sleeps with everyone else and everyone dies.]
It's written by Goethe.
Goethe is the German equivalent of Shakespeare.
Now how many of you native English speakers understand Shakespeare?
....
That's what I thought.
Thanks for friending me; now I get a notice on FB when you post here and I really enjoy your blog. BTW, about feeling at home in the rain: it has rained twice for a total of about 0.05"(really) of rain since mid-July. As in, it's still not raining yet. We're walking around in a mild state of shock about it. So enjoy your tea. :-)
ReplyDeleteDo I need to sign this?
(If so, Linda Hill)
That's not the Washington I remember-- hopefully that will translate to a ton of snow later? I'm glad you enjoy the blog, it's great to hear from you!:)
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