Posted on by Ulrike Rettig

Cool German Idioms 2 - beißen

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Some idioms with "beißen"

in den sauren Apfel beißen
(literally: to bite into the sour apple)
to bite the bullet
 
die Farben beißen sich
(literally: the colors bite each other)
the colors clash
 
ins Gras beißen
(literally: to bite into the grass)
to bite the dust

den letzten beißen die Hunde
(literally: the dogs will bite the one who is last)
the last one's left holding the bag
 
ein Rätsel (a riddle):
Was hat sieben Häute und beißt alle Leute?
What has seven skins and stings all people?
Antwort (answer):
die Zwiebel (the onion)
 

The German letter ß vs ss

Maybe you are wondering about the German letter "ß", also called Eszett "sz" or Scharfes-S.
In a spelling reform in the early 90s, the use of the "ß" vs. the "ss" was simplified.

It is now much easier to remember: after a short vowel or Umlaut you'll find "ss".
Examples are: müssen, küssen, lassen, fassen, Tasse, Kasse, Riss, Biss, etc.

After a long vowel (or double vowel) you'll find a "ß".
Examples are: beißen, heißen, genießen, Maß, Straße, Fuß, Gruß, etc.

We came across this change during a trip from Stralsund to Usedom - Exploring 2 German Baltic Islands, when we realized that the town "Saßnitz" on the island of Rügen, changed its name in 1993 to Sassnitz (short "a") in accordance to the new rule!  Leave it to the Germans to also spell town names grammatically correct!

 
Posted on by Peter Rettig

Palm Trees and Chevy Chase in England?

When somebody told me some time ago that there are palm trees in England, I thought they were kidding.

However, during our recent trip though Cornwall and the “English Riviera” we could convince ourselves first hand that indeed there are palm trees growing there! And - Chevy Chase has an English (or rather Scottish) origin...

Minack Theatre

Minack TheaterA wonderful discovery in Porthcurno at the very tip of Cornwall was the Minack Theatre.
The dream and vision of Rowena Cade, who started the construction in 1938, has now become a world famous open air theater. It could easily be mistaken for the remnant of the Roman occupation as it reminded me very much of the amphitheater in Taormina in Sicily with its spectacular view out to the sea.

We saw a wonderful performance of Oliver Twist during a sunny afternoon with sailboats in the background adding to the spectacle on the stage. Pictures of the subtropical garden can also be seen when clicking on the above link to this amazing theater!

Europeans and Languages

The many cars in the theater's parking area with French, German, Swedish, Dutch, Swiss, etc. number plates reminded us that most Europeans are quite able to communicate in more that one language, and their training starts early.

Right behind us on the seat terraces cut into the ledge, a German couple was seated with their 10-year-old daughter. We were quite impressed that the girl sat through the whole performance, without complaint, although, as her parents told us, she really did not speak any English (yet). She was following the action on the stage with great attention, with her parents, who were fluent in English, giving her brief explanations from time to time.

St. Michael's Mount

St Michael's mountAnother interesting visit during our trip was to St. Michael's Mount, which not coincidentally shares with its French cousin both its tidal island characteristics and its conical shape: The island was given to the Benedictines, the religious order of Mont Saint-Michel in Normandy, France, by Edward the Confessor in the 11th century.

The Mount, as locals call it, with its imposing castle, has gone through various ownerships, after Henry VIII abolished the priory. The St. Aubin family retained a 999-year lease after donating it to the National Trust in 1954, and one of the Lord's nephews lives in the castle and manages the island's operations. (We ran into him, as he hurried from his private quarters through the museum to the chapel!)

Chevy Chase on the Mount

view from castleWe took a small boat over during high tide, visited the castle and walked back across the causeway during low tide.

The causeway and the harbor as well as the palm trees can be seen on the picture on the left looking out towards the town of Marazion, only a few miles from Penzance, the most westerly major town in Cornwall and home to the pirates in Gilbert and Sullivan's comic opera.

During our visit of the castle we were intrigued by the name of the "Chevey Chase Room"  and one of the guides explained to us that the name comes from the plaster frieze depicting hunting scenes of the Ballad of Chevy Chase:
"The ballads tell the story of a large hunting party upon a parcel of hunting land (or chase) in the Cheviot Hills on Anglo-Scottish border - hence the term, Chevy Chase."

room in the Castle There is actually another more linguistic explanation for the name, which can be found on the site of the Chevy Chase Historical Society:

"Chevy Chase may have been derived from the French word 'chevauchee' used in medieval Scotland and England to describe the horseback raids made into the ancient borderlands between the two countries.
Whatever its derivation, the name became the title of the English version of a ballad memorializing the famous Battle of Otterbourne which took place at Otterburn, in the Cheviot Hills, Northumberland, England, in August 1388, between the Scottish troops of James, Earl of Douglas and Englishmen led by Lord Harry “Hotspur” Percy, who challenged Douglas by mounting a deer hunt in the hills. The battle was stubborn and bloody, fought hand to hand in the dark -- and may have been fought hand to hand through the night.  The Scots prevailed, but many troops were lost, and Douglas died."

For more information on St. Michael's Mount, go to Anglotopia.net:

"St Michael’s Mount is famous both for historical and mythical reasons. An important Benedictine priory used as a stronghold by a pretender king, held for the king during the Civil War before being taken by a parliamentarian Colonel, and machine-gunned during World War II, St Michael’s Mount has seen its share of real-life warfare. But the mount also has an aura of mystery they has made it the setting of the legend of Jack the Giant Killer and a filming location for various Dracula films. An iconic rocky island on the coast of Cornwall, St Michael’s Mount has many stories to tell and is very worth a visit if you’re in Cornwall."

Posted on by Ulrike Rettig

Cool German Idioms 1 - blau

London Eye

 Some Idioms with "blau"

 
 
ins Blaue fahren
(more literally: to drive into the blue yonder)
to take a trip without a clear destination
 
blau machen
(literally: to make blue)
to skip work or school

blauer Montag
(literally: blue Monday)
a Monday on which you skip work
 
die blaue Stunde
(literally: the blue hour)
time of dusk
 
das Blaue vom Himmel herunter lügen
(more literally: to lie so much that the blue color comes down from the sky)
to tell stories that aren't true
 
das blaue Wunder erleben
(literally: to experience the blue miracle)
to get the shock of one's life

mit einem blauen Auge davonkommen
(literally: to escape with a blue eye)
to get off lightly

jemandem blauen Dunst vormachen
(more literally: to fool someone with blue mist)
to throw dust in somebody's eyes

sich grün und blau ärgern
(more literally: to turn green and blue with annoyance)
to get very annoyed

der Blaue Planet
(literally: the blue planet)
the planet Earth

der blaue Brief
(literally: the blue letter)
a letter containing unpleasant news

blau sein
(literally: to be blue)
to be drunk


Blauer Brief

"Blauer Brief" most commonly refers to a letter that a school will send to parents warning that their son or daughter may not pass and be required to repeat the shool year.
A "Pink Slip" or notice from an employer that one is being fired or laid off is often referred to as "Blauer Brief".
The "Notice to Quit" from a landlord terminating your tenancy, is also sometimes called "Blauer Brief".
If you read German, find out more about the history of the term, and regional differences in how it is used in this Wikipedia entry.

I don't really know why German has so many idioms using the color "blue". Yes there is the English "feeling blue", or "being blue" i.e. being sad. But, if you were to express such a feeling and translate, "I'm blue", into German as "Ich bin blau", you will get some astonished or worried looks.

If you come across other German idioms using "blue", send us a note to info@gamesforlanguage.com and we'll add them here!

 
Posted on by Ulrike Rettig

3 Steps for Training Your Ear When Learning a Language

When starting a new language, one of the hardest things to learn is to understand a native speaker. It's definitely much easier to read a foreign language than to understand a stream of it when it’s spoken quickly.

When I started learning Italian, TV programs sounded like gibberish. But now, I’m pretty good at understanding Italian speakers and Italian TV and films. Just as with building any skill, it helped me to break down the learning process.

You can do it in these three steps.

1. Listen repeatedly to a short audio or video

Listen to a short audio of which you understand or can guess about 50%. Listen to this same audio segment several times in the next Man listeningseveral days.

This will make your brain familiar with the "music” of the language, its melody and rhythm. Pay attention to where stress goes on words and which words are stressed in a sentence.

You’ll quickly learn to distinguish individual
types of sentences (statements, questions, negative responses, short emphatic answers, etc.). You'll be surprised how repetition increases your understanding of what is being said.

Also, from day to day, your brain continues to processing the sounds that you are learning. After some time, you may find that you'll be able to identify individual words within the stream of sounds that is whooshing by. That's a huge step and a very exciting one.

To get the idea, here are the MP3 audios of Scene 2 from our four languages, French, Spanish, Italian, and German.

Pick a language that you understand somewhat. Then listen to the corresponding scene in a language you don’t know at all. It’ll give you a
taste of audio learning.

2. Watch or listen to an ongoing story

Watch a TV series in your new language. Or, if one in your language is not available, look for a foreign film that's not dubbed. Watch it in short increments.

The ongoing story will provide you with related vocabulary and lots of repetition. The context of the story itself will offer plenty of clues so that you can guess the meaning of what is going on.

3. Learn by immersion with a variety of materials

Now you’re ready to tackle all kinds of different audio and video material in your new language. TV programs in the language you’re learning, films, news audios and videos, a radio station. learning, etc. Increasingly, context clues will help.

A great way to get into immersion is a site like yabla.com. Also a good post to check out is Learn a Language by Listening to the Radio
 
Also, in an earlier blog post, I list 10 essential grammar items to become familiar with. They’ll help you get a good start with immersion learning.

Language learning is not a linear process

You may want to go back to any of the previous steps from time to time. Learning to understand a new language is not a linear process, it's more like a fun zig-zag, filled with new discoveries all the time. 

Of course, if you can interact with native speakers, you'll want to do that right from the start. They'll make your language learning personal, add direct experience of the language, and give your valuable feedback.

Have fun! And yes, research shows that these “language exercises” have all kinds of good benefits for your brain.

As said by the writer Rita Mae Brown: "Language is the road map of a culture. It tells you where its people come from and where they are going."

Posted on by Peter Rettig

Wonks, Foreign Languages, and Presidential Politics

                                                                                                                                                                                                                     
A recent NPR a
rticle by Stephen M. Walt, professor of international relations at Harvard University, cIn this photo from 1938 undergraduates of Oxford University walk to lectures, well equipped with books.aught my attention: Foreign Policy: 10 Things Future Wonks Should Know.

The article meant to address the "things" our future Secretaries of State or for that matter, the students and future international policy wonks should learn.

(The 1938 photo from the article shows undergraduates from Oxford University as they walk to lectures, well equipped with books.)

Foreign Language

While I certainly cannot argue with any of his ten points, I wish he had listed “Foreign Language” as #2 or even #1 (instead of #3) for all the excellent reasons he mentions:

“... I know that everyone is learning English these days, but learning at least one foreign language provides a window into another culture that you can't get any other way, and also provides a sense of mastery and insight that is hard to achieve otherwise.”

It seems clear to me that among the many other “things” a foreign policy expert should know, foreign language and history should be on top. Considering the interconnections of our lives with the rest of the world, Prof. Walt's reasoning does not only apply to foreign policy wonks, but indeed to many industries, businesses, and people.

He also speaks to “a sense of mastery that is hard to achieve otherwise,” a point that is rarely mentioned when enumerating the benefits of knowing a foreign language.

Presidential Politics

The current presidential election campaign in the US also makes me again painfully aware of the fact that knowing another language (than English) does not give any candidate an advantage with the voting public.

You may all remember that John Kerry downplayed his knowledge of French in 2004, and Mitt Romney is currently doing the same.

President Obama is now staying away from that topic as well, as he got blasted in 2008 when regretting: “I don't speak a foreign language. It's embarrassing ... It's embarrassing when Europeans come over here, they all speak English, they speak French, they speak German. And then we go over to Europe and all we can say is merci beaucoup, right?" (CBS News 7/11/2008)

But for those who endeavor to learn another language both the “window into another culture” and the “sense of mastery” provide ample rewards.