This was based on Scene 4.5 of our German 1 course and our conjecture that Mark Twain liked the name "Heidelberg" because Heidelberg in English means Huckleberry mountain.
Actually, more correctly, Heidelberg is an abbreviation of "Heidelbeerenberg" (huckleberry mountain).
Huckleberry Adventures
We found it interesting that Twain had stayed in Heidelberg with his family for several months in 1878.
Twain had unsuccessfully tried to learn German in 1850 at age fifteen. He resumed his study 28 years later in preparation for a trip to Europe." [Wikipedia: "Mark Twain"]
Mark Twain had published his novel “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer” in 1876 and “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” in1884.
A little further digging found several German sites which also describe his love of Heidelbeeren. He found them in the forests around Heidelberg and enjoyed Heidelbeerkuchen (huckleberry pie).
By the way, a similar confusion between a huckleberry and a blueberry also exists in German between a "Heidelbeere" and a "Blaubeere". (For further enlightenment, try this link.)
Heidelberg, Mississippi
So the character of Huckleberry Finn had already been well-established by the time Mark Twain arrived in Heidelberg, Germany in 1878, as the travel writer Lucy Gordan explains:
"Supposedly looking for a quiet village, where people didn't know him, neither of which fit Heidelberg because it was already home to active American and British communities, he arrived with his family on May 6 for the day and stayed three months.His biographer Justin Kaplan asserts Twain was aware that Heidelberg derived from 'Heidelbeerenberg', meaning 'Huckleberry Mountain', which may explain his affinity."
"Nobody really knows," writes Werner Pieper in his updated Mark Twain's Guide to Heidelberg , "what made Mark Twain stay in Heidelberg for such a long time. Maybe he was prompted by old dreams from the times he was passing Heidelberg, Mississippi, while working on the steamships? Did he plan to stay here or did he and his family just fall in love with this city?"
While the above allusion to Mark Twain's passing by Heidelberg, Mississippi, during his days as a river pilot may be compelling, a little further digging causes some doubts:
Mark Twain worked on a steamboat, first as an apprentice, then as a pilot during 1857 to 1861.
However, Heidelberg, Mississippi was only founded in 1882 by Washington Irving Heidelberg [google History, Town of Heidelberg] - and even more importantly: Heidelberg is not situated ON the Mississippi, but located in the State of Mississippi, southeast of Jackson, MS, and about 130 miles from the Mississippi river.
Twain visited the river a number of times after his pilot days, most notably in 1882 as he prepared to write "Life on the Mississippi" and maybe on his travels TO the river he came through the little town.
Maybe that's when he came across the name Heidelberg again. So whether he already knew the name Heidelberg or whether he related to it as a translation of "huckleberry" we'll never know.
But we do know that he liked his three months in Heidelberg, Germany, in spite of his continuing struggle with the German language.
And we'll explore in another blog post Mark Twain's love-hate relationship with "The Awful German Language" which he published as an Appendix to his "A Tramp Abroad" in 1880.
Bio: Peter Rettig is the co-founder of Gamesforlanguage.com. He's a lifelong language learner, growing up in Austria, Germany, and Switzerland. You can follow him on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, and leave any comments with contact.
If you want to learn to speak a foreign language, is it really important to practice aloud? My experience has been that although the benefits of practicing listening, reading, writing, and speaking overlap, each foreign language skill also needs its own practice.
Last year my husband and I spent a month in Barcelona. We had rented an apartment and found this to be a brilliant opportunity to practice our nascent Spanish in daily situations - such as shopping, banking, getting around the city, or socializing with locals in our neighborhood café.
Practicing Reading aloud
But Spanish wasn't the only language we "practiced aloud." One weekend, our nephew, his wife, and their 4 year old daughter Céline came to visit us. They live in Switzerland and are French-speaking, so for three days we conversed only in French. The first night, I was the lucky one to read a bed-time story to Céline. She wanted to hear Raiponce (Rapunzel, in French) and had brought her own book.
When I started, it was immediately apparent that Céline was not tired at all and I found myself reading to her aloud for close to an hour. In between bouts of reading, Céline peppered me with questions why Raiponce did this, or Raiponce did that. French is my 4th language and I'm fairly fluent, but let me tell you, discussing the story line of a complicated fairy tale with a chatty 4 year old can be challenging.
The next day, I felt the effects of my brief but intense immersion experience. My French brain was working in high gear: I found that words came more easily to me and the sometimes awkward French sounds flowed more smoothly.
Producing Foreign Language sounds
Practicing a new language aloud starts with sounding out individual words and phrases, but also includes repeating - aloud - longer sentences. These might not always sound perfect, but the effort to recreate the music and intonation of a sentence is excellent practice in itself. Producing the sounds of a foreign language is in part a mechanical process that involves position of the tongue, movement of the muscles in the mouth, and guiding your breath. Your mouth is definitely multitasking.
There are many audio courses, YouTube clips, etc. that teach pronunciations and the particular sounds of many languages. We find that imitating practice by recording your own voice and comparing it to the native speaker works best for us, and we have included this feature in all our courses. In addition, we often find that we can remember a sound better when we see the written word. That's why we have also a “Say it” section: You hear a word or phrase, are asked to repeat it, then see it written for a moment before you hear the next one.
Reading and listening are great ways to rapidly improve your understanding of a foreign language, but don't forget, practicing and speaking aloud will get you ready for conversations: they may be with kids about a fairly tale, or with peers about anything at all!
Finally, you can access our four language programs not only on your desktop or laptop but also on your iOS6 mobile devices.
Many of our users have been frustrated that while they could access our online program perfectly well from their new iPad, the audio did not work!
With the release of iOS6 (the most recent release of the operating system on mobile Apple devices), Apple iPhones and iPads now support multi channel audio in HTML5. We have now integrated this new technology, called the Web Audio API, into our games.
This means you don't need to go through the Apple store to use GamesforLanguage. You would want to have a good Wi-Fi connection. Just open your Safari browser and login to our site and start playing and learning.
While for us the screen on the iPhone is too small for certain games, Memory Game, Snap Clouds, Shootout, etc. may still work for some users. We prefer the regular iPad and iPad mini.
If you encounter any difficulties, write us! Some of the remedies are pretty simple, and it's always a good idea to first try again by reloading.
At this point we don't know yet when we can make Games4language also work on Android mobile devices. Android does not yet support the technology that now enables multi-channel audio to work on Safari in iOS.
Other Changes
Those of you who replayed some earlier Scenes may also have noticed the following changes: - An expanded Story dialog for the first Scene of German1 (with the other languages to follow). - All Scenes have lengthened games for more playing practice. - “The Story” now also appears at the end of each Scene by which time it will be easily understood. - Quick, short games teach articles, pronouns, noun genders, etc. right from the start, and in the later levels we added other fun games such as Shootout, Car Race, Moon Landing, etc.
In fact, you will find that many of the games are even more fun to play on a tablet, as you can just touch the screen for the correct word or phrase.
When I retired, my wife and I decided to head to Europe for an extended stay.
Both of us were born in Austria. My wife had childhood memories of the Italian Alps and Venice, and I enjoy remembering a trip through northern Italy with friends. I was a teenager then.
Although neither of us spoke any Italian, we decided to spend five months in Rome and take trips from there.
We prepared with Pimsleur's Italian CDs. My wife was at that time still working as a free-lance editor for Pimsleur Language Programs. (During our stay, she was able to continue her work remotely.)
We searched online and rented an apartment in Trastevere, a charming medieval neighborhood on the other side of the Tiber. We were off to Rome in September.
Rome and Surroundings
We enjoyed Rome very much, improved our Italian by taking daily lessons with an Italian tutor, and explored the city and its surroundings on foot, by bus, and by train.
We came to realize that staying in a foreign place for more than just a few days has many benefits.
Not only can you visit the “must see” attractions (view from St. Peter's right) at your leisure, but even more importantly, you can start to experience the “vibes” of the city: the daily bustle on the streets and in the markets; the atmosphere in the neighborhood cafés and restaurants; the conviviality of the Romans' habitual late afternoon stroll; the pleasurable local night scene: in movies, theaters, concerts, bars; the activities at neighborhood squares and parks that function as community centers.
As in most European cities, you can visit many places just using public transport. From Rome, we enjoyed easy day trips by bus or train to Castel Gandolfo, Ostia, Frascati, Tarquinia, Civitavecchia, Villa d'Este, Hadrian's Villa, and others.
Still starting from Rome, several overnight train trips - to Pompei, Naples, Capri, Sorrento and the Amalfi Coast - rounded out our Italian experience at that time.
Getting to Know a City
We still travel by car from time to time (e.g. see our blogs posts on our recent trips to Barcelona (w/ Gaudi's Sagrada Familia left), Southern Spain, Cornwall and London, Brussels. etc.).
However, we really like to stay in a place for at least a month, especially when we are in a larger city.
Besides our stay in Rome, we have also stayed a month each in Paris, Berlin, and Barcelona.
Recent one-week visits to Madrid and London were pleasant and filled with many activities, but they didn't allow us to absorb each city's character in a leisurely way.
We know Vienna, Amsterdam, Munich, Zurich and Brussels quite well, but there are still many other European cities on our current list, such as Dublin, Prague, Budapest, Oslo, Stockholm, Helsinki, etc.
And When You Have Time...
So, if you have time on your hand, love other cultures and languages, and can afford it - you may want to forgo the “5 countries in 7 days” kind of trip. You may rather want to choose a country or even just a city to get to know in more depth.
Regarding “affordability”: We have found that renting an apartment is not only more economical than staying in a hotel in most cases, but also gives you more space and flexibility. In our case, it often provided an opportunity to invite friends and family for a visit!
(For the more adventurous travelers, there are also apartment/house exchanges, etc).
So far, we have limited our extended stays to European countries, but we are eager to extend our reach.
Still, unless we stay in countries where we speak the local language, it would mean that we should start learning another language. And that will be another project (and another story).
Every year starting in November, language learning companies offer numerous promotions and discounts.
While nobody knows how many such offers are regularly accepted worldwide, we can assume that there are many who make learning a new foreign language their New Year's goal.
Motivation Tips
There is no lack of research and literature that analyze and describe the challenges of achieving our goals. I recently came across a post on zenhabits.net. Here are some suggestions how this blog can be applied to language learning:
1. Start small. Many language programs overwhelm a learner with too many options and choices. We, at Gamesforlanguage.com, add 15-20 words with each lesson. The phrases of each lesson are part of an ongoing travel story. Learning these words and phrases should take about 20 minutes. If you get into a daily habit of committing those 20 minutes, you'll have made a great start. You can always add more time later.
2. One goal. Focus on one achievable and realistic goal. No, you will not speak a new foreign language fluently in a year - unless you are willing and able to commit considerable time and energy. Learning a new foreign language as an adult requires discipline and sustainedeffort. Completing the course you have purchased, subscribed to, or enrolled in may be your one realistically achievable goal.
3. Examine your motivation. Write down the reasons you want to learn a new foreign language. Maybe you plan to travel to a foreign country, you have a friend, spouse or relatives you want to communicate with, or your education or business interests motivate you.
4. You have to really, really want it. The above reasons have to be strong enough for you to commit the energy and time needed to make real progress. If you can stay excited about your choice long enough to reap some benefits, e.g. reading an article or a book, watching a foreign movie or video, chatting with a friend, etc., your feeling of success and accomplishment will then carry you along. But if you have just been “seduced” to learning a new language by an unrealistic promise such as “Speak a language in 10 days,” or other slick marketing ads, think again. You have to stay excited about your goal and continuously fuel your enthusiasm.
5. Commit publicly. Today there are many ways to do that. Many online language programs let you post your progress scores on your Facebook page. If you are into blogging, you can report your experience and progress. You can tell your friends. And, especially if you have friends that speak the language you are learning, let them know.
6. Get excited. See also 4. above. The more you learn, the more opportunities will open up for you, whether reading on-line blogs or articles, watching foreign movies or videos, linking up with online chat rooms, or preparing for your trip. You need to find your way of visualizing the benefits of achieving your goal.
7. Build anticipation. You may want to start today: Buy that CD course you saw in the mall, enroll in the Adult Ed course your local college promotes, or subscribe to an online course you saw advertised. But hold it! First do some homework: What kind of materials do you enjoy the most? Where and when can you commit the time? Before work? After hours? At home? In a class setting? At work?, e.g. during a lunch break? What is your budget? Think it through, take some time and make your choice deliberate.
8. Print it out, post it up. (Right from the blog): “Print out your goal in big words. Make your goal just a few words long, like a mantra (Exercise 15 mins. Daily.), and post it up on your wall or refrigerator. Post it at home and at work. Put it on your computer desktop. You want to have big reminders about your goal to keep your focus and to keep your excitement going. A picture of your goal also helps,” e.g. a picture of you friend, spouse or relative, or of the foreign country you want to visit, etc.
Even if you have followed all the above tips and have carefully set your goal, you'll need to find ways to keep going when your enthusiasm starts to wane. In several of our future blogs, we'll apply the "20 ways to sustain motivation when you are struggling" to learning a foreign language.
Learning a language should always be fun - even if you need it for your job or for school. So, lighten up your approach and look out for ways to learn and chuckle!
Here's a nonsense poem (with unknown origin) that's built on opposites and oxymorons. German speaking school children love to recite it and delight their parents with such nonsense lines.
Memorize these rhymes and you'll easily add up to 25 new words to your German vocabulary!
DUNKEL WAR'S ...
Dunkel war's der Mond schien helle, Als ein Wagen blitze-schnelle Langsam um die Ecke fuhr.
Drinnen saßen stehend Leute Schweigend ins Gespräch vertieft, Als ein totgeschossner Hase Auf der Sandbank Schlittschuh lief.
English Translation
[It was dark, the moon schone brightly, When a car drove lightning fast Slowly around the corner.
Inside, people were sitting standing up, Remaining silent, in deep conversation. As a shot-dead rabbit Was skating on the sandbank.]
Watching these pictures without explanation would make you speculate for hours what could possibly create the stripes and colors. Fortunately there are scientists who can explain such mysteries, i.e. translate the mechanics of nature into language that we can understand:
“Icebergs in the Antarctic area sometimes have stripes, formed by layers of snow that react to different conditions. Blue stripes are often created when a crevice in the ice sheet fills up with melt water and freezes so quickly that no bubbles form. When an iceberg falls into the sea, a layer of salty seawater can freeze to the underside.
If this is rich in algae, it can form a green stripe. Brown, black and yellow lines are caused by sediment, picked up when the ice grinds downhill towards the sea. Antarctica Frozen Wave Pixs - Nature is amazing!
The water froze the instant the wave broke through the ice. That's what it is like in Antarctica where it is the coldest weather in decades. Water freezes the instant it comes in contact with the air.”
Fortunately learning a new language does not have to be like deciphering the mysteries of nature. There are many language programs that will make it easy for you to get started. And then it is up to you to expand your basic understanding by listening, reading, writing, and speaking more and more!
(Updated 8-25-2017) A previous blog post featured a French song as a prime example for improving one's language skills in a fun way. Some readers asked us about Italian and Spanish language learning songs.
As the Italian song we have selected “Quando, quando, quando”, an Italian pop song with a bossa nova rhythm.
Alberto Testa wrote the lyrics and Tony Renis (see his picture above), who also wrote the music, performed it first in 1962.Click on Tony's YouTube clip, and the original Italian lyrics you'll find HERE.
Pat Boone, Connie Francis, Michael Bublé et al
What made this song so well known, was the fact that “Quando, Quando, Quando” was retained in many languages, although the lyrics were modified and adapted.
Over the years, many artists performed the song in English, including, among others, Pat Boone, Connie Francis, Engelbert Humperdinck, and Michael Bublé, who included it in his album “It's Time” in 2005.
There are well-known versions in German, French, Spanish, and in many other languages, and you can find YouTube clips of quite a few. Click on Michael Bublé's English version here.
Typical Italian
What makes this song a good candidate for language learning - apart from the “ear-worm” refrain – are a few typical Italian constructions and the future forms of several verbs: • dimmi – (tell me!) a word combination of two words “di” (tell!, say!) and “mi” (me), which you may hear quite often in Italy, e.g. in “Dimmi tutto”... • dirmi – (to tell me) similar as above, but instead of the imperative the infinitive. • baciandomi – (while kissing me), again a word combination of “baciando” (a gerund of baciare, for those who care) and “mi”. • the future tense – e.g. “tu verrai” (you'll come), “tu mi bacerai” (you'll kiss me), “attenderò” (I'll wait), “vedrò” (I'll see), “dirai” (you'll say), “lasceremo” (we'll let go), etc.
And I'll bet, once you hear this song a few times and understand the Italian lyrics, certain expressions will stay with you.
And even if you don't care for “Dimmi quando...”, but are trying to learn Italian - find Italian songs you like and use the web to help you translate them. You'll enjoy them even more when you can sing and understand them!
Postscript: I recently came a across the post of a young Polyglot-in-the making. She suggests four simple steps for learning with songs to improve both your listening and speaking (maybe even singing!) skills. 1. Listen! 2. Sing! 3. Translate! 4. Retranslate! It's fun AND effective and it works for all languages!
No matter what stage you are in when learning a language, think of "building" your skills, step by step. Words and phrases that you learn in context provide you with "building blocks."
Most people learn a new language to communicate with others.
To really understand a conversation and take part in it, you need more than just words or a series of phrases.
You need to understand how words and phrases connect to create meaning. Nothing does this better than learning language in what the linguist Stephen Krashen calls "comprehensible context."
The Context Helps You Remember
There's another reason for learning language in context. You remember words and phrases much better if you can associate them with a real situation.
Yes, there are ways to create associations to boost your memory. But to do this for every word seems impractical if you want to speak in full sentences.
On the other hand, if you can create a situation in your mind and connect certain phrases with it, you'll have the language ready when you need it.
For example, when shopping in a Spanish speaking country, the following phrases would be very handy: "Estoy buscando ...." (I'm looking for ...); "¿Tiene usted un/una ...?" (Do you have ...?); ¿Cuánto cuesta eso?" (How much does this cost?).
Now, you may need to learn the verbs, nouns, etc. individually, but will certainly remember them better when you recall the context of this sentence.
Listening to and singing foreign songs is another excellent way to increase your vocabulary, especially if a song's refrain stays with you. (For a post on a German song for learning, click here.)
Build Your Language With All Four Skills
To really absorb a word or phrase, you need to read and write each one of them, in addition to hearing and repeating the sounds.
Small children obviously learn just with spoken language, but don't forget, they'll spend years learning to read and write their first language. The same would be true for fluency in a second or third language.
For adults, reading and writing are highly effective tools for learning and practicing a foreign language. According to a post on the Lifehack blog post: "... it seems that writing anything down makes us remember it better."
Learning just with audio, leaves you clueless as how to spell many of the words. Should you travel to the country, you may experience quite a few funny or unwelcome surprises.
Grammar Holds Language Together
Learning words and phrases in context also provides another benefit: You'll absorb plenty of grammar without needing to memorize rules. The key is to pay attention. Your brain is wired to figure out and interpret the "grammar" of a sentence.
As a matter of fact, different areas of the brain seem to respond to various types of sentences.
A study at the University of Rochester suggests that "...humans rely on several regions of the brain, each designed to accomplish different primitive tasks, in order to make sense of a sentence... Depending on the type of grammar used, the brain will activate a certain set of regions to process it."
Just by paying attention, you'll easily notice how the language you're learning is different from English.
For example, things to look out for: Does your foreign language normally drop pronouns?; Are articles used and do they have gender?; How is the word order different?; How do you make a question?; How do you make a negative sentence?
Once you've noticed details like that, you'll see them again and again as you continue to read and practice. Also, when you do look up some rules, they'll start to make a lot more sense.
Intensive and Extensive Learning
It's not a bad idea to alternate short texts that you work with intensively, with reading longer texts rapidly or "extensively," where you only occasionally look up a word.
For a short text you can practice each word individually, listen to it, pronounce it, write it, and pay close attention to the grammar.
With a longer text, you would read freely and guess from the context what some of the unknown words mean.
Of course, you also have the option of watching short and long videos, or once you are up to it watch foreign movies.
The more clues the text or the video gives you, the better you'll be able to guess what it's about and the more you'll understand.
Use as many tools as you can for building your language with words, phrases, and sentences that fit together.
It's a great feeling to start taking part in foreign language conversations with friends and new acquaintances!
Listening to foreign songs is an excellent way to memorize key phrases and expressions – and having fun with German language learning . Sometimes, you may even start humming and repeating the refrains without exactly knowing the meaning.
In an earlier blog post - 6 Tips for Learning a Foreign Language - we had suggested listening to songs as tip #4, as listening to music and songs can also fuel your enthusiasm for learning a new language.
Language Learning with "Guten Morgen, liebe Sorgen...."
This song was written and first performed by Jürgen von der Lippe in 1987.It's his greatest musical successand he sang it for the next 20+ years, with a refrain that is hard to get out of one's mind.For those who don't speak German at all, this YouTube clip provides a (not always correct) translation. You also may understand why the song is still popular in Germany today. And for those who know some German, similar points as above also apply:
• The refrain both with its perfect (Morgen-Sorgen) and partial (da-klar) rhymes is still an ear-worm. • Expressions such as “na, dann ist ja alles klar” (well, then everything is ok) can easily be remembered. • Vocabulary such as “behende” (nimbly), “Schwung” (momentum), “Bettvorleger” (rug beside a bed) you probably won't find in your typical language course. • German has a lot of little words that add meaning to the message, words which often don't translate literally into English. In a song, these may be exaggerated and stressed, and thus be understood more clearly. • For example, "schon" (already) in the line "seid ihr auch schon wieder da"; or "na" (well) and "ja" (indeed), in the line "na, dann ist ja alles klar."
Which brings me to this question: Which, in your mind, are the English, French, German, Italian, or Spanish songs that make great tools for someone learning the language? Songs that have a refrain and lyrics that are memorable? Drop us a line to contact@gamesforlanguage.com.
Recently we put together a YouTube video “Why did Mark Twain like Heidelberg?” 
So the character of Huckleberry Finn had already been well-established by the time Mark Twain arrived in Heidelberg, Germany in 1878, as the travel writer Lucy Gordan explains:
If you want to learn to speak a foreign language, is it really important to practice aloud? My experience has been that although the benefits of practicing listening, reading, writing, and speaking overlap, each foreign language skill also needs its own practice. 
When I retired, my wife and I decided to head to Europe for an extended stay.
lessons with an Italian tutor, and explored the city and its surroundings on foot, by bus, and by train. 
We still travel by car from time to time (e.g. see our blogs posts on our recent trips to 
No matter what stage you are in when learning a language, think of "building" your skills, step by step. Words and phrases that you learn in context provide you with "building blocks." 
course where the origin of the “bouillabaisse” is explained: “
different areas of the brain seem to respond to various types of sentences. 
attention to the grammar. 