#dieaprikose

Jetzt lerne ich über das Thema “Ernährung”/”Essen”. Während ich sowieso gerne darüber reden, finde ich es ein gutes und einfaches Thema. Aber wie bei jedem neuen Thema gibt es hier auch neue Fremdwörter. | Now I was studying about the topic eating, and as I generally love talking about foods, cuisine, it is not really that surprising that I don’t really find this topic too hard. But as it is like that with every new topic, there are planty of new words here as well.

In high school, I was studying German for 4 years, but I stopped it in University unfortunately. Not the best decision of my life, but I decided to continue: partly because I need to do a language exam for my MA degree, and partly because I love German. In high-school, I studied a bit about this topic, so I knew/remembered the basic words, but I had to improve my vocab here too. Let’s see:

german english hungarian

VERBS:

essen, h. gegessen  to eat enni trinken, h. getrunken to drink inni kochen, h. gekocht  to cook főzni backen, h. gebacken to bake sütni (tésztát, tortát) braten, h. gebraten to fry/roast (meat) sütni (húst) grillen, h. gegrillt, to grill, grillezni schmecken, h. geschmeckt to taste sth megízlelni valamit ernähren, h. ernährt, to feed, táplál frühstücken, h. gefrüstückt, to have breakfast, reggelizni fressen, h. gefressen, to eat, enni zunehmen, h. zugenommen, to gain weight, hízni abnehmen, h. abgenommen, to lose weight, fogyni mischen, h. gemischt, to mix, keveredik, keverni enthalten, h. enthalten, to contain, tartalmaz schneiden, h. geschnitten, to cut, szeletel, vág probieren, h. probiert, to try sth, megkóstolni bestellen, h. bestellt, to order, rendelni bedienen, h. bedient, to serve, kiszolgálni

NOUNS:

IN GENERAL: 

s Essen, the food, étel e Ernährung,eating, étkezés r Hunger, hunger, éhség r Durst, thirst, szomj r Appetit, appetite, étvágy r Geschmack, tasting, ízlés e Lebensmittel,pl, food products, élelmiszer r Inhalt, -e, content/substance, élelmiszer s Verfallsdatum, expiration date, lejárati dátum e Mahlzeit,-en, meal, étkezés s Frühstück, breakfast, reggeli s Mittagessen, lunch, ebéd s Abendessen, dinner, vacsora e Vorspeise,-n, starter, előétel e Nachspeise,-n,dessert, desszert e Portion,-n, portion, adag e Scheibe, -n, slice, szelet s Stück, -e, piece, szelet, adag e Hälfte,-n, half of, fele vminek, fél r Rest,-e, rest, maradék

PLACES s Restaurant, -s, restaurant, étterem s Café, -s, cafe, kávézó e Kneipe,-n, pub, kocsma e Bar,-s,  bar, bár s Lokal,-e, local pub, helyi kocsma s Gasthaus,-:er, inn, vendégház e Kantine,-n, cantine, kantin, üzemi étkezde

ADJECTIVES

hungrig, hungry, éhes satt, to be full, jóllakott roh, raw, nyers  gar, ready,cooked, elkészült [also has other meanings like at all) bereit, ready, prepared, elkészült reif, reip, érett süß, sweet, édes bitter, bitter, keserű sauer, sour, savanyú frisch, frish, friss fett, fat, zsíros vegetarisch, vegetarian, vega übrig, remaining, megmaradt, a többi

And now we are ready with the basics. To be continued with some other vocabulary, such as foods, fruits, name of meats, vegetables, and some other, a bit more advanced words AND phrases!! Phrases are important, they make your speech more colorful, advanced, more fluent-like. 

!!! PART 2 IS COMING !!!!

PLUS I am also coming with a quizlet set, I will share a link HERE, but it is not ready yet.

soo it’s not gonna be a useful post for language learners and stuff, I rather want to summarize the progress I made in my German studies. I think it is necessary to look back sometimes: we’re keeping ourselves busy with looking to our goals and focusing on the distance that keeps us apart from these goals - when in reality there is a more positive side we should focus on. Yes, you did some progress too. 

So basically I started learning German back in 2013 in High School - I had like 4 classes a week, or three? nevermind, but I was learning the language until 2016. Then university started, I was focusing on my english studies and I just forgot.... everything. I remembered some words and some phrases, I could introduce myself in German (meaning I could say “Ich heiße Rebeka und Ich wohne in Ungarn” and some other basic sentences), and I remembered the perfekt past tense and maybe the verb conjugations.... but otherwise, complete blur. I still have my high school notes, German grammar books, and it was even surprising to see that I learnt about conjugations of the adjectives, passive voice and future tense, also we learnt the subjunctive form of some verbs like darf, müssen, sollen etc, but I forgot almost everything. I even forgot the fact that I learnt these stuff. 

Throughout my University studies, I had 2 german grammar seminars: one in around 2018, and one last semester. But they did not really add to my knowledge.

In September, 2019, however, I jumped into the middle of it. I started to relearn everything. First it was actually bad, like it felt bed to relearn stuff I remember I knew once. But now... let’s see where I am. 

I’ve been learning German the whole summer, I have a tutor I had private classes with in Uni, she is amazing, and we have a class almost every 2 week online since the start of the pandemic. Besides that, I’m doing that extra mile.

WHAT EXACTLY I DO

I read two books in German - Andre Klein’s Dino lernt Deutsch series made for beginners in German. I rewatched the first two season of Dark before season 3 came out, paying extra attention to the language, the grammar and the vocab. And I also watched S3 as well. I have started to revise my High School notes and books. I did a loooads of grammatical excercises on my own.  I started to create flashcards in Quizlet and studied them. I have a 31 days streak in Duolingo, I also use Memrise and Drops at the same time.  I am watching YouTube videos in German (made with the purpose of teaching the German language) whenever I can. I have different grammar books - I try to go through all of them. When I did the placement test, I went through my mistakes, collected them into different categories and now I know what I have to focus on. I’m listening to podcasts in German - one of my favourite is Coffeebreak German, you should all try it out.

AND WHERE I AM KNOW...

According to a placement test I took online, I am around level B1 which feels unbelievable - from almost nothing, from a huge blur, I could manage to get that result. I did some reading, listening and grammatical tests in B1 level - I barely have any mistakes. I can talk about the topic eating|Essen, so I am coming up with the second part of that post. I can understand the language sooo much better. I’m getting used to grammatical forms, sentence types which felt weird/unnatural a few months ago. I can talk in German about basic topics in basic sentences. I understand and can use the conjugation of adjectives which I found extra hard in June. I can read basic texts and guess the meaning. I read the very first chapter of Harry Potter in German. It took almost a half an hour but I read it.

If you are bored of Duolingo (which I personally dont’t find that useful, but it is just my personal opinion, if you like it, if you gain knowledge by using it, then it is awesome) and other learning apps and if you want to find other ways to encounter your target language, you should READ! It may seem hard at first, it may puzzle you or give you a headache, but I swear it is one the most useful methods when it comes to language learning.

WHY READING IS ESSENTIAL

I know it is because this is how I got my English knowledge on a more advanced level. I actually remember moments when the language have started to make sense in my head, when I started to develop a deeper and wider passive vocabulary. I remember when I was sitting in an English class in school, and I remembered words from my readings. If you read in your target language, you become familiar with phrases, idioms; it will give you an image of the correct usage of language: it is essential when it comes to different registers. Maybe you learn a phrase or a word in a learning app, but reading them in a book makes you understand that in what kind of situations you can use them, to whom you can tell them. In short: read.

(personally, I remember that in 2013, I started to read 5SOS fanfics on wattpad because there were no Hungarian fanfics that time, and it was truly a breaking point in my studies. So even if it is fanfictions, read them. They help).

WHAT TO READ IN GERMAN | BÜCHER AUF DEUTSCH

There are some pretty good possibilities for beginners/lower-intermediate (A2) language learners.  Here are some suggestions:

1. André Klein - Learn German with Stories - Dino lernt Deutsch (A2) The Dino lernt Deutsch  series is a wonderful and extremely useful book series for language learners. It follows the life of a young guy called Dino, who moves to Germany to find a job. The problem is that he has to learn German because he is a beginner-level. So the book basically introduces Germany, the German language and culture from the point of view of an outsider. The series has 8 part, all of them take place in different cities from Berlin to Zürich. I have only read the first two (Café in Berlin and Ferien in Frankfurt) but I can tell you that they are kinda mandatory for your language studies. All the parts have 10 short stories, and at the end of each story, there is a vocabulary with the most important/mostly unknown words and phrases and then a little exercise which tests your understanding of the text. If you have a Kindle or another e-book reader with a built-in dictionary, I advise you to buy an ebook version as you can check other unknown words immediately. WEBSITE

Café in Berlin

Ferien in Frankfurt

Karneval in Köln

Momente in München

Ahoi aus Hamburg

Plötzlich in Palermo

Walzer in Wien

Zurück in Zürich

2. Language Learning University - German Short Stories (9 Simple and Captivating Stories for Effective German Learning for Beginners) (A1-A2) I haven’t read this book yet, however, I plan to do so after finishing the Dino lernt Deutsch series. As the title already suggests, it includes 9 short stories in German. After every chapter, there is a short summary in English and a short, but useful list of unknown words in English; and then there is an exercise just like in the Dino series. 

3. Roald Dahl - Charlie und die Schokoladenfabrik (A2-B1) Everyone knows the story of the little boy who gets a golden ticket to the Chocolate factory. The German translation of the book is surprisingly easy, maybe I wouldn’t recommend it to complete beginners, but if you are around an A2 level, you can try to read this book. I again suggest an ebook version because of the built-in dictionaries. I have started to read this book, however, I couldn’t finish it yet, but I have no problem with understanding. it. A short quote from the book just the examplify how easy it is:

“Das Haus war viel zu klein für so viele Leute, und so war das Leben darin für alle miteinander äußerst unbequem. Es gab nur zwei Zimmer und nur ein einziges Bett. In dem Bett durften die vier alten Großelten schlafen, weil sie so alt und müde waren” (Roald Dahl).

I don’t think I have to go into details, the quoted part is about how small the house Charlie’s family live in. To be honest, there was only one unknown word for me in that section (äußer). 

4. Mark Haddon - Supergute Tage oder Die sonderbare Welt des Christopher Boone (A2-B1) (rather B1) It is again a translated, originally English book, however, not hard to read for German learners. I have found out about it in a youtube video (just like about Charlie und die Schokoladenfabrik), and it is indeed seems to be a good choice. I haven’t started it yet, but it seems not hard to understand. Maybe it is a bit challenging text than the Roald Dahl’s book, but at least you can learn more words.

5. J. K. Rowling - Harry Potter (B1) This list wouldn’t be complete without Harry Potter. Years ago, my sister found the first part (Harry Potter und der Stein der Weisen) in German in a thrift shop,  but I only started to read it this year. Not gonna lie, it is hard, I think, it is the hardest one in the list. I read the first chapter for at least a half an hour, then I got a pretty heavy headache, but I understood (!!!). It was the very first book I have ever read in English, I remember that the first time (summer of 2011 or 2012, not sure), I tried to check every single unknown word for like 100 page. Then I read it again in around 2013, and I loved how easier it became. Now, that I’m reading it in German, what makes it ‘easier”, and why I still recommend it is that all of us know the story. If you read the books a lot, you maybe even know what is coming in the text. I remember scenes, even sentences which makes it easier to comprehend it in German. A pretty lame example is coming:

“Mr und Mrs Dursley im Ligusterweg Nummer 4 waren stolz darauf, ganz und gar normal zu sein, sehr stolz sogar”

I don’t even have to say which sentence it is (the very first, obviously), but yeey, it made me understand phrases and words:  stolz sein auf - to be proud of ganz und gar normal - perfectly normal And I haven’t even had the need to check these words, partly because I already knew the first sentence, and partly because I have a basic knowledge of words and grammar in German. Let’s see another example, just because I love Harry Potter sooo much.

“Fast zehn Jahre waren vergangen, seit die Dursleys eines Morgens die Haustür geöffnet, und auf der Schwelle ihren Neffen gefunden hatten, doch der Ligusterweg hatte sich kaum verändert” (Chapter 2)

That is a bit harder sentence, but if you pay attention, it is not that problematic. I already knew some words from this sentence, but again, there were some which were new or at least I haven’t seen them in these forms yet. waren vergangen - have passed (I only know the word “Vergangenheit (past) from the series Dark).  die Schwelle - doorstep (! in the sentence it is used with der, but it is because of the auf, and the Dativ form of die is der).  sich verändern - to change

Oookay, that last part about Harry Potter was a bit long, but I just wanted to prove you that reading challenging texts can be fun and useful as well. You just pay extra attention if you are not on that level, but you can do that. 

If you have any German book recommendation, feel free to suggest me (and others) some. I love to read and I could only find these so far in German. 

Okay i just need to write about it as an update (for basically myself??) I can only hope that the first sentence (in german haha) is correct. I have problema with this infinitive form in German, but here we go. Feel free to correct me please)

I can only write sentences like this:

Gestern war der Gerburtstag meines Bruders. Vorgestern haben wir es gefeiert, so hat meine Mutti eine Geburtstagkuchen gebacken. Es war sehr lecker.