Germany: Interesting observation (perhaps). April 1, 2004

Anyway, I'm on break, so now is the real chance to learn German. By the way, in case anyone cares, I got a 1.5 on my final exam (straight transfer: A-) and a 2 for the whole class (B+). However, the grades tend to get knocked up a notch or two in transfer. Hopefully I'll be able to negotiate a better grade (in exchange for fewer credits, perhaps).
So, I decided to increase my vocabulary - the question is always: where do I get the words from? One solution is the list of commonly searched words on http://www.dict.cc. Another solution is, of course, television. So I sat in front of the tube listening for words I didn't know, and the more I listened, the more I realized that I knew most of the words already. So, my suggestion is that when you are trying to understand a foreign language, keep and pen handy to write down every word you don't know. Then you'll find that you far more words than expect.

However, I did manage to squeeze out 100 words or so. Now I gotta translate the words and learn them.

Tomorrow I'm hitting up Heidelberg, home of the oldest University in Germany (I think it was started around 1350) and home of so many tourists. I'll be visiting another CT student, and one of my former German teachers. If I don't forget my camera, there will be pictures!

Archived comments:
Anna:
I just thought of another category of vocabulary words: matematical terms. Maybe you know them all already, but if you're going to be taking math classes in German, it would probably be good to know what they're talking about.

mikepn:
Good point Anna. Actually, I started that already. Dict.cc makes its dictionary available for download, and math terms are marked with "[math.]", so I wrote a program to dig through the dictionary and dig out the math terms. I got 350 math terms without even trying:-).

One thing to note for those planning on studying sciences in Germany... Most mathematical terms, and I assume most scientific terms, seem to be Latin words (and often Greek as well), which are common to both English and German. That makes it quite easy to understand. Speaking can be a little harder, as the pronunciation is different. For example, "situation" in English is "sit you a shun". In German it is something like "sit ou aht zee own". Very easy to understand, but somethings one forgets to speak it that way.