my day in a nutshell....=)
Well today was another productive day at Gymnasium Kreuzheide. Let's see...on my schedule my day looked like this:
German
Musik
German
Math
Spanish
Spanish
Yesterday I checked the little paper thing on the window at school that tells which teachers will be gone in the next days, etc. Because here when a teacher is gone, there is no substitute, we just don't have class, so students like to know before so that they don't show up. So I looked and it said that Frau Felig(my class teacher) would be gone today. Sweet! No german. twice. Well, apparantly last night I forgot so I still set my alarm for 6 a.m. and I woke up, took a shower, and ate breakfast. Then I remembered. So I took a later bus that got me there on time for my 2nd class. I saw my entire class sitting in the Commons area and went and talked with them. They did not look happy. Turns out Frau Keller-Hartmann was also gone. No Musik. I was a little mad that I didn't get to sleep in at all. Anyway, instead of the 2nd blank German class we had a Chemistry lesson planned instead. We go to class and our teacher tells us about this thing they do every year. Our school has "partner schools" in Poland and Hungary. Every year they do some sort of survey about the environment and what we can do to make the places we live better, etc. So the survey was in English. Which means that I had to translate 3/4's of it for the class. Don't get me wrong, most Germans do speak pretty good English, but they need to know EVERY word's translation before they are satisfied. I am happy with my progress in German. I have come so far since the first days, and that is really motivating me to keep learning more and more. I must say, it is sooo sooo sooo much easier to translate from German to English than from English to German. My comprehension/understanding skills are superb compared to my ability to actually form the sentences myself, but I am getting better. I was able to direct my class through the 5 page survey pretty well. I didn't know every word's direct translation but I was able to describe the word to them in German so they could figure out the translation for themselves. So I was pretty proud. I have to rant a little though. German is a really strange language. The only other language that I have studied in my life was 4 years of Spanish, which doesn't help me at all. Something I really struggle with is the articles of nouns(feminime and masculine). In German there are |der|masculine, |die|feminine, and |das|neuter, nouns. But unlike what I was used to in Spanish, there is absolutely NO set form of which article goes with which noun. For example, in Spanish(I'm only using this because it's the only other language I know something about), if the word ends in an A, it is 98.9% of the time a feminine noun and it takes the article |la|, if the word ends in O, it is 98.99% of the time masculine and takes the article |el|. Not in German. There are no hints, no clues, no little rules, no maybes. You just have to know. Memorization: not my forté. For example, the word for "girl", is a NEUTER word. NEUTER. not "die Mädchen", "das Mädchen." Weird. Anyway, I just realized that probably doesn't make sense to anyone and those of you who it does make sense to probably don't care because it doesn't frustrate you to no end, like it keeps insisting on doing to me. :S
So back to my day, after filling out the surveys, it was time for Math. Well, half of my class decided to go home so we had 12 people in my Math class and so the teacher decided not to teach. We sat there and talked the entire time about "Who Wants to Be a Millionare" and "Gilmore Girls."
So after no Math, we had our "große Pause" or "big break." Which we have 2 of everyday, after the 2nd class and after the 4th. It is a 20 minute break and we are free to do and go anywhere we want. The campus is very, very open from what I am used to. Anyone can come and go as they please.
After Pause it was time for Spanish. I switched my Spanish class because it was too hard. I was in a class where the teacher was from Argentina and it was an advanced class. I know I have had 4 years of Spanish already but it was really really tough for me translating from German to Spanish and back again and it seriously stressed me out. Well the only other option was Beginner Spanish, which doesn't quite fit right either.
Basically the point was I woke up at 6 a.m. for a day of nothingness.
Whatever, I just realized this is a pretty whiny blog. =)
German
Musik
German
Math
Spanish
Spanish
Yesterday I checked the little paper thing on the window at school that tells which teachers will be gone in the next days, etc. Because here when a teacher is gone, there is no substitute, we just don't have class, so students like to know before so that they don't show up. So I looked and it said that Frau Felig(my class teacher) would be gone today. Sweet! No german. twice. Well, apparantly last night I forgot so I still set my alarm for 6 a.m. and I woke up, took a shower, and ate breakfast. Then I remembered. So I took a later bus that got me there on time for my 2nd class. I saw my entire class sitting in the Commons area and went and talked with them. They did not look happy. Turns out Frau Keller-Hartmann was also gone. No Musik. I was a little mad that I didn't get to sleep in at all. Anyway, instead of the 2nd blank German class we had a Chemistry lesson planned instead. We go to class and our teacher tells us about this thing they do every year. Our school has "partner schools" in Poland and Hungary. Every year they do some sort of survey about the environment and what we can do to make the places we live better, etc. So the survey was in English. Which means that I had to translate 3/4's of it for the class. Don't get me wrong, most Germans do speak pretty good English, but they need to know EVERY word's translation before they are satisfied. I am happy with my progress in German. I have come so far since the first days, and that is really motivating me to keep learning more and more. I must say, it is sooo sooo sooo much easier to translate from German to English than from English to German. My comprehension/understanding skills are superb compared to my ability to actually form the sentences myself, but I am getting better. I was able to direct my class through the 5 page survey pretty well. I didn't know every word's direct translation but I was able to describe the word to them in German so they could figure out the translation for themselves. So I was pretty proud. I have to rant a little though. German is a really strange language. The only other language that I have studied in my life was 4 years of Spanish, which doesn't help me at all. Something I really struggle with is the articles of nouns(feminime and masculine). In German there are |der|masculine, |die|feminine, and |das|neuter, nouns. But unlike what I was used to in Spanish, there is absolutely NO set form of which article goes with which noun. For example, in Spanish(I'm only using this because it's the only other language I know something about), if the word ends in an A, it is 98.9% of the time a feminine noun and it takes the article |la|, if the word ends in O, it is 98.99% of the time masculine and takes the article |el|. Not in German. There are no hints, no clues, no little rules, no maybes. You just have to know. Memorization: not my forté. For example, the word for "girl", is a NEUTER word. NEUTER. not "die Mädchen", "das Mädchen." Weird. Anyway, I just realized that probably doesn't make sense to anyone and those of you who it does make sense to probably don't care because it doesn't frustrate you to no end, like it keeps insisting on doing to me. :S
So back to my day, after filling out the surveys, it was time for Math. Well, half of my class decided to go home so we had 12 people in my Math class and so the teacher decided not to teach. We sat there and talked the entire time about "Who Wants to Be a Millionare" and "Gilmore Girls."
So after no Math, we had our "große Pause" or "big break." Which we have 2 of everyday, after the 2nd class and after the 4th. It is a 20 minute break and we are free to do and go anywhere we want. The campus is very, very open from what I am used to. Anyone can come and go as they please.
After Pause it was time for Spanish. I switched my Spanish class because it was too hard. I was in a class where the teacher was from Argentina and it was an advanced class. I know I have had 4 years of Spanish already but it was really really tough for me translating from German to Spanish and back again and it seriously stressed me out. Well the only other option was Beginner Spanish, which doesn't quite fit right either.
Basically the point was I woke up at 6 a.m. for a day of nothingness.
Whatever, I just realized this is a pretty whiny blog. =)