Do you want to know a secret?

Day 8

If you have read my blog from the previous conversation day, I had said that the second conversation day would be interesting and why we had to do the research on the different and the most important parts of Berlin.

We met in front of the Branderburg gate, which is a spectacular piece of work. It is huge and the history of it is interesting. When and if you come to Berlin you can find out for yourselves or just google it. 

My research was on Branderburg gate, Bebelplatz and Zeughaus. I didn't study these information because I didn't have any time, I have a very busy schedule, so I just read it out. By the way it was a very hot day, luckily I had my water bottle to keep me going. All the sites we saw are in the part of Berlin which is called Unter den Linden, which covers a huge aerea.

Next to Branderburg Gate is the Reichtag, I have been in this building the first week of my stay with my group. Inside it's amazing because there is this huge a cone of 360 mirrors which reflect natural light into the legislative chamber, if you come to Berlin I reccomend you going there, you also get a 360 view of Berlin. 

Berlin is such a great city, it has so much history, interesting and different places to visit, there is alway something going on day and night, for example an international beer festival is taking place today in Karl-marx-Alee.

Let's go back to my research: Bebelplatz is where the Humboldt University is. In this square a Nazi book burning event took place on 10th may 1933. here there is also a glass plate set into the cobbles, giving a view of empty bookcases (Big enough to hold the total of the 20,000 burnt books), commemorates the book burning.

Near Bebelplatz there is the Zeughaus which was used as an artillery arsenal for the display of cannons from Brandenburg and Prussia. The building was converted into a military museum in 1875. I bet you don't know what happened here... In March 1943, Rudolf von Gersdorff tried, but failed to assassinate by suicide bombing Adolf Hitler, during the opening of an exhibition in this museum. Wow! I didn't know that, and you didn't either. 

I think that's enough or else i will be giving away all the secrets of Berlin, which I think you need to find out by yourselves, I suggest that when you visit a city, it is always best not to go to places that everyone goes to, I mean you can go there aswel, but sometimes do some of your own personal visit. Going to a city should be an adventure!

Freedom day!

Today was great and non so great at the same time. It was great because I didn't do the German course but not great because I didn't feel good. I came into work with a bad headache, that was very good of me. I did 3 hours of work and then went staright back home, where I got into my bed a fell fast a sleep for at least 3 hours, that was good becasue I love sleeping and whenever I wake from a sleep, I always feel better. 

When I woke up i had a very nice relaxing bath, and took everything very calmly.

It was very nice not to go to the german course for one day!

Later my other friends came back from thier internship and we had dinner together. We had tunisian rice with chicken (our host family is Tunisian), it was quite nice.

Around nine pm we left the house and took the bus to U-Rudow, from there we took the underground U7 to Mehringdamm, 13 stops to get there! Finally we took the U6 to Friedrichstraße, it's a very long and boring journey, not only, the undergrounds are so hot!

Once we got there we made our way towards Brandenburger Tor, we stopped for an ice cream and sat on the bench admiring the monument, which is very beautiful at night because it is all lit up.

Then guess what, it started raining and a man with a violin came to Parisir Platz and started playing a very depressing song, for that reason we decided to go back home. 

The journey is worst going back, because they are doing works on the U7 line so we have to get on and off lots of times! Once we arrived in U-Rudow, we had to wait 20 min for a bus, so in the end we arrived home around 1:30 and had a snck before going to sleep.

I like today's blog because i got to tell you something else instead of my German course. But tomorrow won't be like that unfourtunatly.

What can I say about the German weather?

Day six

Today the weather started off really well, but guess what, as soon as my german lesson started it poured with rain! The weather here is so unpredictable. 

Today I am not going to write much because, the lesson was quite boring, so I can‘t think of much to write and also because we didn‘t play any fun games today.

First half of the lesson we did some grammar revisione on präteritum and perfekt, that was very easy for me because we did them a thousand times at school. There were some who needs some more practise, anyway it was good to go over them again seeing that I won‘t be doing german again till school starts in September.

After that we turned to a page where there was picture of a fish and inside the fish there were some random words. First of all we had to tell the teacher the words which we didn‘t understand and then we were split into teams and we had to invent a story using all those words. It was a tricky task because again we had to use our imagination. I didn‘t like the story we wrote, it was silly and didn‘t make sense but funnily enough the teacher liked it!

In the last hour we did lots of listening exercise, which I hate because i am not good at it and I always get distracted. You have to be very concentrated when doing listening exercises. 

I wrote a lot in the end, anyway this is my last sentence. 

What did everyone do yesterday?

Day 5

Today I didn't concentrate that well on the lesson. Why? Because I was too tired, should have gone to bed earlier last night. Anyway I wasn't the only one, I think most of us had partied last night, after all that's what you mostly do if you are in Berlin!

We practised more on prepositions (in der, auf die, im etc...), they are very hard but I think I am making a progress on them because I didn't find the exercise too difficult.

I forgot to mention one good thing about today, which is that one of the teacher's had brought in something to eat (watermelon, chocolate doughnut, cherries, croissants), so I ate those tasty things during work and also during the German lesson. 

We talked about „Statussymbole“ if you don't know what it means: it is a word which indicates something which leaves us surprised, speechless, shocked, it can be negative and positive. For example someone who rides past with a ferrari we would say „wow, look at that!“ that's one of the new words i learnt.

After this discussion we read a text which had something to do with this argument and it was called „Kaufrausch“, another new word, which means someone who goes mad about something and it almost becomes an obsession.

Finally we played „Alibi“, which was funny because I didn't exactly understand what I had to do but then the teacher explained twice and everything was ok. We were going to continue the game but there wasn't enough time so we will continue it tomorrow!

Why do conversation day?

Fourth Day

Like I said yesterday, today is not the usual lesson because today is conversation day. In my opinion it is more fun, but you have to pay extra if you want to do this conversation day. I would recommend it because during these conversation hours you get to talk a lot of German and be creative.

Today I met 2 other people from different countries, there were 4 of us in total. We were in a different classroom, always small. I wasn't bored even once because we had to talk and think alot.

To begin with we were given 3 pages from a comic book and with those we had to fill in the bubbles with our version of the story, it was on Julius Caesar. My problem was not the writing part but the creative part. I probably started at the pages for about 15 min while the 2 guys next to me were writing down their ideas without any problem! Anyway I managed to do it even though I left out 2 blank bubbles. While we were writing the teacher went around to everyone to see how we were getting on and if we had a problem or a question we would ask him, in the meanwhile he would be also reading what we were writing and point out the errors and make us correct them ourselves.

After we had finished writing we read out loud our version, they were very different and some were funny.

The last hour we chatted about the typical food one would eat in the countries we come from, it made me very hungry. I especially liked the sound of spanish food.

Here is another reason to do the conversation day, you also learn about other people and their culture, not only, it is very interesting and makes you open your mind and look at things from a different point of view.

For next conversation day I have been given homework which is to do a research on some of the monuments in berlin. I won't tell you now why, it will be revealed later on...

Do I need to say how my lesson started?

Day Three

No i don't think so because it always starts with the correction of homework. Oh I just told you, never mind next time I won't.

Today was not so interesting as yesterday because we didn't go to the park, we stayed in school, it is because it started raining, damn weather, just when I thought that the weather in German is not as bad as what people say.

Enough about the weather, back to business. Today we looked at some words, which by changing their prefixe or suffix would give another meaning. Ex: Arbeit (work)- Arbeitlos (unemployed). It was quite trickey, I am still not confident with them yet, however you know what they say: practice makes perfect!

Later we did a listening exercise , which was not too difficult. We listened to the track once and answered to the questions. I don't think listening to it once for me was enough because I couldn't answer to some of the questions. I have found out that this is my weak point, I should listen and watch german videos and music more often! 

Tomorrow won't be the usual lesson, continue reading to find out more!!!

How do my German classes continue?

Second day

After my internship I had few minutes before class started so I did some of my homework, one task was quite difficult but I understood it better when we corrected it all together. 

Today was different because we didn't do lessons in the school but in the park, which we got there by foot, after all it was a beautiful day, so why not?

Today's topic was about Biomarket in different countries, so we discussed the prices and which were the most famous ones in that country. Between talking I would look around the park and notice people on their bike, some playing with frisbee, others singing etc... I think doing lessons outside is great because you are out in the fresh air and it feels good.

After the Bio discussion we read a text on Aldi which is a very well-known Bio supermarket in Germany, so that was very interesting because i have never heard àof it before, so that's another bit of the German culture I learnt.

After an hour and a half it started getting quite loud in the park so we decided to go to a bar where we drank (beer obviously), and ate while we continued with the lesson. 

Finally like I said on my first day that towards the end of the lesson we do something more fun, so again we did another dialogue but this time there were four of us in one group. This time it was a competition dialogue to see whose was the best, and my group won. I would say my second day was my favourite day because we did lots of different and interesting thing and my German is improving, at least that's what my host family told me!

How can I learn German in Berlin?

First Day

 

I arrived in the classroom and I didn't know anyone but after 10 min I knew everyone. There are some very funny boys in my course who like to make a lot of jokes so we laugh a lot. The teacher is very clear. I did a dialogue with an Italian guy and it turned out to be very silly but we did our task. Correcting homework is useful, so we can see where we went wrong. It felt weird talking to the others in German because when I am learning German in school in Italy, when we do group work we talk in Italian, so that part felt a bit strange. 

At one point it got very hot in the classroom and I couldn't concentrate so well, as if the teacher had read my mind he said that the next day we could do lessons outside in the park, so that was great! 
 

Why do many many people want to learn German in Berlin?

Because for me, for example it is a very interesting and logical language, not only, i have a German boyfriend so i want to learn it so i can express myself better with him, even though he knows English quite well, i want to impress him.

Others learn German because they need it for their life, future and job. Linguists want to learn it because it's another language to add on to their list of languages. Young people come here to learn German during the summer because they want to make friends and be able to communicate during their holidays. Finally some learn German just because they want to, without having a reason.