Vocabulary from HP4, part 1

The recent purchase of a "beamer" (word used by Germans for projector) has made dvd watching a dream. I made really good progress when I was spending a couple hours an evening watching German movies, so I popped in Harry Potter 4. Here is a list of German words that I didn't recognize, and their English definitions, from just the first 5 minutes.

der Kelch	goblet
verdammt	damned
der Bengel	rascal	as in, verdammten Bengel
der Schwanz	tail	as in, Wurmschwanz. Also a colloquial term for a male appendage.
wählerisch	picky
das Abflussrohr	drain
die Aufgabe	assignment
pflegen	to tend/nurse	as in, it is your Aufgabe to pflegen me (Voldemort).
die stufe	step
knarren	to creak	plötzlich knarrt die Stufe
mühselig	laborious	mühen is to labor, selig is blessed
möglicherweise	possibly
verzichten	to relinquish
enttäuschen	to disappoint
das Zeichen	signal	as in, send the Zeichen to the other Deatheaters
treten	to step
beiseite	aside
empfangen	to receive
der Albtraum	nightmare
aufwachen	to wake up	"Wach auf Ron!" (Hermione)
der Wahnsinn	madness	"Wahnsinn!" (Ron)
anziehen	to dress
prahlen	to brag

zeigen vs. ziehen

I've always been attracted to words beginning with letters at the end of the alphabet, like z. Those sections were always shorter in the dictionary, inviting one to master the entire section with their esoteric words. Germans seem more democratic when distributing common words to the letters of the alphabet. It would be a rare day when I would eat zucchini while watching zebras at the zoo. But in Germany, at the end of a meal, we "zahlen" (pay), either "zusammen" (together) or "getrennt" (separately). And we may "ziehen" (pull) the door to exit.

In my German - English dictionary, there is only one English verb starting with z, to zip. In German, there are many more, and somehow zeigen and ziehen and all their derivatives are mixed in my head. Maybe it is because they have a sense of mirror opposition, with the flipping of the "e" and "i" and rotational flip of the "g" and "h". Anyway, I attempt to straighten them out here.

zeigen - to show
ziehen - to pull

There you go. But it's not so simple. First, here are some derivatives of zeigen:

anzeigen - to announce
die Anzeige - the advert
aufzeigen - to point out
vorzeigen - to exhibit

You will notice that most of these variations have the same theme as the base verb, but the differences in tone are not perfectly clear on leo, so they might have to be the subject of a different post.

On the other hand, leo shows that ziehen is used much like the English word pull, with figurative and literal meanings. One uses "ziehen" to heave, tow, and to be attracted to (with "sich"). Apparently one uses ziehen to also describe brewing tea and cultivating crops. So it is no surprise that derivatives of ziehen cover broad meanings:

ausziehen - to extract
anziehen - to activate; to tighten
abziehen - to distill, skim; to peel off
beziehen - to procure (especially used for types of income); to upholster
erziehen - to raise a child
über jmdn herziehen - to badmouth someone
hinziehen - to prolong
verziehen - to distort, pucker (one's face)
vorziehen - to pull from behind; to prefer (with accusative and dative nouns to show what is preferred over what)
vollziehen - to fulfill; to execute (a law)
zuziehen - to pull together (curtains); to contract a disease (with sich)

ausziehen - to move out
umziehen - to move house

sich anziehen - to dress
sich umziehen - to change clothes

background noise?

As a sort of lazy effort, I've been streaming German talk radio into my ears while at work, without really listening. I'd like to think this kind of subliminal input makes a difference, familiarizing sounds and laying down thin layer by thin layer of the language foundation, but who am I kidding, I've had two years of being around the German language, and that kind of passive interaction hasn't made me fluent yet.

I've heard that television is the way to go. That still seems incredibly passive, but seems the visuals complement the audio and fill in gaps enough to really train the brain.

Pause = Rückgang

Nothing like a two week, high pressure conference to break already tenuous study habits and momentum. How quickly hard fought progress and ease in sentence construction dissipates. I wonder if resumed intensive study will rocket me to where I left off before the interruption, or is it all lost, and I will need to plod over the same ground again. Probably something in between.

Ich, ich, ish, ich, ish, ick

So how does someone who cannot follow the German her workmates rattle off get the needed hour plus amount of practice per day? We fall short of the target but fly from the bow with the tandem. I have two tandem partners, but we always seem to speak more English, hmm.

First great lesson was the pronounciation of "ch". as in ich, nicht, mich. I was told I was sounding it too hard. The breakthrough was realizing that the "ch" in "ich" was different from the "ch" in "noch". The "ch" accompanying open mouthed vowels (as in macht and noch) sound as harsh as the stereotype, but in "ich", it is a hissing whisper, softly aspirated, with hints of "sh".

The Challenge

Is it possible to learn a new language, in your late thirties, without structured lessons? There are definitely more efficient ways of reaching this goal, but what's the fun of scaling steep mountains of scree on horseback? Stumbling, sliding back, and wandering in looping circles is really more my style.

Well truthfully, if I had half a year to kill and a thousand euro to burn, I would gladly take an intensive course. I've already determined occasional lessons coupled with saying "Danke" and "Tschüß" at the cash register conversational German does not make. I injected myself into an ongoing intensive course for two weeks, which taught me that this was the way to go, but, I have a job, and no one seems to offer evening intensive courses.

And so, cheers to self reliance and self motivation, my two soft and squishy spots. May they harden from all the poking.