1. Episode: Mein Weg nach Deutschland

In der ersten Episode lernen wir eine Türkin, namens Nevin lernen, die jetzt in Deutschland wohnt.  Sie muss viel über das Leben in Deutschland lernen.  Hier lernt sie über öffentliche Verkehrsmittel: sie fährt mit dem Bus zum Arbeitsamt.

Nevin, a Turkish woman, is featured in this first episode.  She now lives in Germany, and must learn a lot about life in Germany.  In this episode, she learns to use public transportation:  she takes the bus to the Employment Office.




Do you feel Nevin has learned German fairly well by now?
Does she have reason to be intimidated by living among Germans?
Does Nevin seem to enjoy being in Germany?  (How does she pass the time on her bus ride?)
Must Nevin rely on others for help? 

Check out the other episodes which follow. 
Do you have a favorite?

Konsum und Lebenstil

Hoer zu!

HIER BEI LANGENSCHEIDT IST EIN GESPRAECH MIT DREI ABSICHTEN UEBER KONSUM


Was macht Herr Kolonko frueher?
Was ist ihm passiert?
(Warum aendert er sich sein Lebenstil?)
Wo wohnt er jetzt?
Wie ist sein Leben jetzt anders?
Wofuer muss er nicht mehr bezahlen?
Wie verdient er sein Geld?

Was sagt Frau Zoeller sazu?
Wie ist ihr Leben?

Was will Herr Fritsche dazu sagen?

Laut Frau Zoeller, worauf sollten wir uns konzentrieren, erst nur wenn die Wirtschaft gut geht?

Was will Herr Fritsche damit klarstellen, wenn er sagt:  ,,Unsere Umwelt ist doch unsere Lebensgrundlage."

Nimm ein paar Zeilen aus diesem Gespraech aus, und schreib ueber einen Lebenstil, in dem du dich am liebsten, in den naechsten 10-15 Jahren finden wirst!

GERMAN IS 4 U !

This video has some really bright spots!



Let us know why you have started learning German!

35 hour/week (not 70+): Minimum 24 paid vacation days (not 2-10); 14 Months Maternity leave (not 1- 8 weeks)

Danke, Jesse.  Ich lade gern diesen Artikel hier auf!  Perfekt! -rsb

Why Germans Work Fewer Hours But Produce More: A Study In Culture

437When many Americans think of Germany, images of WWII soldiers and Hitler often come to mind. But what many people don’t realize is that Germany is the industrial powerhouse of Europe, and is a leading manufacturer of goods for export to developing Asian nations. We don’t hear about the superiority of German engineering in Volkswagen commercials for nothing!

The economic engine of the EU, Germany single-handedly saved the Eurozone from collapse in 2012. At the same time, German workers enjoy unparalleled worker protections and shorter working hours than most of their global counterparts. How can a country that works an average of 35 hours per week (with an average 24 paid vacation days to boot) maintain such a high level of productivity?

Working Hours Mean Working Hours

In German business culture, when an employee is at work, they should not be doing anything other than their work. Facebook, office gossip with co-workers, trolling Reddit for hours, and pulling up a fake spreadsheet when your boss walks by are socially unacceptable behaviors. Obviously, in the United States these behaviors are frowned up on by management. But in Germany, there is zero tolerance among peers for such frivolous activities.

In the BBC documentary “Make Me A German“,  a young German woman explained her culture shock while on a working exchange to the UK.

“I was in England for an exchange… I was in the office and the people are talking all the time about their private things… ‘What’s the plan for tonight?’, and all the time drinking coffee…”

She was quite surprised by the casual nature of British workers. Upon further discussion, the Germans reveal that Facebook is not allowed in the office whatsoever, and no private email is permitted.

Goal-Oriented, Direct Communication Is Valued

German business culture is one of intense focus and direct communication. While Americans tend to value small talk and maintaining an upbeat atmosphere, Germans rarely beat around the bush. German workers will directly speak to a manager about performance reviews, launch into a business meeting without any ‘icebreakers’, and use commanding language without softening the directives with polite phrases.Whereas an American would say, “It would be great if you could get this to me by 3pm,” a German would say, “I need this by 3pm”.

When a German is at work, they are focused and diligent, which in turn leads to higher productivity in a shorter period of time.

Germans Have a Life Outside Work

Germans work hard and play hard. Since the working day is focused on delivering efficient
productivity, the off hours are truly off hours. Because of the focused atmosphere and formal environment of German businesses, employees don’t necessarily hang out together after work. Germans generally value a separation between private life and working life.

The German government is currently considering a ban on work-related emails after 6pm, to counter the accessibility that smartphones and constant connectivity give employers to their employees. Can you imagine President Obama enacting such a policy in the United States?

To occupy their plentiful Freizeit, most Germans are involved in Verein (clubs); regularly meeting others with shared interests in their community. Common interests in Germany include Sportvereine (sports clubs), Gesangvereine (choirs or singing clubs), Musikvereine (music clubs), Wandervereine (hiking clubs), Tierzuchtvereine (animal breeding clubs – generally rabbits/pigeons) and collectors’ clubs of all stripes. Even the smallest village in Germany will have several active Vereinen to accommodate residents’ interests. Rather than settling in for a night of TV after work, most Germans socialize with others in their community and cultivate themselves as people.

Germans also enjoy a high number of paid vacation days, with many salaried employees receiving 25-30 paid days (the law requires 20). Extended holidays mean families can enjoy up to a month together, renting an apartment by the seaside or taking a long trip to a new, exciting city.

Business Respects Parenthood

Germany’s system of Elternzeit (“parent time” or parental leave) is the stuff of fantasy for most working Americans. The United States does not currently have laws requiring maternity leave, while Germany has some of the most extensive parental protection policies in the developed world.

[The downside of these maternity leave benefits is that employers may avoid hiring women (with the fear that they will take advantage of the extensive benefits), and German boardrooms are consistently male-dominated at a higher rate than other developed nations, although the government is working to eradicate this trend. The financial benefits of staying home (from both Elternzeit and Elterngeld or parents’ money programs) are often too good to pass up for German mothers, and can lead to stagnant or non-existent careers.]

Since “at will” employment does not exist in Germany, all employees have contracts with their employer. Parents who have been gainfully employed for the previous 12 months are eligible for Elternzeit benefits, which include up to three years of unpaid leave with a “sleeping” contract. The employee is eligible to work part-time up to 30 hours while on leave, and must be offered full-time employment at the conclusion of the parental leave.

Parents may also choose to postpone up to one year of their leave until the child’s 8th birthday.  

Either parent is eligible for parental leave, and many couples make the choice based on financial considerations.

In addition to the preservation of the employee’s contract, the state will pay up 67% of the employee’s salary (with a cap of 1800 Euros per month) for 14 months. Parents may split the 14 months however they choose. These benefits apply equally to same-sex couples.

Have you picked your jaw up off the floor yet?

Comments:  Some of the formality of the work place is language-related.  People address their co-workers formally, which can be very direct.  

Furthermore, with considerably more free time, German citizens have time to plan extensive vacations and actively participate in their communities, such as organizing Karneval dance teams and parades.

VW Apprenticeships in Tennesee

Marketplace  by Blake Farmer Tuesday, August 19, 2014 - 16:19

Volkswagen brings German-style vocational training to the US

Courtesy of VW

• Story

Courtesy of VW

Courtesy of VW

 

One of the world’s largest automakers has stepped into the fringe of American education. Volkswagen has imported its German-style apprenticeship program to the U.S., and American labor officials hope it might become a model.

“It’s a totally different mindset. It’s a totally different culture,” says Ilker Subasi, who heads the Volkswagen Academy on site at the company’s Chattanooga plant.

Subasi sees a stigma in the U.S. against technical education. But in Germany, more than half of high school graduates go into vocational programs like VW’s. Subasi himself was once a VW apprentice.
Once accepted, the company’s U.S. “mechatronics” students earn a small stipend over the course of three years while learning how to maintain robotics. If they stick with the program, they’re hired with a starting salary of $22 an hour. They also earn an associate’s degree from Chattanooga State Community College and a DIHK certification from the German American Chamber of Commerce, which would allow them to work at German auto plants around the world.

“At first, I was like, ‘Am I going to be pushing around a broom? Am I going to be changing light bulbs?’” recalls Alex Bizzell, a 22-year-old who graduated last week. “It’s been a substantial effort to do it, but now I know exactly what I’m going to do for the rest of my life.”

The VW school is heavily subsidized by the state of Tennessee as part of an incentive package to bring the automaker to the state in 2009. A stadium-sized building beside the plant that builds the Passat houses the classroom space and hands-on learning. 

Inside, a robotic arm two stories tall swings through the air, as a student practices programming machines like the ones used next door. Michael Regan says he tried a year of community college before applying.

“You know, I was never that really into writing and all of that,” he says. “I’m not that big of a writer. I was just always more of a hands-on person. That’s just how I learn better.”  At Regan’s graduation, a top executive told the dozen students he hopes they will ultimately retire with VW.

Some graduates are taking the option to spend a year working at a German plant. Others are deferring their job to finish a four-year degree. Regan starts work immediately – albeit on the night shift.
“Look at the benefits and the future he has with this company,” says Regan’s mom, Sharon. “And that’s why you go to college is to work for a big company – most people – to make a good living and have good benefits. And he’s going to have all that -- at 22.”

Featured in: Marketplace for Tuesday August 19, 2014

Geographie der Erde

von Christoph Sperlbaum

Topographie ist ein
--> Teilgebiet der Geographie, welches sich mit der kartographischen Landesbeschreibung beschäftigt.  Die Lage natürlicher (z.B. Meere, Gebirge, Flüsse, …) und künstlicher (z.B. Städte, Länder, …) Objekte auf der Erdoberfläche stehen dabei im Mittelpunkt.


Diese Länder werden gezeigt:

Alican ist nur 8 Jahre alt, und ist LIVE am TV Total

Er möchte als Polizist, seine Mathelehrer in den Knast das ganze Lebenslang bringen!  Lustig?

Arbeitsgeld...ein Lied in einem TON

Are you ready for a song in a single tone? I include it here because you'll understand the text -- even when the text isn't what I'd call "motivational."

Album: "Bock auf Aphorismen" by Nachlader.   The vocabulary here I find more interesting.  

•  "Bock auf" means to show a desire for something.  
• An aphorism is a unique thought expressed concisely.  
• Nachladen means to recharge.  

---
Mit der Arbeit habe ich nichts zu tun.

Werbung: Wer lügt? (Who's lying?)

Der Lügezähler ist auch dabei:  Wieviele Lüge gibt es in dieser Werbung?

Schreib auf, was die beiden gesagt hätten, wenn sie ganz ehrlich (honest)
wären!  -- Aber man darf nicht den Satz einfach mit "nicht"umschreiben!

Die Lüge 
Nummer

____   Er:        Birgit!          _______________________

____   Sie:       Hallo, Schatz!      _______________

____   Er:        Hallo!        _____________________

____   Sie:       Na, wie war es?      __________________

____   Er:        Anstrengend!          ______________________

____   Sie:       Das glaube ich.       __________________

____   Er:        Ich habe dir etwas mitgebracht.   _________________

____   Sie:       Die ist ja wunderschön!    ____________________

____   Er:        War auch nicht ganz billig.          ________________
                        Ich habe dich vermisst.   _____________________

____   Sie:       Ich dich auch.                  __________________

____   Er:        Hast du etwa gekocht?       ____________________

____   Sie:        Mm-hm, Lasagne. Selbstgemacht.        ______________

____   Er:        Es riecht ja fantastisch!      ___________________

____   Sie:       Sag mal, diese Karin aus der Buchhaltung, war die eigentlich 

                       auch mit in der Schweiz?  

  

                       __________________________________

____   Er:         Karin?  Nee!    ___________________

____   Kind:    Papa!   ______________________

____   Fernseh Stimme:   Jede Lüge braucht einen Mutigen, der sie zählt.


------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

European Migration to Germany

Why learn German?  Check out this week's Economist:  

Sprechen Sie Job? More southern Europeans are going where the jobs are.   -- But not enough     

Feb 16th 2013 | BERLIN 

DANIEL GÓMEZ GARCIA, aged 23, is the sort of person Europe’s leaders may have had in mind when, on paper at least, they turned the European Union into a single labour market like America’s. Mr Gómez, from Andalusia in Spain, learned a smattering of German in school -- and passable English, while studying in America. But when he came back to Spain he saw that hardly anybody in his class of 80 had a job. “Nothing to do, so let me go to Germany and get the language,” he recalls thinking. In autumn 2012 he took an unpaid four-month internship at his embassy in Berlin and paid for his tiny flat-share by helping a local holiday-rental firm with its Excel spreadsheets. Last month that turned into a low-paying but permanent job as an accountant.

That is how the single market is supposed to work. Spain has a youth unemployment rate of 56%. In Greece it is 58% (see chart). By contrast, Germany has negligible youth unemployment (8%) and a shortage of qualified workers. Theoretically, people should be willing to move from the “crisis countries” to the boom towns, just as the Okies once flocked to California.

To some extent this migration is indeed happening. New arrivals in Germany in the first half of 2012 grew by 15% over the same period in 2011, and by 35% net of departures. And the numbers of newcomers from the euro crisis countries increased the most—Greek arrivals were up by 78%, Spanish by 53%, for example. But the absolute numbers (6,900 Greeks and 3,900 Spaniards during those six months) are still modest.
It is “astonishing how astonishing it still is that they are coming”, says Holger Kolb, at the Expert Council of German Foundations on Integration and Migration. Some things are beginning to work as intended, such as the elimination of bureaucratic hassles for moving within the EU. Yet it seems that the EU can never become a truly integrated market. That is mainly because of language.  Mr Gómez finds life in Germany challenging— “Germans seem to always nag about recycling, or noise, or whatever,”—but the language is “the hardest part”.

Thus language has replaced work visas as the main barrier to mobility. When the euro crisis began, the branches in southern Europe of the Goethe Institute, the German equivalent of the British Council, were overwhelmed by demand for German courses, says Heike Uhlig, the institute’s director of language programmes. That demand was also different, she adds: less about yearning to read Goethe’s “Faust” than about finding work. So the Institute retooled, offering courses geared (more) to the technical German used by engineers, nurses or doctors.

Language, besides proximity, explains a lot of today’s movements in the EU, says Klaus Bade, another migration expert. For example, the largest group of new arrivals in Germany is still from Poland, which is poorer, though not a crisis, country. But its schools often teach German alongside English.
...
 

COMMENTS:   

Your comments merely patronize those who do not want to learn a second language. It is indeed a disadvantage that should be remedied and not promoted as a plus. 

One needs to understand one's place in the world in order to start speaking foreign languages.  

I am now in Greece and I am absolutely shocked by the almost complete lack of recycling effort  here - apart from the other problems - after spending six years in the Czech Republic - it really is horrible!  Young Greeks don't even understand why they should think about it. Their heads are full of nonsense about international conspiracy - about how it's all someone else's fault - and yet in the small simple ways that they could be making a difference they make none. This is not modern thinking.  PS Czechs are excellent at recycling! 

A great many (if not most) Greek kids live at home until they're older than this study, and therefore may not be actively seeking for employment.