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Wie heißt das Tier?

Was für ein Schwein -Pferd -Tier ist das?  Eine Kröte?
--Danke Stephanie!

Ocean Piglets, Shield Toads and Naked Snails  (found at Babbel Language Learning Online)

by John-Erik Jordan 

Funny and bizarre German animal names

The German language is famous for some really long nouns (Donaudampfschiffahrtsgesellschaftskapitän comes to mind). This is because German nouns, verbs, prepositions and adjectives are like lego bricks; you can stick them together in almost any way to create new words that encapsulate new concepts. This gives the language a special ability to name just about anything. You could call it the German language’s lego brick-like quality, or Legosteineigenschaft (see what I just did there?).
But why does German rely on such an elaborate process to name things as simple as squirrels? When broken down into their separate components, the names of familiar animals mutate into bizarre new creatures.

The Uncanny X-Tiere

Comics are full of heroes with names like super, wonder, iron, ultra, bat or cat followed by -man, -woman, -girl or -boy. A lot of German animal names work the same way, where Tier – the word for animal – is preceded by a word describing that animal’s “super power”.

• Stinktier – stink animal (skunk)
  
• Faultier – lazy animal (sloth)
  
• Gürteltier – belt animal (armadillo)
  
• Murmeltier – mumbling animal (groundhog)
  
• Schnabeltier – beak animal (platypus)
  
• Maultier – mouth animal (mule)
  
• Trampeltier – trampling animal (bactrian camel). The verb trampeln means to trample or tread upon, whereas the noun Trampel is a clumsy oaf.
  

Sometimes suffixes get more specific than -tier, but still tend to describe the wrong animal:

• Schildkröte – shield toad (tortoise)
  
• Waschbär – wash bear (raccoon)
  
• Nacktschnecke – naked snail (slug)
  
• Fledermaus – flutter mouse (bat)
  
• Seehund – sea dog (seal)
  
• Tintenfisch – ink fish (squid)
  
• Truthahn – threatening chicken (turkey). Trut is onomatopoeic for the trut-trut-trut cluck of a turkey, but it’s also been hypothesized that the name comes from the Middle German droten which means “to threaten”.
  

No, I’m Pretty Sure That’s A Pig

Swine seem to be a popular yardstick in German animal taxonomy.

• Schweinswal – pig whale (porpoise)
  
• Seeschwein – sea pig (dugong). Not to be confused with the Seekuh, or sea cow, known in English as a manatee.
  
• Stachelschwein – spike pig (porcupine). The English word is actually just as literal; porcupine sounds a lot like “pork spine”.
  
• Wasserschwein – water pig (capybara)
  
• Meerschweinchen – ocean piglet (guinea pig). The ending -chen denotes something small. Add it to the end of Schwein and you get a little pig, or piglet. Since the stems Meer and Wasser are often interchangeable, it’s most likely that Meerschweinchen actually means little capybara.
  

Just Plain Weird

I’d like to end this list by giving one animal a category all to itself: the humble squirrel.
Eichhörnchen:

• little oak horn: Eiche (oak tree) + Horn (horn) + -chen (little)
• oak croissant: Eiche (oak tree) + Hörnchen (croissant)

alternate names:

• Eichkätzchen (regional name) and Eichkatzerl (Austria) – oak kitten

Calling a squirrel a “tree kitten” is reasonably literal, but where does “little oak horn” come from? It seems that the answer comes down to a misplaced h: Eichhörnchen comes from the Old and Middle German eichorn, which has nothing to do with oak trees or horns. In this case, the eich comes from the ancient Indo-Germanic word aig, which means agitated movement, combined with the now obsolete suffix -orn. Somewhere in history a superfluous h was added (along with the diminutive -chen ending) but the original meaning remained. Today, Hörnchen is a category of rodents that includes all squirrels, chipmunks, groundhogs, prairie dogs and flying squirrels.
Keep an eye on this spot for an upcoming post where we’ll delve deeper into the animal kingdom: branching out to birds, insects, reptiles, fishes and any other mammals we find crawling around.

Foreign language immersion expansion bill passes Louisiana House

A French sign hangs on the door of foreign-language immersion program at J.C. Ellis Elementary School in Metairie. (The Times-Picayune archive)

By Lauren McGaughy, NOLA.com | The Times Picayune 
Email the author | Follow on Twitter 
on June 03, 2013 at 5:52 PM, updated June 03, 2013 at 5:53 PM

A bill to give parents the power to petition for a foreign language immersion program at their child's school is nearing final approval after passage Monday on the House floor. An amendment to the bill will have to be approved by the Senate before heading to Gov. Bobby Jindal for his signature or veto.

Senate Bill 205 by state Sen. Eric LaFleur, D-Ville Platte, would require local school boards to create a foreign language immersion program if they receive a written request from at least 25 parents. The parent-trigger would only be enforceable if there are teachers available for the program and if the school district doesn't already have an immersion program for that language.

While the bill passed with a healthy margin of 69-30, multiple lawmakers raised concerns that the legislation would amount to an unfunded mandate placed on local school districts. They said although the state allocates $20,000 extra for districts for every foreign language immersion teacher, this might not be enough to fund an entire program.

"We have to quit mandating to our school systems what they must do," state Rep. Kenny Havard, R-Jackson, said during floor debate. "It boils down to money. ... Right now they're not even funding the (public schools) enough to pay our teachers."

During committee testimony on the bill, local superintendents echoed that concern, saying even with the additional $20,000, they could not afford the programs.

The Minimum Foundation Program "certainly doesn't cover complete cost of the program or the ongoing costs," Iberia Parish Superintendent Dale Henderson told the House Committee on Education. He added including salary and benefits, each foreign language teacher costs almost twice as much as the amount given to them under the MFP allocation.

But proponents of the bill, including Carencro Democrat Stephen Ortego, said the cost of the programs would be paid for through the state's public school funding formula. He also highlighted other pros of foreign language immersion programs, including higher English-language test scores, which he called "a hell of a lagniappe."

State Reps. Jack Montoucet, D-Crowley, Karen Gaudet St. Germain, D-Plaquemine and Nancy Landry, R-Lafayette said the bill would further empower parents to have more control over their child's educational path.

"Foreign languages are not only a want, they're a need," St. Germain said.

Because of a technical amendment added on the House floor, the Senate must concur with the change before the bill can head to the governor's desk.

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The US Foreign Language Deficit

The U.S. Foreign Language Deficit

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Kathleen Stein-Smith tells it like it is — why it matters and what we can do about it

Why It Matters
In an increasingly globalized world, the U.S. is at an ever-increasing disadvantage due to the lack of foreign language skills among Americans.

Other than heritage-language speakers, it is estimated that only between one in eight and one in four Americans have the foreign language skills necessary to hold a conversation in a language other than English. According to the Modern Language Association, enrollment in a course in a language other than English at the post secondary level stands at 8%, as opposed to 16% in 1960 — the same time frame in which globalization has increased.

Among executives in international business, the typical American executive may speak one foreign language at most, while European and other international executives routinely speak multiple languages at the business-proficient level. On an individual level, a monolingual English-speaking American runs the risk of being passed over for a promotion, or for a new job, in favor of an international applicant with the same professional skills but with the added advantage of knowledge of one or more relevant foreign languages. While exports are widely acknowledged to be an essential element of a sustainable economic recovery, companies struggle to find employees with the needed language skills.

As a consequence of the events of 9/11, the National Security Language Initiative was launched in 2006, and both the Federal government and the military have developed plans to increase language and global skills among their departments and branches respectively. However, many of these plans have taken time to develop, only to lose funding during the economic recession and subsequent weak economic recovery. As recently as 2012, congressional hearings were held to examine the language deficit at the federal level.

Challenges to Foreign Languages in the U.S.
Challenges to the development of foreign language skills among English-speaking Americans include the sense that English is the global lingua franca. While it is true that many internationals may speak English, it is estimated that 75% of the world’s population does not speak English. Those who do may have varying levels of skill and willingness to use English.
The lack of day-to-day exposure to other languages is another challenge, as most Americans would need to travel a significant distance to completely immerse themselves in a society where English is not the local or official language. Many Americans would even have to travel a significant distance to experience a large community of foreign-language speakers within the U.S. In many parts of the world, multiple languages co-exist, or travel to an area where another language is the predominant or official language is a matter of a short trip.
Even if an American has the desire to learn another language, challenges remain. Typically, foreign language instruction begins relatively late in school, at a time when other courses, social obligations, and even jobs compete for a student’s limited time and attention.
As has already been mentioned, at the college level, only 8% of students are enrolled in a foreign language course, and this relatively small enrollment is heavily concentrated in elementary levels and in the Spanish language.

Outside of a traditional school setting, challenges exist, as learning another language requires time and energy, both of which are typically in relatively short supply to adults. In addition, the adult learner also needs to select and determine the materials to be used in language learning and to resist discouragement as the inevitable plateaus in learning progress are reached.

Perhaps the most subtle and insidious challenge is a pervasive lack of interest in other languages and cultures among many Americans, as this interest, or intrinsic motivation, is the most effective driver of successful foreign language learning.

What We Can Do
As individual citizens, we can advocate for foreign language education opportunities for our parents, ourselves, and our children within our schools and communities. We can write to our government representatives at the local, state, and national levels. We can join groups to advocate for foreign languages, or even run for local office. On a personal level, we can choose to learn new languages and encourage our friends and family members to do so as well.
Educational institutions at all levels have the opportunity to offer more foreign language courses and to enhance classroom learning with experiential learning, ranging from the recruitment of local native speakers to the establishment of language living-learning environments on campus or during summer or short-term courses at all levels. Entertainment and social media, as well as other relevant technologies, can make learning more effective and more accessible.

Government can support language learning through policy and law, which tend to lead to consistent funding for language initiatives at all levels. Lack of a language policy in the U.S. has often resulted in inadequate or inconsistent funding for language learning initiatives, both for English-speakers wishing to learn another language and for new immigrants and others wishing to learn English.

Business can certainly support foreign language learning among employees through on-site classes or through partnerships with local educational institutions to support either international ventures or business within local multilingual and multicultural communities. Compensation and/or other rewards should be offered to those who develop the desired foreign language skills.

For decades, leaders in government, education, and business have confirmed the need for the development of foreign language skills in order for Americans not only to be secure and competitive, but also to live richer, more fulfilling lives.
Importantly, they have also provided a significant body of literature on what policies, procedures, and action steps are needed to achieve this paradigm shift. The following are just a few of the most timely and relevant examples.

• Senator Daniel Akaka held a hearing entitled “A National Security Crisis: Foreign Language Capabilities in the Federal Government” on May 21, 2012.

• The 2007 MLA report, Foreign Languages and Higher Education: New Structures for a Changed World pointed the way to a renewed approach to foreign language education.

• In terms of education for business, the Modern Language Journal offered a special issue on Languages for Specific Purposes in the U.S.in a Global Context in January 2012. This followed two research reports published by the Apollo Research Institute (University of Phoenix): The Great Divide: Worker and Employer Perspectives of Current and Future Workforce Demands, in 2011, followed by the even more language-specific Current and Future Language Demands in the Workplace: Proficiencies and Gaps, in 2012.

Conclusions
Interest in another language or culture, or intrinsic motivation, has been shown to be the most effective motivation for learning another language, even more effective than career opportunity or advancement.

In order to increase the desire among Americans to learn other languages, government, education, and business will need to work together to develop the language-learning mindset among Americans through language policy, increased and varied foreign language course offerings, and compensation and career opportunities respectively.

In addition, foreign language skills need to become part of the popular culture through movies, books and music, highlighting bilingual and multilingual celebrities ranging from Olympic athletes to Academy-award-winning actors, and making foreign language movies, media, and books readily available to a now-interested public. In literature, fictional characters can be depicted as having and using foreign language skills.

A strategic marketing plan, developed in concert by government, education, and business, can achieve results similar to those achieved in the European Union and other parts of the world.
As Senator Paul Simon wrote in 1980 in The Tongue-Tied American, we can either be tongue-tied or fluent.

Kathleen Stein-Smith, PhD, associate university librarian and adjunct faculty at Fairleigh Dickinson University in New Jersey, is the author of The U.S. Foreign Language Deficit and Our Economic and National Security: A Bibliographic Essay on the U.S. Language Paradox, Edwin Mellen Press, 2013.

Using the Participle

Kentucky Educational Television




Finding the Participle in 3 Steps:

Blogger Adam Fletcher's "Top 10 Ways to Become German"

 

#1  PUT ON YOUR LITTLE HOUSE SHOES! 

So, here we are then my little Ausländer. Your first day as an aspiring German. You’ll have awaken in your bed, probably because it’s gotten light outside and you don’t have curtains (because curtains are evil and suggest you have something to hide).

Now, you’ll need to carefully make up your half of the bed (you will probably be sleeping in a double bed made up of two single mattresses and two single duvets). What it lacks in nocturnal romance, it more than makes up for in practicality (each makes his/her own side of the bed) the most prized of German possessions. 

Now, careful!  Don’t step off of the Bettvorleger yet, there is a very high chance that the floors will be ever so slightly colder than you expect! So cold you may go into some kind of morning shock. That’s why you need house shoes! They are requirements of Germanism.

I would like to be able to tell you why Germans are so in love with their house shoes, I’ve asked several but their answer is so incredibly unromantic, so sensible, practical and boring that my happy little barefoot brain has no idea where to store information of that nature and so just gives up committing it to memory. 

Actually, that these little house shoes prevent the outside dirt from creeping through the tidy German household is something Brits understand far less than do, for instance the Japanese.  OK.  There.  How very practical, indeed.  Is there hope after all?

 

   

#2  EAT A LONG BREAKFAST

Coming from England, I was very surprised to see how important the kitchen is to the German people. The English tend to treat it purely as a room of function, like the toilet, only with a fridge. You get in, do what you’ve got to do, get out. The living room is the heart of the home.

For the Germans, it’s a different story, they are happiest and spend the most time in their kitchens. It’s the most practical room in the house. You have a table, water, coffee, food, radio, serious, correct-posture-encouraging seating. They’ve correctly realised, if trouble does come calling, they’ll be best prepared for it by holing up in their kitchens.

German breakfasts are not meals, but elaborate feasts. If it’s a weekend, every square inch of the table will be smothered in an assortment of meats, cheeses, fruits, jams, spreads and other condiments. It’ll look like someone broke in and while hunting for valuables just tipped the contents of all the cupboards out onto the table.

The first time I experienced breakfast in a German WG (= Wohngemeinschaft, or dormitory) it lasted so long that I drifted off into a sort of breakfast coma and they had to wake me with some Nutella, which is a sort of chocolate strip you put on bread. I didn’t know you could legally combine chocolate and bread, it was quite a revelation. Now I just eat Nutella with everything, and slowly I’ve learnt to eat more and also slower, during the long drawn out German breakfasts. 

#3  BE PREPARED

So far, so good. Look at you, you’re up early, you’ve got your radio on, no doubt some Depeche Mode is blasting out, you’re eating a slow and ponderous German breakfast, you’re acclimatising very well, young Ausländer.

Now you need to enter the headspace of the Germans. If you want to be one, you need to think like one, which is a big task and we’ll cover it in more detail in later steps. But for now, start accepting the three central tenets of Germanism.  The three P’s. Planning, Preparation, Process.

Being a good German is about understanding the risks, insuring for what can be insured, preparing for what cannot. You are your own life’s project manager. Plan and prepare. Make spreadsheets, charts and lists. Think about what you’re doing each day and how you can make it more efficient.
Is it possible you arrange your shoe storage so that the most used items are nearer the top, reducing bending time? I don’t care if you’re 17, it’s taking you nearly a full minute to get your shoes on, buy a shoe horn! Optimise your processes!

Just because they call it spontaneity, doesn’t mean it can’t be scheduled. There’s a time and place for fun, and it’s to be pre-decided and marked in the calendar. All else is frivolous chaos. So sit down now and make a plan for the day, then the week, then the month.

Then book your holidays until 2017. -- To make it easier, just go to the same place. How about Mallorca? All the other Germans go there, there must be something to it.

  

#4  GET SOME INSURANCES  

    

Everyone knows it’s a jungle out there. Hence why we created the phrase. So, plucky Ausländer before you go out into the jungle and start swinging from its high branches, it’s wise you be sensibly insured. Germans, being imaginative people ran a little wild with the concept of sensibly insured.
Don’t be surprised if the Germans you meet all have personal insurance advisors.

My girlfriend communicates with her insurance advisor more often than I do with my mother. If someone invented insurance insurance, an insurance against not having the right insurance, we’d all be treated to the sight of 80 million people dying of happiness.

#5  DRESS SERIOUSLY

Plan made for the day? Insurances in place? Great. Good work!

Now it’s time to change out of your Schlumperklamotten and head outside to face the day head on. You’re going to need to get appropriately dressed.

*WARNING! AUSLÄNDER! WARNING!* Outside is this thing called nature, nature is fickle and not to be trusted!  It dances to its own illogical, changeable tune. Best dress on the safe side. You need – expensive outdoor clothing! After all, you’re going outdoors, it’s called outdoor clothing, therefore it must be necessary.

At all times, you should be dressed for a minimum of three seasons. Get some of those funky Jack Wolfskin shrousers, the trousers that zip off into shorts.

If there is even the slightest possibility you may at some point leave a pavement, be sure you are wearing high-quality hiking boots. The Germans consider anything else an act of ankle suicide.

Should you show your Ausländisch self and suddenly find yourself unprepared in the elements,  prepare for serious snickering in your direction.

 

#6  LEARN GERMAN!

 

Every nation has done things it should be embarrassed about. Dark acts in its history. The Germans are no exception. You know of what I talk – the German language.

In principle, it’s not that hard. It works in two stages. Learning words and learning the grammar. Learning words is fun, most are even similar to English thanks to our shared ancestry, you’ll zip along making great progress and really enjoying wrapping your tongue around such delights as Schwangerschaftsverhütungsmittel, Weltschmerz and Zeitgeist.

Then, confident at all the little snippets you’ve already accumulated, you’ll start learning the grammar, the putty that builds your mutterings into real, coherent German sentences. This is where you’ll start to feel cheated....

English, at least linguistically, has always been the biggest slut in the room. Giving and taking from other languages. Trying to make you like it. Keeping it simple. My pet theory is that the Germans, despite their committed efforts, were not as successful as the English in their world power plays and so the English language has always, historically, been forced like a bridge made of glue to ford whatever cultural divide lay between us and whoever we were conquering, sorry colonising this week, so we had to smooth down its rougher edges, which is a poetic way of saying, kick out all the hard bits.

English was forced to evolve in a way that German had not been. German retained the grammatical complexity of Old English.  Take genders as an example, present in Old English, still present in German, yet assigned utterly arbitrarily.  Sure, there are some sort of vague guidelines about how words end or that almost everything to do with time is der. That’ll help you with maybe 30 per cent of nouns. That still leaves 70 per cent that you’ll have to learn by heart so you can decline correctly.
(PRO TIP: never learn a noun without its article, going back later and adding them in is very time consuming and inefficient).  Without knowing the gender of the noun, you can’t accurately decline the endings of the sentences, nouns and adjectives or adverbs. Without it you’ll say very embarrassing things like "einer grosser Wasser", instead of "ein grosses wasser."  I know, cringeworthy.

Of course there are far harder languages to learn than German, that’s not my point. English also has its stupidities, like a staunch commitment to being unphonetic. The difference is that English was kind enough to be easy in the beginning, it ramps up slowly and encouragingly. German just plonks you down in front of a steep mountain, says “viel spass” and walks off as you begin your slow ascent.
When I first started learning the language, I was gently reminded by a friend that some of the smartest things ever written were written in this language. First you need only respect it, later you can learn to like it.  And you will.

  

#7  EARN YOURSELF [A FEW MORE] QUALIFICATIONS!

 

When I first moved here I was given the advice that “while in England, it’s he who drinks the most and doesn’t vomit on his shoes, that gets the girl.  Here it’s he who knows the most about philosophy that gets the girl”.  -- OK.  That might be a bit of an exaggeration.

But the Germans, on account of their excellent school system (at least in comparison to the English), and the extraordinarily long time they tend to study (now reducing as they’ve adopted the Bachelor/Masters system) are an intellectual bunch. As a result, they also tend to have a great number of qualifications.

Vanity always needs an audience, it’s no different with intellectual vanity. So the Germans needed to create situations in which they could gently remind other Germans how much more qualified they are than them. An outdated idea in English culture, where everything is on a first-name basis, I am Adam, he is John, it’s what in our heads that shows our qualifications and intelligence.

Here in Germany, it’s the letters before or after our full name, letters we use when addressing each other, for example Herr Dr or Frau Prof Dr.h.c Schmidt, none of this first name over-familiarity.  Even the humble doorbell offers an opportunity for neighbour one-upmanship, where academic qualifications can be listed.

You can expect occasional smirks and reassuring pats on the shoulder, when you tell them you only have a BA in Theatre Studies, as if they’ve a new found respect for the fact you’ve managed to dress yourself properly.

#8   OBEY THE LITTLE RED AMPELMÄNNCHEN!

I think the often exaggerated stereotype that Germans love to follow the rules all comes down to one little illuminated red man: Guardian and God of the crossing pedestrian.  To dare challenge his authority and step gingerly out into a completely empty road when he is still red, is to take great personal risk.

Not of getting run over, the road is completely empty after all. Bar being struck by an invisible car, you’re safe.

No, what you really risk is the scorn, the tutting and the shouts of “Halt!” from nearby Germans, who will now consider you an irresponsible, possibly suicidal, and certainly a social renegade (well-- especially if there are impressionable kiddies nearby).

Halt!  Await the GREEN Ampelmännchen.  Consider it an elaborate exercise in self-control. You’ll need all that self-control not to freak out and start shooting the first time you visit the Ausländerbehörde and find out they don’t --want to -- speak English.

  

#9  DRINK APFELSCHORLE!

Germans fear any beverage that doesn’t fizz. It brings them out in a cold sweat.

It’s a great comedic joy to live in a country where you can watch tourists and foreigners buying “classic” water, thinking that since for millions of years now “classic” water, you know, the kind that fallen from the sky since the dawn of time, was still, uncarbonated water, it would be the same here, right?

Oh no. Millions of years of water history have been conveniently forgotten. “Classic” means carbonated, of course. You big silly.


Learn to like it. If not, when visiting the homes of your new German friends, you’ll request tap water and they’ll look at you like you are some primitive savage they just found in the woods covered in a blanket of your own hair.

Related to this is Apfelsaftschorle. You know in movies when people go to therapy and then the therapist asks them to create a happy place. A safe, tranquil spot they can turn to when the world gets too big and scary. Usually it’s a beach, or a rocking chair on the front porch of an idyllic childhood home?

For Germans, that happy place is swimming naked in a lake of Apfelsaftschorle. Tired after a long day of stamping and form filling, confronted with a 15-page long restaurant menu, baffled by the burdens of choice, they always retreat to their happy place and order Apfelsaftschorle. It’s steady, reliable.

For more than a century Germans, smug with their discovery of fizzy water, all their abundant breweries producing fine beers and ales, they didn’t believe it could get any better. Then some bright spark tried adding a little apple juice to that fizzy water. Creating something equally refreshing, but 6 per cent more fun! It was a near riot.

People were not ready. It was almost too fun. An all-night discoparty for the tastebuds. Of course, it won’t taste like that to you, with your funny foreign pallet. Apfelsaftschorle will taste to you as it really is, a fractional improvement on water’s boring taste.

#10  EAT GERMAN FOOD! 

It’s hard to discuss German cuisine without mentioning Wurst, at which point you’ll feel like I’m smacking you about the head with the stereotype stick. So I won’t. Wurst is important, but I think more for what it represents than how it tastes.  Here, meat is the linchpin of every meal. Being a vegetarian here is probably about as much fun as being blind at the zoo.

The notable exception is Spargel Saison (asparagus season), where the country goes gaga as the almightly Spargel is being waved around everywhere, like a sort of culinary magic wand, which coincidentally it does rather resemble.  Almost every restaurant features Spargel in almost every course. 

In conclusion, German cuisine is to the world of food, what the band Eiffel 65 are to the history of popular music: present, but largely a footnote.


You are probably wondering how I wrote an entire entry about German food without mentioning that lumpy S word – Sauerkraut. Fear not, it deserves an entire entry of its own….. It's certainly present as a side dish to many a meal.  Would you have it any other way?  YUM!   Right?