Das Schwein möchte Schoko-Keks !

Was alles macht das Schwein, umd die Schoko-Keks von oben auf dem Kühlschrank zu holen?

Babbel and Naming Animals in German

Wie heißt das Tier?



Surprises?

Heuschrecken in Brasilien = Locusts in Brazil

1 female breeds 300 offspring.

( Is the pepper spray worth $1 per bottle? Look at the results. )
Vermutlich nicht = apparently not.

Searching for wild animals in Berlin

AUF DER SUCHE DER WILDEN TIERE IN DER GROßSTADT

Fernsehen:  9 1/2    (Innerhalb von 10 Minuten kann man etwas lernen.)

Tieralphabet A, wie Affe ...

Kennen wir Tiere?



Danke, Deutschdrang.

Per Doktor Allwissend (Know It All): Langeweile ist gut!

Boredom is a good thing!



It's what leads us to . . . . . . . . !  Yup!

Stewie learns ,,Ki-kiri ki" -- Rooster Talk, auf Deutsch

Stewie has a lot to learn . . .



Findet dieses Filmchen lustig?

Und hier ist noch ein Film.  Ein Hahn kräht, und sagt: ,,Ki kiri ki".

Und was noch?  (What else??)



Und wer hat nun Recht?   (So which country and which language has it correct?)

Diese Pferd Scout ist lustig!

Die Trainerin heißt Rosie.
Kannst du Rosie verstehen?

Freundschaft! Und Einheit (Unity). Und Liebe?

Hier in einem Film können wir eine ganz außergewöhnliche Freundschaft entdecken.



Erzähl mal diese Geschichte!

der Hund,-e = m/dog
die Hündin,-nen = f/dog
der Abenteuer,- = adventure
das Boot,-e
der Delphin,-e, die Delfin, -e  = m/f dolphin
die Beute,- = prey
der Hai,-e   der Haifisch,-e  = shark
die Rettung,-en = rescue
der Rücken,- = the back 
der Abschied,-e = farewell

suchen
finden
sich wohl fühlen = to feel happy
mitfahren = to accompany; travel along
springen
Hunger haben
auffressen = to devour
retten = to rescue
zurückbringen = to bring back
aufführen = to perform
sich verabschieden = to bid farewell

Hopp, Kaninchen, hopp!

Bei Kindernetz

Alles muss vom Kaninchen selbst kommen.

HIER ZUM FILM

Ist Kaninhop gesund für ein Tier?

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.

Über Tiere, dank Herrn Antrim

--- Der Zoowärter --
das Nilpferd
das Eisbär
der Tiger
der Gorilla (der Affe)
der Orang Utan
der Koala
das Krokodil
das Kamel
die Giraffe
der Löwe

SPCA Video

Love the content.  But:  Recognize the style of video? 

Der Küken-Tanz: Im Radio

 Daniel Fischer, Julia Nestle und Martin Gudd aus der FFH-Morningshow...

Was sagen diese Tiere?
die Küken  macht Piep
die Henne  macht Goak
der Gauke macht Kikeri-ki!
die Putte  macht Gugeligu?
die Taube macht Gurr
die Katze  macht Miau
der Hund  macht Wau-Wau!
das Schaf macht Määh!
die Ziege macht Bääh
die Kuh macht Muuu
der Stier macht Bruuu
der Trecker macht Brummm..  Oh-oh!



Hier: im Radio...



Oder auch:  (langsamer?)

http://www.ffh.de/bilder-videos/meController/Mediathek/meAction/index/meType/video/meTopic/im-hit-radio-ist-ein-kueken-ffh-tanzt.html

Sollten wir so tanzen?





--  Ach!  Die Bilder!

National Geographic und die Gebrüder Grimm

Märchen = Fairytales
Gebrüder = Brüder = Brothers

What do Brothers have to do with Fairytales?  Certainly you've heard of the Brothers Grimm.  YOU MIGHT FIND THIS SITE INTERESTING!


-- Which of the "Marchen" are familiar to you?  Which are new?

-- Which of the Fairytale endings have you heard before?

-- Which would you like to read in German?! [Hier die Liste von Geschichten auf dieser Seite:] 
The Bremen Town-Musicians (with audio)
Brother and Sister
Cinderella (with audio)
The Frog King (with audio)
Hänsel and Grethel
Little Briar-Rose
Little Red-Cap
Little Snow-White
Mother Holle
Rapunzel
The Seven Ravens (with audio)
The Wolf and the Seven Little Kids

Hier:  vom 200. Geburtstag des ersten Grimmbuchs am 19. Dezember 2012, hier vom GOOGLE

v

Rottkäppchen!   (Wie heißt sie auf Englisch?)

--Und was sagt das Kind ganz am Ende dieses Filmes?  "Das war aber toll?", vielleicht?

Cosmo, der Papagei, lernt sprechen

If you're interested in reading how African parrots pick up language, read on!

I'm reposting Herr Martin Anders' blogpost from earlier this week.  He has acquired the author's permission to post this.

Cosmo

Posted on 13. August 2012 by Martin Anders

Folgender Artikel von Dr. Steven Krashen ist zur Zeit im Druck. Er beschreibt die erstaunlichen Fähigkeiten des afrikanischen Papageis Cosmo, der seit Mai 2002 mit Betty Jean Craige zusammen lebt.   (Verbreitung vom Autor erlaubt.)

How is Cosmo Acquiring English? Stephen Krashen Language Magazine (in press)

Cosmo is an African Grey parrot who has lived with Betty Jean Craige for ten years (since May, 2002). Cosmo was six months old when she moved in with Prof. Craige. There is no question that Cosmo has acquired an amazing amount of English. By the time she was six years old, she had a vocabulary of about 100 words and 200 phrases (Craige, 2010, p. 17), and it is clear she uses her knowledge of English appropriately. Here are just two examples of how well Cosmo understands and speaks English, beginning with my favorite (from Prof, Craige’s remarkable book, Conversations with Cosmo, and her posts on onlineAthens):

Poop

“When she awakens in the morning, Cosmo calls me to her cage: ‘I’m here! Cosmo wanna poop!’ I lift her to the perch on top on her cage, where she poops. Cosmo then declares proudly, ‘Cosmo poop on paper! Cosmo is a good bird!’ Cosmo is not such a good bird when she walks around the house. Fortunately, I have hardwood floors. If she poops near me, she immediately confesses, ‘Cosmo poop on floor.’ If she poops out of my sight, she mutters to herself, ‘Cosmo poop.’ I hear her, and I hurry to the site with a paper towel and a vinegar-based multi-surface cleanser. As I spray the spot, Cosmo mimics the sound, ‘Whiss,’ and adds, ‘That’s for Cosmo poop!” from: Craige, 2012a.

Okay

“Como and I use ‘okay’ to consent to a request made by the other, and “okay” to ask for consent. For example, if Cosmo has done something bad, like biting me, and I have put her ‘back in her cage’ … we may have this conversation:

COSMO: ‘Cosmo wanna go up, okay?’ [go up = leave the cage] BJC: “No, Cosmo is a bad bird. Cosmo stay in cage.” COSMO: “Cosmo be a good bird, okay?” BJC: “Cosmo be a good bird. Stay in cage.” COSMO: “Cosmo wanna be a good bird, okay?” BJC: “Cosmo stay in cage.” COSMO: “Cosmo don’t bite, okay?” BJC: “Okay, Cosmo go up.” And I open the cage door to let her out. I’m not much of a disciplinarian” (Craige, 2010, p. 43).

Colbert-White, Covington and Fragaszy (2011) confirmed that Cosmo uses language that is appropriate to the situation. They reported, for example, that Cosmo made more attempts to start conversations when Prof. Craige was clearly able to communicate with Cosmo then when Cosmo was alone or it was clear that she was being ignored. They also found that Cosmo was more likely to talk about her own location (“I’m here”) and Prof. Craige’s location (“Where are you?”) when she and Prof. Craige were in separate rooms but within hearing range, and Cosmo also talked louder in this situation.

Is Cosmo Acquiring English from Comprehensible Input? The Comprehension Hypothesis

The Comprehension Hypothesis states that we acquire language and develop literacy when we understand messages, that is, when we understand what we hear and what we read, when we receive “comprehensible input” (Krashen, 1981, 2003). Language acquisition is a subconscious process; while it is happening we are not aware that it is happening, and the competence developed this way is stored in the brain subconsciously.

The evidence for the Comprehension Hypothesis comes from studies of parents’ speech to children, literacy development, second language acquisition, and bilingual education, and is reviewed in Krashen (1981, 1982, 1999, 2003).

Amount of input

There is no question that Cosmo got lots of input from Betty Jean Craige. Craige and Cosmo have been talking with each other nearly every day for ten years. Craige tell us that “When I am home Cosmo and I talk constantly” (Craige, 2010, p. 40). The fact that Cosmo and Prof. Craige “talk constantly” means that Prof. Craige can make adjustments in her language and do other things to make input comprehensible to Cosmo.

Modified input

Consistent with the Comprehension Hypothesis is the finding that less advanced language acquirers typically receive modified input. Parents and other caretakers, for example, use “caretaker speech” when they speak to young children. Caretaker speech is known to be composed of shorter sentences, has less complex grammar, and a restricted vocabulary (Krashen, 1981).

Craige clearly uses caretaker speech with Cosmo, simplified in order to help comprehension: “ … like foreign language teachers I used a simplified vocabulary with Cosmo. I look at her when I speak, and I consistently use the same words and phrases. For example, I always say, ‘Cosmo wanna go in a car?’ and never vary the question with synonyms. I don’t say ‘Cosmo wanna ride?’ or ‘Would you like to go for a drive in the automobile?’ I say ‘peanut’ for all kinds of nuts: peanuts, walnuts, pecans …cashews …’” (Craige, 2010, p. 41)

Context and Relevance

All discussion with Cosmo relates directly to Cosmo’s needs, interests and desires, assuring that the input will be highly interesting and relevant to Cosmo. In addition, as is the case with caretaker speech, the talk is about the here (Cosmo’s immediate environment) and now (or immediate past and future), which provides context for helping Cosmo understand.

Silent Period

Cosmo went through a “silent period” during her first year of life, which is typical of African Grey parrots (Craige, 2010, p. 59): “In January of 2003, at about thirteen months, Cosmo started repeating the phrases I had been saying to her since I got her: ‘Hello!’ ‘Hi!’ ‘Wanna peanut?’ …” (p. 25; for other examples, see p. 43, 44).

Like human children acquiring first language, and like many second language acquirers (Krashen, 1982), Cosmo had apparently been listening and acquiring during her silent period: Most likely, when she started to produce English words, it was not the beginning of her acquisition of English.

Cosmo’s Monologues: The Din Externalized

It has been suggested that an indication that acquisition has taken place is the “din in the head,” spontaneous mental rehearsal of words, phrases and sentences we have heard in a second language, often in the voices of people we have been interacting with (Krashen, 1983). The “din” appears after we have had a good dose of comprehensible input and can make us less hesitant to use the language (Bedford, 1985; de Guerrero, 1987).

The “Din Hypothesis” explains the “language in the crib,” phenomenon (Krashen, 1983). Ruth Weir (1962) tape-recorded her 28-month-old son’s evening monologues, speech he produced alone while falling asleep. This “crib talk” might be the Din externalized, a result of language acquisition and not a form of “practice.”

Like Pepperberg’s parrot Alex, (Pepperberg, 1999), Cosmo has also talked to herself when alone (but in the morning), using language she had acquired, as well as producing other kinds of output, a combination of “words, whistles, squeaks, environmental noises, and silences that went something like this:

“Hello, Chirp, Hi Woo woo woo (imitating dog barking) How are you? Fine Whee whew Here are you? Here I am! I am here! Squeeeeek What are you doing? Beep …. beep What doing? Chee chee Up Wanna go up ….. There you are! I love you. Wanna kiss. Thank you ….” (Craige, 2010, p. 26).

Cosmo’s monologues took place “in the months when she was first learning to talk” (Craige, 2010, p. 37), consistent with the idea that this was an “externalized din” and a result of language acquisition.

Alternative Hypotheses

This description fits the picture of language acquisition through comprehensible input, but it does not eliminate alternative explanations.

Direct instruction

Cosmo received at least some direct instruction: Prof. Craige labelled objects for Cosmo and also “… (corrected) Cosmo’s misuse and mispronunciation of words” (Colbert-White, Covington, and Fragaszy, 2011, p. 1). But Prof. Craige did not give Cosmo “language lessons,” activities deliberately designed to increase her vocabulary. Cosmo herself, however, has asked for the names of things. Craige reports that Cosmo likes toplay the game, “What’s that?”, which apparently helped her learn the names for “clothes”, “television,” “bark” and other words (Craige, 2010, p. 42,47).

The game has produced some remarkable exchanges, including this one in which Cosmo began by imitating a dog barking:

COSMO: “Woo, woo, woo. What’s that?” BJC: “That’s doggy!” COSMO: “That’s doggy bark!” (Craige, 2010, p. 47).

Whether this kind of direct instruction contributed significantly to Cosmo’s competence in English is undetermined, but what we can say for sure is that there are cases in which direct instruction did not work and cases in which Cosmo acquired words without instruction:

A case of direct instruction not working:

“I tried to teach Cosmo to distinguish between red feathers and gray feathers. Cosmo had already learned the word ‘feather’ … But she could, or would not, say ‘red feather’ or ‘gray feather.’ She would simply grab the feather with her beak and fling it away …” (Craige, 2010, p. 51).

A case of direct instruction not working, but incidental exposure succeeding:

“Lately, Cosmo has been trying to say the word desk … I hadn’t tried to teach her the word. Actually I tried to teacher her ‘Betty Jean’s study,’ which she never learned to say. I must have said ‘desk’ once or twice before she tried to say the word to refer to the table where my computer rests …” (Craige, 2010, p. 46). (Pepperberg’s parrott, Alex, also “picked up” at least some expressions incidentally, without instruction. Pepperberg gives three examples: “calm down” (Pepperberg, 2008, p.157, 159), “pay attention” (p. 121), and “You turkey!” (p. 149). Alex used all three of these expressions appropriately.)

Comprehensible output?

The comprehensible output hypothesis claims that we acquire language when we produce it and have communicative success. When we fail to communicate, we change our hypothesis about how the language works and try again (Swain, 1985; for counterarguments, Krashen, 2003).

Craige certainly makes sure that Cosmo had plenty of communicative success: “As much as I can – and within reason – I comply with (Cosmo’s) spoken wishes, because I want her to know that language works. I want her to know that use of language enables her to manipulate the environment: to obtain peanuts, go to the kitchen, make people laugh, get a misting [spray with water], get a kiss on her feathers, and get my rapt attention. When she speaks she has power, for she can tell me what to do, even though she’s little and I’m big” (Craige, 2010, p. 80). The existence of incidental acquisition shows that “comprehensible output” was not necessary for Cosmo to acquire English. The possibility remains that it could have been helpful.

The Most Significant Factor? The Affective Filter

Several affective variables, low anxiety, self-esteem and “integrative motivation,” a desire to belong to a certain group, are related to long term success in language acquisition. In Smith’s terms (Smith, 1988), the acquirer must consider himself or herself to be a potential “member of the club” of those who speak the language. To relate affective variables to the Comprehension Hypothesis, it has been hypothesized that for input to enter the “language acquisition device” the acquirer must be “open” to the input: The “affective filter” must be low, or down (Krashen, 1982, 2003).

Perhaps the most significant factor in Cosmo’s case is the fact that she has had a warm and loving interaction with a single person over a long period of time, and they have talked about topics that are of great personal interest to Cosmo. Unconditional love is clearly the best way to insure low anxiety, self-confidence, and motivation to join the group, in other words, a zero affective filter: “… Cosmo knows that I love her, that I will always give her attention, that I will always feed her, and that I will never strike her, even when she bites” (Craige, 2012b).

Post-script

Craige (2012c) notes that “By the age of 3 (Cosmo) had acquired the vocabulary and grammatical tools she would use in her speech from then on.” ....But Cosmo is still learning new things: “ … she does pick up new tunes to whistle. This past year she learned ‘Yankee Doodle,’ after I had whistled it only a few times. To learn it she’d whistle a line, wait for me to do the tune, and then try it herself, stopping whenever she forgot the next line and waiting for me to help her out. She also learned ‘Wooden Heart’ a year or so ago” (Betty Jean Craige, personal communication, May 5, 2012). 

*My thanks to Prof. Betty Jean Craige for her comments, help and inspiring book, Conversations with Cosmo.

References:   • Bedford, E. J. W. 1985. Spontaneous playback of the second language: A descriptive study. Foreign Language Annals 18, 279-287. • Colbert-White, E. N., Covington, M. A., and Fragaszy, D. M. 2011. Social Context Influences the Vocalizations of a Home-Raised African Grey Parrot (Psittacus erithacus erithacus).  •  Journal of Comparative Psychology. 125(2), 175-184. de Guerrero, M. C. M. 1987. The din phenomenon: Mental rehearsal in the second language.  Foreign Language Annals, 20, 537-548. •  Craige, BJ. 2010. Conversations with Cosmo. Santa Fe: Sherman Asher. •  Craige, BJ. 2012a. Cosmo parlays her potty talk. http://onlineathens.com/features/ 2012-02-25/craige-cosmo-parlays-her-potty-talk   •  Craige, BJ. 2012b. Cosmo Talks: One Bird Woman by Betty Jean Craige http://www.petpeeves. org/2012/05/03/cosmo-talks-one-bird-woman-by-betty-jean-craige/   •  Craige, BJ. 2012c. Celebrate the similarities, differences of humans and animals. http:// onlineathens.com/features/2012-05-19/craige-celebrate-similarities-differenceshumans- and-animals   •  Krashen, S. 1981. Second Language Acquisition and Second Language Learning. New York: Prentice-Hall. •  Krashen, S. 1982.   Principles and Practice in Second Language Acquisition. New York: Pergamon Press. Krashen, S. 1983.  •  The din in the head, input, and the language acquisition device. Foreign Language Annals 16, 41-44. •   Krashen, S. 1999. Condemned Without a Trial: Bogus Arguments Against Bilingual Education. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann Publishing Co.  •  Krashen, S. 2003. Explorations in Language Acquisition and Use: The Taipei Lectures. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann. Pepperberg, I. 1999.  •  The Alex Studies: Cognitive and Communicate Abilities of Grey Parrots. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Pepperberg, I. 2008.  •  Alex and Me. New York: Harper Swain, M., 1985. Communicative competence: some roles of comprehensible input and comprehensible output in its development.  •  In Gass, G., Madden, C. (Eds.), Input in second language acquisition. Newbury House, New York, NY, pp. 235- 254.  •  Weir R.H. 1962. Language in the Crib. The Hague: Mouton

Posted in Allgemein

Der kleine Delphin schlägt Purzelbäume?

Let me know if/when you (come to) understand this title! Let's take a good look at it together, now. -- Hmmm. You can see the verb is "schlagen," which means "to hit; to strike". What about "der kleine Delphin"? (think: marine life), and "Purzelbäume"? (You know: der Baum, and its plural: die Bäume. So what kind of trees will appear in this story!) --> Answers below.

• FOUND: An online source for German Books!

• With free downloaded ICDL Book Reader software (University of Maryland),

FIND HERE,

maybe I won't need to buy an iPAD or a KINDLE after all. Thanks to this site, there is a growing number of 'Deutsche Bücher' available right on my own computer. German is one of the languages (Home Page, upper right) one can select. Then, it's a matter of spinning the globe to select where you'd like your story to come from, and then, if there are more than one language versions, making sure you choose the German one.

Below is a book (selected from the European continent) that I really enjoy. It's a series of clever animal stories, with the title story coming first:

WARUM DER KLEINE DELPHIN PURZELBÄUME SCHLÄGT --
= Why the little Dolphin Cartwheels Strikes,

(-- We'd say 'turns' instead of "strikes', wouldn't we? I suppose we'd also find ourselves "straightening out" that unique German word order!)

UND ANDERE GESCHICHTEN = and other stories.

By Ulises Wensell • Illustrated by Ana Maria Machado

http://www.childrenslibrary.org/icdl/BookReader?bookid=warumde_00430004&twoPage=true&route=simple_272_0_0_German_64&size=0&fullscreen=false&pnum1=1&lang=English&ilang=German

--> So, when you see the BLOG title as listed above, will you immediately envision a little dolphin?
And will you remember what 'Purzelbäume' are, AND, also which verb is used here? I'm pretty confident that you will.

Let's look at a little more vocabulary. This is from the first page of the title story:

• besonders -- hoch - springen - können
=particularly -high -- jump --- (is) able to

• gern träumen = to gladly (like to) dream

• sich oft vorstellen = often imagine (one)self

• mit - den - Möwen - neben - den - Schiffen - herfliegen
=with - the - seagulls - next to (the) ships - (to) fly after

• sich plötzlich verlieben = to suddenly fall in love

• eine Sternschnuppe --> Any guesses where to start to define this long word?

HINT: This is one of those compound nouns in German, which takes its gender from the noun at the end of the word. Here, there are only two nouns combined:
- - - - der Stern, and - - - - die Schnuppe.

You may remember der Stern = the star.

Well, die Schnuppe is an interesting word in German. It means "Snuff" (ja Tabak!). But put these two words together, and you get (not star-snuff, but) "shooting star!"

• eine Delphindame (Any guesses here? Yup! Its also a compound noun featuring two different nouns. If you can find them, you can figure out this word on your own. Happy sleuthing!)

--> You now have enough vocabulary to write your own story here! That's a great idea, by the way. You know I'd love to read what you come up with, too.

--> Read the rest of the story, and keep track of all the interesting underwater vocabulary!

These other great stories follow that (very cute) dolphin story:

--2. QUACKEL, DIE ENTE

------3. DER JUNGE UND DER KLEINE WOLF

---------4. PACO, DER PAPAGEI (Papagei = Parrot! Isn't this a great word in German? Pronunciation: 'PA-pa-GUY'!)

•••> Wusstest Du, das Papageien auch Purzelbäume schlagen können? Man lernt das hier, in dieser Geschichte. (Hint: "die Geschichte" = 'the story' -- OR 'history'; and when you think about it, both of those words are related in English, too.)

•••> Welche Geschichte hast Du am liebsten? ....... Warum? ...........


OK. Another story that I've not only read, but I also downloaded from ICDL, is called:

GLÜCK IM UNGLÜCK, by Hans Wilhelm.

This title includes an interesting word that we in English got from the German language, luck. And in German, there are several words for luck, both GOOD and BAD. Into which column do you think "das Glück" falls? You'd be right, if you guessed "Good Luck" (although to wish someone "Good Luck", you'd say: "Glück auf!", or "Up with the Good Luck!").

One of the words for BAD luck appears in the title above. Find it there now, and I bet you'll remember it FOREVER!

(By the way, the other word that is often used for BAD luck is: "das Pech", which is ALSO another word for tar! If you were to grumble about your BAD luck, you might say: "So ein Pech!", or "Such bad luck.")

• As part of the package from the download, I can select if I'd like to view this book in "comic book format" with all its pages on display, or as a single page, as 2 pages, open book style, and even what background colors I'd like to see while reading. Since the text on this book seemed less clear than on the previous book, I bumped up the image, and WOW! Up popped the larger text with the clarity I needed to read effortlessly.

I'm already a big fan of this service! Let me know if you like this way of finding German literature, too.