Wenn es im Winter stürmt und schneit, haben wir eine Flasche Glühwein allzeit bereit - life in Germany and Austria

[LinzerTorte]

As I couldn't find a suitable poem mentioning Glühwein, I composed my own. Please don't laugh.

All welcome - anyone living in Germany, Austria or anywhere else who would like to chat.

Morning all,

Just back from an open day at the Gymnasium with DD1. It was interesting and I think it could be a good school for DD2 (it has a focus on languages, which she's really interested in) but DD1 says she prefers the Neue Mittelschule and tbh I think she'd struggle at Gymnasium anyway. She finds primary school hard enough and is starting to struggle a bit with maths now too. Mind you, so am I - I was trying to help her with multiplication this morning and they do it a completely different way to how I learned it at school, so even though I could see that the answer was wrong I couldn't work out how she'd got to it!

Canella Well done on being assertive yesterday. That's really cheeky of the mother to send her children so early after you'd expressly told her not to; hopefully she won't do it again!
Good grammar explanation btw; I'm sure we learned the rules at school (or at least a list of the prepositions that take the accusative, dative, etc.) but I usually just rely on which case sounds right. Or I mumble and hope that no one will notice. If all else fails and DH picks me up on something, I'll claim it's German rather than Austrian usage.

Jenny Fingers crossed your course can go ahead; good news on the tutoring, anyway. Hope the skiing lessons go well; are just the DC learning or do you go skiing too?

Gator We had an automatic in the USA and as I hadn't driven for about ten years before then, I virtually had to learn to drive from scratch when I got my car here - I kept panicking because I couldn't remember which gear I was in!

Right, question for you all since I had a disagreement discussion about it with DH a few days ago. I used the word Scheinwerfer to mean (normal) headlights and he corrected me, saying that Scheinwerfer is full-beam. Apparently the normal headlights we drive with are Abblendlicht, which I thought sounded wrong - isn't that dipped headlights? Although I suppose you do dip your lights if you're driving at full beam and another car approaches, so maybe dipped headlights are the "normal" ones. I'm still not convinced that Scheinwerfer aren't normal headlights and tried my usual "but I'm sure that's what they say in Germany" trick, but DH wasn't having any of it. Or maybe I just learned the wrong word at school.

Linzer Having thought about this for a millisecond, I'd say Scheinwerfer are the actual lamps and that in normal usage you just talk about Licht. The signs by tunnels usually just say "Licht an!" So I guess I would normally talk about aufblenden and abblenden and avoid using any nouns unless I wanted to say "ein Scheinwerfer ist kaputt" or something.

I think spotlights are also Scheinwerfer, though, so maybe German speakers do use the term to refer to the light from headlights on full beam. I certainly wouldn't think twice about saying something like "es ist so dunkel, ich muss die Scheinwerfer anschalten", but that doesn't mean it isn't incorrect .

silken You're right, it is far more common just to use Licht, e.g. Licht einschalten - I don't think DH would ever use Scheinwerfer in that situation. I was probably translating headlights literally, whereas I could/should really have just said Licht.

I have nothing to add to the headlight debate except that I would say Licht because I don't know the other words! I have nothing to add to the grammar debate because I am so far behind the rest of you the problem had not even come to my attention... I blunder along in my own haze I guess.

Thought I was going to a book club this morning but it all went wrong due to the woman who invited me pulling out and then revealing she had not actually told the other members about me, so I could hardly go without her! Probably just as well as its not something I could go to regularly as they don't often meet far enough out in our direction for me to get back in time for dd, and there was no book just a saccharine sweet self congratulatory autobiographical passage, about which I was struggling to say anthing pleasant, but I would have quite liked to talk to real live native speaker adults... ah well.

Have a house full of kids again instead. canella well done on sending the cheeky little boys away (well the boys with cheeky mum) I think I was blunt enough with neighbour girl finally the last time, when I told her dd didn't have to play with her as she had not been invited to play, as now her brother turns up without her in tow at last!

Mr Collins (not the pocket variety and whom I love unconditionally ) says that Scheinwerfer is headlight, Fernlicht is full beam and Abblendlicht is dipped. I do love my dictionaries!

Regarding cases: the nominative is doing the action, the verb is the action and the accusative is receiving the action. So in the sentence, "ich trinke einen Kaffee." Ich is in the nominative, trinke is the action and einen Kaffee is the direct object receiving the action, i.e. being drunk.

In the sentence, "er trinkt mit mir einen Kaffee," er is the nominative, Kaffee is the accusative and mir is the dative which is the indirect object. Mit always takes the dative! The dative noun should come before the accusative, hence, "ich schreibe meiner Mutter einen Brief." Again, ich=nominative; Brief=accusative; and the letter is going to my mother so it is indirect and therefore dative.

Genitive is the belonging case, like our possessive s, e.g. das Auto des Jahres; die verlorene Ehre der Katharina Blum; the car of the year, the lost of honour of K B (I read this a million years ago for A Level). So, ich kaufe mit meinem Taschengeld den Wagen meines Bruders. I think informally you could say mein Bruders Wagen these days. Which prepositions take which case usually need learning.

What were you asking re clauses? Subordinate clauses with relative pronouns?

Shite on a stick that last post was long, sorry!

Yes, that's what I thought I learned re headlights Jenny. Collins used to be my bible, but as it's all the way upstairs I now find it quicker to check on Leo etc - and actually, even when I'm working, I usually use online dictionaries rather than Collins. I still think that linguistically, I'm right (i.e. Scheinwerfer are normal headlights) but that what DH says about Abblendlicht being the normal headlights you drive with isn't wrong either. And yes, I would have said Fernlicht for full beam too.

admylin What Jenny wrote about the dative coming before the accusative has reminded me of something I learned at school that might be useful wrt the order of parts of sentences: TMP (time manner place). For example, you would say ich gehe morgen (time) mit meiner Schwester (manner) ins Kino (place). Apologies if you know this already; I was just quite excited about actually remembering something I'd been taught at school.

Yes, Mr Wilde was quite insistent about TMP in my German lessons too! There were 6 of us for GCSE and 2 for A Levels! They'd never run it now. Don't you miss the feel of a dictionary though, Linzer?

Not really Jenny, although I was in love with my dictionaries when I was at school. I do like the look of them on my shelves, though - or I would if they weren't falling apart! We had a really good German teacher so German was very popular at A level, but there were only two of us in my French class. We used to go for extra literature coaching at the university together too, as our teacher couldn't teach literature for toffee. I still shudder at the thought of French religious poets and bicycle races!

This is great for my grammar. I'm putting it all together as a lesson on a doc.file and then I will learn it, thanks jenny and linzer!

Snow today but I don't think it's going to last (phew).

I also love dictionaries! I have just been looking at some German ones on amazon as dd will need a good German dictionary for school. They have a set one for French and English but no suggestions for a German one. I think Langenscheidt is the most popular but not sure.

Snow here too - we have been sledging (well not me personally, we don't have a big enough sledge... ) but the older 2 kids and Henry and I watched for a bit. DD and her friend also did good snow clearing as they needed the snow to build ramps :) All indoors now, with hot chocolate and biscuits. DD's friend tried to convince me she couldn't take her own snow suit off and needed me to do it for her - she will be 8 on Tuesday! I reminded her of the fact and pointed out that I think she can probably manage everything 4 yo DS1 can, and she had the grace to look embarrassed!

I don't mind snow if its the kind kids can play in, I only dislike weather that keeps them indoors all day...

lalalala I'm not listening to grammar explanations as they remind me how rubbish and lacking in correct grammar my German is, I expect you'd all cringe to hear me - I cling desperately to the fact i do at least make myself understood and usually understand what is said to me, but that is where I am at! (never did German at school though, have done half a VHS course, gave up on it using the excuse of it being too hard with tiny children).

Just to reassure you, Linzer, DH reckons your DH is wrong and that it is perfectly okay to refer to headlights, whether dipped or full-beam, as Scheinwerfer.

at fight by proxy, silken. That's good to know, anyway. I don't normally mind DH correcting me but I was so convinced I was in the right this time!

We had a good weekend here, did lots of decluttering and now have about 20 bags in the garage waiting to be taken to the charity shop. If only we actually had a charity shop here, it would make life so much easier.

It was the second first communion service (IYSWIM) at church on Sunday, which went OK. Well, apart from the fact that we were sitting in the second pew and I spent most of the service terrified that the priest would shove the microphone in my face - he came perilously close during the Fürbitten). It was nice to chat to some friends at the Pfarrcafe afterwards too (must admit I enjoy the cafe bit more than the actual service). Have discovered why my Irish friend's son is always called by a nickname - it's because none of the Austrians can pronounce his name. I was a bit as I didn't think it was too difficult to pronounce until I discovered I'd been mispronouncing it too.

linzer well done for getting rid of so much stuff! What are you going to do with all the new space you've now must have?

I sat through a 3 hour hockey tournament on Sunday. Dd got to play for 5 minutes otherwise she was on the bench. One team had travelled from a town about an hour anway from us and the parents were awful. While their dds' were playing I heard them shout spiel doch endlich, mach doch, scheiss kinder (yes, honestly) and sind die dooff oder was - all to their own dc. They lost and half of the girls looked close to tears. Not my cup of tea that sort of sport.

Doesn't sound like my cup of tea either, admylin. Mind you, sport isn't really my cup of tea full stop! But particularly not competitive sport; it just brings back too many painful memories of school!

Sadly, the extra space isn't really noticeable as most of it is in the cellar. We can actually move in the one room now, which is definitely progress. However, it's still far too full of Lego and DH's stuff (two big chests of drawers and a tall bookcase full of goodness knows what - photography equipment, ancient books on metallurgy, etc etc.)

A friend of mine has asked whether I'd be willing to give her conversation classes. I've provisionally said yes, although we won't be starting until after the Semesterferien. I'm just not used to teaching adults at all though, so have no idea what to expect or how much preparation will be involved. She said she just wants to practise her conversation and for someone to correct her mistakes, but I suppose I'll have to at least try to find a topic to discuss each lesson.

Linzer Well done on the de-cluttering. There´s also a distinct lack of charity shops here in Germany. It always surprises me because Germans are so keen on recyling and I really miss the lack of second hand book shops.

admylin That sounds awful. Hopefully it was an indoor tournament, I wouldn´t fancy standing around outside at this time of year. It´s a shame your dd didn´t get to play for longer.
Ds is so rubbish at football that they never even tell us when there is a tournament. On the one hand I think this is wrong and that all the children should be allowed to play even if for only a few minutes. On the other hand we don´t have to give up most of one of the days at the weekend to watch him play.

We were invited to a party at the weekend which I thought was to be at our friend´s house. It turned out dh hadn´t read the invitation propery(by e-mail) and we had to walk to a hut in the middle of the forest. This would have been a lovely on a crisp winter´s evening, but it was pouring with rain, really cold and totally muddy - not my idea of a fun evening at all.

hupa sounds spooky walking througha forest in the dark! Hope the party was worth it. I don't like forests as it is in the day light but at night - no thanks!

The hockey tournament was indoors thank goodness. linzer i suppose some competitiveness is good for dc but not than sort and I'm surprised that my dd goes there willingly as she crumbles under any sort of critisism or defeat! I am trying not to discourage her but I wouldn't mind if she stopped (even after forking out for the kit!) and she could always try athletics which tales place in our local club.

I did conversation in Berlin and we used one of the Cambridge certificate books with cd's but I can't remember which one. The student was preparing for the oral exam and she would listen to the CD then answer the questions then we'd discuss the topic (ranged from Formula 1 racing to healthy eating etc), anyway it meant very little preparation time for me as there were plenty of topics. MAybe you could have a look if the library has them.

Have just dropped all three DC at DS's best friend's birthday party, so now have over two hours to myself. I did feel slightly guilty, however, as the friend's mum seemed a little stressed about the fact that there were 16 children there - apparently a couple of mothers had phoned up and asked if their DC could come along too, and one had even brought his sister! I offered to stay and help or to pick the DC up early, but she said she'd be OK. I was just at people inviting themselves, however.

admylin I've just discovered that DH has some old EFL books in the cellar so will look at those to see if I can find anything useful. I'm sure there would be material on the Internet too, although it can often be a bit overwhelming as there's just so much out there.

hupa A party in a hut in the middle of a forest doesn't sound like my idea of fun either - not in this kind of weather, at any rate.

It puzzles me too why there are so few charity shops here; we can take clothes to the Caritas clothes bank but I just don't know what to do with the rest of the stuff. We're planning to take it to the Anglican church shop in Vienna on Saturday, but it's quite a hassle to go into the city specially; we'll probably combine it with a visit to a museum and then possibly lunch at an Indian restaurant.

Linzer Unless your student brings a textbook of her own, I would steer clear and try more to go with her interests. I would start by reviewing the different tenses without making it obvious, ie. asking lots of basic questions to review the present simple, then maybe talking about photographs for the present continuous. Describing daily routine covers lots of irregular verbs, so you can review past simple using that and even practise the present perfect by asking lots of how many questions - how many cups of coffee do you drink every day? how many did you drink yesterday? how many have you drunk so far today? Talk about weekend and holday plans for the future tense.

Ime most adult students want to be corrected far more than is practical. You should aim to let the conversation flow as much as possible (because it will make your job easier and mean less preparation). Do you ever read The Week? It's a round-up of the news which quotes different papers and has a really good selection of short articles which I have often used in lessons. Features such as "Good Week for... Bad Week for..." and "It must be true, I read it in the tabloids" are particularly good.

This post is starting to get long and incomprehensible, so here is a sort of summary fwiw:

• break down inhibitions by starting with lots of questions about basic subjects.
• use short texts as a sort of springboard to get the conversation going (I have often chosen texts that are too long). The student should read the text aloud in the lesson.
• avoid translating. Both you and the student should try to explain unfamilar words in English.
• go with the flow. If you are lucky, your student will just ramble away in English and all you have to do is throw in the odd correction . This is why too much correction is impractical.

Hth!

Thanks silken, that's all really useful advice. I had another look at DH's old text books and it doesn't look like I'd really be able to use them anyway. I was talking to an English teacher friend of mine about conversation classes yesterday and she made very similar suggestions to yours, e.g. openers using grammar to practise the different tenses. The link looks good too, thank you.

I was thinking last night about correcting speech, as I can't imagine anything worse than speaking to someone and them correcting all the mistakes I make! Obviously she'd like to have her mistakes corrected as she's coming for conversation classes (and has told me so too), but I agree about too much correction being impractical and interrupting the flow.

DD2, who's normally the organised one, told me at 6 pm last night that she has a Sachunterrichtstest today. She'd known since Friday and DH was really annoyed with her. Luckily she already knew all the months, seasons, units of time, etc. so we "just" had to revise different types of evergreens, their needles and cones. I learned a new word: Bockerln (pine cones). DH admitted he didn't know it either (he'd only heard DD1 using it) and decided it must be a Lower Austrian term!

Afternoon all!

Did anyone else have the weird, frosty mist this morning? Our street looked very spooky when it started to get light. I was supposed to be out at Rückbilding but missed it for the second week running as DS decided he was hungry 5 minutes before we were due to leave and then spent ages fussing over his bottle. I can't say I was that upset to have missed it though, to be honest.

We can pick up the new car this weekend! We decided not to part-exchange ours like we originally planned as the dealer said if we sold it privately we could probably get about a grand for it, then the next day said he could only offer us ?200 for it, so we will take our chances and see how we go.

Of course, now I am sitting with a cup of tea and 5 minutes to post, DS has started grizzling! Sorry I haven't had chance to catch up on individual posts but I hope you're all well.

gator have you got a trip planned when you pick your car up? Dh usually has no time but when we picked the car up he drove it round Hannover like a boy with his new toy! The dc were not impressed!

linzer how did your dd2's test go? Sounds like school in Austria is very tough. I think in the UK they do what we know as sachunterricht mostly in long projects with lots of poster making and trips but not so much in the way of testing.

A new postman delivered my amazon order today. He was strange and I didn't understand half of what he said. So either I am going deaf or he had a strong accent (my dc say I'm going deaf as I don't understand them either with their teenage mumbles)? No idea, anyway usually the postman rings the bell and stands back abit but this one was leaning on the door frame when I opened it and he also kept peering past me down my hallway (yep, it was a mess).

Off to study my new cookery book and atleast I have a decent book to start tonight.

Good news on the car, Gator - not long to go now! Hope you can get a decent price for your old one. No strange mist here, but it was very frosty yesterday morning so I had to give up on my run after about two minutes.

admylin What book are you about to start? I've just finished the MN book of the month, in time for the webchat in a few days, but I can't say I was overly impressed.

DD2 got full marks in her test, despite only remembering an hour before bedtime the night before that she needed to revise. DH and I were both saying what a relief it is to have one child that we don't have to worry about at school.

It feels like it's been a long day here. I went into school for the English lessons this morning; DD1's teacher is ill atm and DH thought I probably wouldn't have to teach the lesson (I wasn't convinced, as I've taught before when she's been ill). I actually ended up teaching for half an hour longer than usual! The headteacher asked me if I could cover for an extra 10 minutes and that she would come back for the last 15 minutes. I still hadn't got through all the material I'd planned when she came back in so I offered to teach the rest of the lesson as well; she was very grateful as she said that three teachers were off sick and she was struggling to cover them. I didn't mind the extra teaching, although it did mean about 40 minutes less child-free time - I'd planned to get lunch ready in that time, but of course arrived home with both DDs and nothing prepared to eat.

Then had the usual nightmare at ice skating with DS. I think I'm going to let him off the last two weeks as even once I've persuaded him to take part, he obviously doesn't enjoy it and I have to stay with him the whole time (and put up with comments from the teacher about mothers mollycoddling their sons, "is he like this at home?", etc.).

Just managed to get to the first communion class in time afterwards - well, about five minutes late, but it hadn't actually started. Two mothers were discussing Zeugnisse afterwards as one thought the children would be getting them tomorrow. I'd completely forgotten that they'll be getting them next week, but then I'm not obsessed with them like some parents. I quite often feel inclined to shoot people discussing Zeugnisse; the parents in DD2's class are particularly bad (not so much in DD1's luckily). Then they started talking about a metsch (one mother's son obviously plays football). I was so tempted to ask, "What's a metsch? Oh, you mean a match?" But bit my tongue.

Hello, just back from teaching my first German lesson of this trimester. Only 9 people, but it went quite well. I liked the tips on teaching conversation, silken. Sometimes using a cartoon like Calvin and Hobbes can be a good starter for conversation on various topics. I did chortle at metsch, Linzer, but well done on the school teaching!

Congratulations on the new car Gator . Also envious of admylin's amazon order! I would have been quite worried about walking through the forest in the dark and rain, hupa. Do they always throw such interesting parties?
Need an early night tonight as this cold seems to be hanging on and dh keeps working till past midnight then disturbing me as he comes to bed.
Have good Fridays!

Jenny hope the lessons go well! Is it easy to get a babysitter when you teach? My dh does the same as yours, works late then somehow manages to wake me when he comes home. I should give up on going to bed early and go back to having a siesta like when the dc were small!

Linzerthe school must be really pleased to have you! Have they not tried to get you to go in more often? Well done to your dd for the full marks. I have ds who I don't have to worry about with school (well unless being lazy develops into a habit) as he only has to write his vocab and he's learned it - dd has to sit for hours and still gets the spellings wrong.

Snow this morning, just as I was saying to ds at breakfast that I didn't think we'd be getting any winter weather at all - I opened the blind and saw everything was white! Hope it starts to melt before I have to get the car out of the garage to go to dd's dyslexia lesson. I can hear the sound of snow shovels grating along the pavements outside.