AMD 3

The past weekend inspired me because of the hilarious superbowl commercials that were played on television. So for my third AMD I decided to look up on YouTube 2012 German commercials. I remember when I took German my sophomore year of high school my teacher after every chapter of our book would show us some hilarious German commercials, and I was excited to see if the newer commercials were just as funny as the last ones. It was also nice that I understand a lot more German now than when I was in high school, because I paid a lot more attention now (haha). One thing that I realized when looking for commercials from Germany is that they love Heidi Klum. I found several commercials with her in it including a Coke commercial. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1s-U1Ns9Rw I also noticed that many German commercials are very cheesy and seem cheaper to be made. The German commercials have such a corny sense of humor, you can’t help but laugh at them. Here is one about a bank robber that seemed very easy to make and it very corny. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qn8Ngz-bSXc
Overall from this experience I have learned that I find American commercials far more entertainment and will definitely appreciate our commercials a lot more.

AMD 3

Heute abend at dinner I tried to only speak auf Deutsch mit meine Freundin who has taken fünf Jahres of Deutsch. We started out with stuff I had learned, like we were telling each other our names und where we were from. Ich told her meine Lieblingsfarbe was blau und that mein Lieblingswort was überglucklich. Sie said her Lieblingswort was wunderbar. Then I told her that we were learning different foods so I told her some of the ones I could remember off the top of my head, like Apfel, Schwienelfleisch, Banane, Wurst, Fische, Bier, und Obst. Then she started listing off a bunch of other foods that me and my other friends were eating at dinner. I learned Huhn which is chicken, Pasta which is still pasta, and Französisch frites which is french fries.

AMD 3

Hallo!

I decided to go for something a bit more educational for this post compared to my previous posts. I was looking forward on the assignment page, and I came across an optional reading in Chapter 4. The reading is basically about whether language causes speakers to think differently. This is a very interesting idea because language is an extremely necessary thing in society. Without language, who knows whether the wheel would have ever been invented. The article talks about how different languages and how the speakers of those different languages orient themselves differently. It also calls into question whether languages themselves cause people to think differently. For example, a group of Aboriginal Australians orient themselves in terms of "absolute reference frames." English speakers (and most other cultures) orient themselves in terms of relative placement. This means that when I say to move your hand to the right, they would instead say (in their own language, of course) to move their hand north. This doesn't seem like a very large deal. It actually is very important because this causes these people to always know where they are. This is far better than most English speakers, me included. For example, when I am on the diag, I still think that State St. is south than me. If I were standing on the diag, State street would actually be west of me, and I would still think this if it wasn't for the fact that three of the roads around campus are named for their direction. Someone who spoke Kuuk Thaayorre would never have this problem because they have always been taught to think that way. There was even an experiment where they asked people who spoke numerous languages to place cards that showed a progression (banana being eaten) in order. English speakers placed these cards in order from left to right (the same way we read), and Hebrew speakers placed those same cards in order from right to left (the way Hebrew is read). The interesting group was the Abroriginal people. They placed these people in all different directions, but these people would always place the cards in order from east to west.

Apparently, other languages have genders. I thought it was difficult to learn the two (or three if you count neuter). The Aboriginal Australians have to learn 16 different genders. That sucks!!

In addition, gender actually does impact how people think about language. "Key" is masculine in German and feminine in Spanish. When referring to a key, Spanish speakers (Key is feminine) use words like "golden" and "intricate," while Germans (Key is masculine) say "metal" and "useful." This shows that language really does change the way that people think of words.