Kapitel 6

To be honest, I am not quite surprised with the things that I have read in the articles.
Some German friends that I know have all claimed to have lost virginity at the age of 16 by the latest. I do not believe that it is just Germany; it has become rather a social norm in almost all of Europe. On the populist media magazine, I guess I could see some differences in American magazines such as the Times and Newsweek. The American magaziens tend to be more political than those of other nations, and I think that's the way the popular means of information should be. Each person must be held accountable for one's belief rather than having others feed them what they could be brainwashed to believe. The closed door thing was somewhat unusual, but I think this is because Germans like to make previous arrangements before they actually meet(being a bunch who do not particularly enjoy surprises).

Homer's day

I love The Simpsons, and it was interesting to see a German dub of it.
Unfortunately, I was only able to see Homer's version of the day as
other two were not available for viewing. Before I start, however,
I must say that the movie is reversed to avoid a copyrights complaint.

While I was studying the grammar without pronouncing every word that I was
seeing, I did not know how differently German sounded relative to American
English. Because it is a show based on the satirical nature of average American
family, what Homer and Marge were saying sounded very unnatural. It did not
at all seem like what German-speakers would say in such awkward situations(although it
is highly likely that they wouldn't put themselves in those situations first). Perhaps
they have a slight more dull lives than Americans do.

Kultur 5

I remember the bathrooms that I had to pay to get into in Paris. A guy wearing suit was taking money from people to use the bathroom, and the one of the signs near the entrance said that the stall doors opened after fifteen minutes. My experience with the paying bathroom has not been pleasant, and I hope it could change when I visit Germany again thanks to the efforts of the ladies who work very diligently. Although, I am not sure if I would like to go back even for a vacation. I had never been very comfortable with the sexual openness of Europe. It's against my personal view on sexuality, but I will not go into details.

Also, I found the way the German people interact with others quite intriguing. I do not believe that trying to develop deep friendship first, which happens to be relatively less common in American way of amour, is necessarily bad idea. Cautious, yes. But never reckless. From personal experience, I found it very challenging to try to move the level of relationship to a more intimate one without being able to attain a level of trust and vulnerability to make each other feel comfortable. I find it to be almost a way of being courteous for the other person.

Denglish

As a person who has studied the history of American English, as hard as it is for some parts of the German society to accept the courses of events, I believe that it is impossible for the German language to remain "pure" for languages are not rigid. Because it is the way people communicate and it is used all the time, it is only natural that people will try to find the easiest way to convey their thoughts and other terminology. This has happened in American English. Like the demographics of this country, American English, as we come to know it, is a mixture of Germanic, Latin(French, Spanisch, etc.) and England's languages. Scholars simply cannot prevent a particular way of communication among people.
This does not mean that I believe that it will have positive effect on the process of learning this language from the point of the students. This is because the nuances and non-standarization of a language will have harder time gaining the understanding of the contexts from which the Denglisch words come from. The best way for the Germans to preserve their language, as I see it, is to have different types of writings like the Japanese do. Have one for foreign language, one for speaking and informal communication, and one for formal writing whether it be scholarly or political. This way, the only aspect of their language that is affected is the one for foreign language.

Sam L.