Learning Deutsch / German

B1+ new school

2012-10-11T18:49:00.002+02:00

ha ha haaaa!!!
i have just registered in another deutsch school. fan blimming tastic.!!! i am soo soo excited. it feels like its being forever since i updated my blog. The school bosses were so so friendly and chatty. So much so that i didn't think twice on my return for the entry test about buying one of them a little gift. She seemed to appreciate it. she call me crazy. i took that as a compliment. ha.

http://community.imaginefx.com/forums/storage/7/278999/MadScientist03.jpg

i'll definitely be going back next week

2012-08-03T18:25:00.000+02:00

A very energetic day for me yesterday. I seemed to be 300% full of energy compared to my new German comrades at the table tennis group. I ran round the tables and doing press ups (honest i wasn't trying to show off to the girls) ha. I mostly understood what they said and the instructions the couch gave. And as usual I made sure no one switched to English. We all went out for a drink after showers and a quick warm down. And i got into some conversations. I obviously looked blank most of the time but I was excited to be mingling with a full blooded German crowd. No foreigners here. ha. They all seemed really nice, importantly very patient with my lack of fluidity in spoken Deutsch, very welcoming and no doubt pretty good at table tennis which i really really enjoyed. Only comrades A and B were in attendance. A is the couch. there were 5 girls and 3 guys in total yesterday and amazingly all the girls were lesbians. and two of the guys were gay. (no, not moi) OMG!!! what are the odds of that happening. Well only in Berlin i guess.

http://www.vorspiel-berlin.de/sportangebot/abteilung/tischtennis.html

Deutsch table tennis accent.

2012-08-01T17:53:00.001+02:00

Waooo!!! i just wrote two official letters in Deutsch. A tad proud of myself. No doubt i had to make use of the trusted dictionary to get some spellings and choice of words right. Ha.

How funny was yesterday, went for my first table tennis session at the local club. One of the girls after a little chat said i had an accent in deutsch. Interesting; i initially thought. How can i have an accent whilst speaking deutsch to her. I've only been speaking for less than a year. I think what she meant was that sounded like a foreigner. ha ha. obviously to nice to say it.
Although when i hear the mistakes a German makes while speaking English, i always wonder if that is how bad my german mistakes sound. No doubt, most Germans speak better english than my German.

www.b7k.co.uk

Deutsch B1 mündliche Prüfung completed.

2012-07-16T21:10:00.001+02:00

Waoo, i thought the speaking test would be soooooo much more harder. Now in hind sight i am glad the invigilators refused to honour my request to switch my partner to frau MONtan. As the super nervous / fidgety mother of 5kids (OMG) made me look like super man. I was cool as ice. She went on a random wild goose chase when she could have just answered the question she was asked and correctly. The invigilators had to stop her talking and digging her self deeper in the hole without actually answering the question.

section one
what is my name, where do i live etc questions were just a walk in the park. Geeez. i could answer or ask those question in my sleep. thank you König Jakob!! every day for almost two months we practiced those questions before we even started the daily lessons. The slim not so very nice invigilator (BAD COP), then asked me a question about my work. OMG i didn't understand her. i swear she mumbled the verb as i asked her to repeat it twice. My newly commissioned sweat pores dam suddenly developed a major fault. a massive flood broke through the gates as i battled to answer her without straying too far from the question asked. I brought it under control shortly after. Kool as ice!! yeah right.

section two.
i had to describe a photo of a one child family with their dog all sitting in the park. This section seem to go through much smoothly as i even cracked a joke with the larger nicer invigilator (GOOD COP). she laughed. Phew!!!

section three.
For this section myself and my co-student are supposed to speak with each other. we were supposed to discuss arranging a cooking outing with 4 other of our student mates. I started the conversation by offering to host the party at my place and that Saturday sounds like a good day to have the cooking party. so i asked her if that was okay with her. I expected her to say yeah, that is fine and move on the conversation. OOOOMMMMMMGGGGGG!!!!! she must have either thought she'd get some extra points from the invigilators or maybe totally forgot it was all fiction and i wasn't really inviting her to my place to cook or maybe she is really just bunkers. Anyway, she disagreed with me by saying she had to take one of baby girls to some….. i switched off at this point. WTF are you talking about woman?!!??? then she went on about something else which i didn't quite get. wanting to bring us back to earth, i jumped in by offering the week after my first offer. phew she took it and we moved on. How glad was i when the invigilators called a time-out.

Went back to waiting room 30 where the other guys were waiting. Elated and very relieved it was all over. Shared the question we were asked with the guys as we were the first. I was very pleased with my performance. König Jacob can take some serious pride in knowing he trained me very well. Whilst we all discussed our questions, Mrs sweet colombiana nibbled on my tattooed shoulder whilst also stroking it. I'm guessing she was so nervous she needed her man close to her to calm her down. I was the closest thing around to resemble what some deem as a man. ha ha.

hot birds

2012-07-16T00:02:00.000+02:00

we arranged a group outing for yesterday, sunday. Out of a possible 15ish that could have come out for the dinner/drinks only only 4 of us from the school plus one (Frau Montez's husband). Such an embarrassingly disappointing turn out. So bad myself and NATmon had sweep stakes as to who would come out. ha. Nevertheless, i had so much fun with the group and i also had the perfect vantage seat to check out all the hot birds that flew past me. And there were a ton of them. First time meeting Mr montez, he is a really kool dood. I liked him instantly. i have to admit i expected him to be a knob head before today. Don't ask me why, i really do not know why. ha. Goes to show it is so much better to meet someone in person than make prejudgement based on what someone has written.

excellent deutsch practice outing for me. In preparation for my spoken test later today monday. fingers crossed all goes well....

operation Deutsch B1 prüfung success

2012-07-15T16:16:00.001+02:00

Ha haaa. I changed the system operating language on my laptop to run in deutsch. guess i am getting more confident with my abilities.

...but i so didn't feel confident before my B1 prüfungs/exam on friday the 13th. which also pisstakenly started at 1300hrs. A week before i kept thinking about my friends birthday which was also on the 13th and how badly i would perform on the day. Seriously i am not superstitious, but the friday the thirteenth trepidations weighed on me like a large lorry carrying two hundred dead bodied to the morgue with only lawn mower engine under its bonnet. I carried my note books every where i went and every second i had spare on the train i pulled it out and read. i still felt i wasn't doing enough. How does one successfully revise for a Deutsch exam?? The fact that König Jakob had trained us over and over and over again, using several past mock papers was a very welcomed nervous alleviator. So i kept telling myself; i should be ready. I believed the voices 60% of the times. hence i didn't open my book even once, one day prior to the exam. What i did was to listen and read more random books newspapers and watched deutsch programs on youtube. Hitler stories were quite informative.

The orientierungs course Prüfung felt a tad less mentally challenging than this one. Maybe cos we had a definitive set of questions to learn. This time it was different. i went through my artikel table to refresh my memory with the loosely fixed artikels in my head. I am still yet to develop a system/mnemonic for the conjuctions; annoying!!

Stayed calm on the exam day. no stress on this guy, unlike Metall who called me 30mins before the start of the exam asking what time the exam started. I was totally shocked but she made it there on time. Exam room was on the fifth floor of the school. nice vantage point. i chilled out almost hypnotised by the height, looking down through the large windows onto the life proceeding. I could even recognised people on the ground. photo from my mobile is below. looking at Nollendorfplatz Uban station.

One could tell that Stephan our exam invigilator had handled these exams before. too many times that he could do it in his sleep. He walked into the class just before 1300hrs to be met by just 4 students out of a possible 16. he knew something was wrong after checking the list and saw there was room for confusion as to the location of the exam. He went to the other school building where he found the rest of the students waiting in the wrong room.

After a 20min long nursery school style, step by step clarification on how to write our names on the exam paper. amazingly some people still managed to get it wrong.

The exam began okay, then during the listening part someone decided ask a question. Thank goodness Stephan appreciated the disturbance hence replayed the CD question. next annoying person was my nachbar/neighbour to my right. She grabbed my eraser but thought it was okay not to return it immediately. Then when she started running out of time on reading section of the test, could not seat still and became increasingly annoying by also vocalising her emotions. Unlucky for me, on monday i officially have to do my speaking test with her. OMG!!! give me strength to get through it without stuffing a rotten chicken in her mouth.

the listening sections 1, 2, 3 and 4 were actually pretty easy. Luckily.
i started to sweat after i saw the reading section. OMG!!! i knew i was in serious trouble when it took me 5 mins to read the first question and could not find the answer that went with it. 8mins passed and still no question in the reading section answered. so i left it; did the other questions in the reading section 2, 3, 4 and 5. then came back to the advertising section that made me lose brain cells. The writing section was okay ISH too. i kept it very short and sweet.

All in all, i was 70% pleased with my performance. fingers crossed that is reflected in the results too which we wont receive for another 7 weeks or more. GSUS!!! that is way too long.

try out sample tests here if you are so brave.

mock test over / bring on the real deal.

2012-07-01T20:36:00.001+02:00

ALL FINISHED!!!. i am currently at 71.6% pass rate. wooo hooo. i actually did every question. now i can only hope the questions i got right comes out. Hence making my life easier.

If i have to be really honest. I think the test is designed in such a way as not to put too much emphasis on being tricky. I guess they must have taken into account that the people they are asking these questions, most times don't actually understand Deutsch. Hence the options in the answers are sometimes deliberately stupid/obvious if you understand what you are reading.

/ total 98 A coloured slash means the question is just too easy and even a 2year old baby would be able to get it right.

+ total 71 The plus sign means i got the answer wrong and have to attempt it again. I never mark the answers on the questions and/or give any hint so that it still feels sort of fresh when i next return to the question.

| total 81 the vertical line means i got the question right possibly after reading the questions and answers several times and/or also using the dictionary.

jewish franky excursion

2012-07-01T20:14:00.000+02:00

annoyingly i lost my first draft of this post. hence why it is late. more write up to come....

Passing the orientierungs exam.

2012-06-30T09:42:00.002+02:00

Based on the questions i have answered to date. i am currently at 62.5% pass rate. i think that is a pretty pretty good percentage. considering last week i didn't think i would be able to pass it.

I am very happy with the system i developed to help me. see photo below.
/ A coloured slash means the question is just too easy and even a 2year old baby would be able to get it right. [currently stands at 94 out of 250]. + The plus sign means i got the answer wrong and have to attempt it again. I never mark the answers on the questions and give any hint so that it still feels sort of fresh when i next return to the question. | the vertical line means i got the question right possibly after reading the questions and answers several times and/or also using the dictionary. [currently stands at 62 out of 250].
hence my current total of 156 out of 250. I am yet to answer 27 out of the 250. hence i hope the percentage will increase and not tumble.

Kinky pissed off husband having a hot drink.

2012-06-29T21:53:00.001+02:00

what a day. good for me. not for some. Mrs Japan was in attendance but no green elephant. we went through at blistering eye watering speed, all 300 possible questions that may come out in the exam next monday. initially i didn't think we would make it. but Frankie was very firm on the rule that no major explanations or interruptions until we had gone through the lot. very well done by him i would say as all hell broke loose when he tried to explain Bundespräsident, Bundeskanzler Bundesregierungs etc to Aidada. i got most of it but needed a few more nudges. so did YES ma'am. the explanations went on for soooooo long that i think it actually pissed off our ZEIT frau. whom stormed out of the klass. Well, that is the only reason can think of that would have ticked her off. Aidada totally dominating the attention of Frankie. Strangely she still didn't get it at the end of the klass. Poor thing.

Bloody hell!! hindsight is a bloody bastard. i just thought why didn't i take a photo of YES ma'am schönes outfit. oh well. she did say she would wear it again on monday but next time with her hair parted into two bunches like a proper school girl. cant wait to see that. Fantasies of britney spears in the kinky uniform springs to mind. HALLOOO!!!! ha.

it was so hot today. was soo glad to walk into an air-conditioned class room. but girls being girls they were cold less than 15mins into the lesson. OMG!!! NO NO NO i pleaded with franky. Aidada and I offered spare t-shirts and tops for the cold girls to wear. SYdina ran away from her original seat to a spot that wasn't directly opposite the air-conditioner. And Mrs Albania wore my black hooded top.

ran into Metall's husband outside the school on my way home. I actually almost missed him. he looked well considering a back operation which required screws being inserted into his spine.

now heading out to have drinks with a deutsch friend. yes i do have a deutsch friend. well actually not just one. i say that cos YES ma'am said the other day to my very surprised face, that she didn't have any deutsch friends. I didn't give her too much stick. ha. but i wound her up a bit today when she asked frankie baby a question, to which the answer was on the board. i asked her if she needed glasses. ha ha ha. she sulked a bit but later calmed down.

triceratops immortalised

2012-06-29T11:20:00.000+02:00

the infamous triceratops squeegee toy we threw around the class When it was someones turn to answer a question. otherise know as KLEINE KOLLEGE.

silly billy

2012-06-27T22:55:00.001+02:00

How silly did i look today when i slipped off my seat. fell backwards and smacked my head on the wall. Laid there for what felt like eternity trying to re-group.

explosive laughter

2012-06-27T12:48:00.000+02:00

yet another really super day in klass. I have now started answering some of the sample questions in the orientierungs book which is really giving me more confidence that i may just be able to scrape through the test.

Franky baby is just too sweet. he actually really waits for us to stop joking, talking and laughing before he continues talking. König Jakob would usually hand out a large stick. ha ha. Totally different teaching styles. But amazingly both work well. I am really looking forward to our excursion to the Jewish denkmal(museum and memorial) on thursday.

A few seconds after i loaded my mouth with turkish chickpeas, YES ma'am reminded me about the joke from yesterday. OMG!!! that caused some very unpleasant almost too embarrassing reaction. As half the content of my mouth came flying out.

Went out for an iranisher meal with friends of friends of friends of friends. seriously the link is really that long. i couldn't even begin to explain it here. we were 8 in total. Lucky me the restaurant was in the neighbourhood of the Hacknackschule. so i literally walked there in less than 5 minutes. It ws such a fun meal. Unfortunately it all came out in the toilet the next morning.

funniest day ever.

2012-06-25T21:56:00.000+02:00

definitely the funniest day ever. we all laughed our lunges off. The green elephant and YES ma'am were on top form today. Aidada wanted her way with the photo antworts exercise but didn't get it, but pressed on and on like a raging spanish bull; michael slept forever then when he awoke we all knew about it. Viktoria's mind seemed to be else where. she wasn't even laughing at the jokes. Metall didn't understand frankie baby at all. i guess cos she had been away from the class for too long. After the class we then went outside and lucky us Gina's kid and husband were outside. we all took turns in cuddling her baby girl. no surprise she started crying when i carried her.

best deutsch teacher and class ever.

2012-06-21T22:24:00.002+02:00

Sorry i have being very lazy posting recently. latest thing i did was this fab photo of our class. http://b7kfotos.blogspot.com/2012/06/best-deutsch-class-ever.html
i think it looks good and sums up the energy in the class.

Phew!!! and strangely saddened. Phew, meaning i finally handed my pet project over to the König. he seemed genuinely pleased. and everyone seamed to like it. Also bought him a cactus plant as suggested by the others. I was close to not buying it as i was really really stressed out by the experience in the photo printing shop. was in the shop for close to 4hrs trying to print out something that seemed initially very simple.

The bad mood carried on till the next day. I felt really shitty and so did not feel like going out as planned with The König and others. i used some seriously upbeat music to drag my ass out and to my deutsch orientierungs klass. It was a very fun filled evening in the end. Zeit Frau disappeared and Albanisher Frau had tooth ache so went home. In the end we were just 6. I later thought it was a very good move i did the present hand over the day before. As i got more people to sign the back of the Big photo.

Burrowed zeit frau my photo card reader and phone cable. I must really trust her. as wouldn't normally give out something like that i use for photography.

concentrate on him

2012-06-14T10:48:00.002+02:00

Second day of orientienrungs course. Waoo i am really having to concentrate on what Franky baby our teacher is saying. There are just tons of new words flying our of the guys mouth. I understand what he say 30seconds to a minute after he has said it. Mrs albania is so bored she could fall over. Mrs Peru literally falls asleep.

End of an era

2012-06-12T13:20:00.000+02:00

OMG!!!! last day with König Jakob. I could have sworn he had a lump in his throat as he gave his last speech to all of us. Sweet. I have really REALLY enjoyed him too. He brought in loads of chocolate goodies and the turkish governor; henceforth to be called yoghurt man. Self named. Because he brought in a load of nice spicy cheese and bread with sweet cherry size tomatoes. very nice of him.

we corrected the homework from last week. then played a paired sentence game. one person has half of a sentence, the other person has the other half. on person has to guess the other part of the sentence is. The person with the answer can give the other hints to guide his or her partner to the right answer. Simple enough ish concept. I was paired with michael who so did not get it. Even after The könig had explained it three times and i had tried twice and failed.

first game was filling out a table with information about 7people. All the info is spread on two papers. YES ma'am's favourite game. no surprise she finished first whilst working with FULL MOON. The last time we played the game with different information of course; i was paired with YES ma'am. We finished the exercise so quickly and were having coffee while the others battled with it. ha.

The Iran senator and the Turkish governor aren't attending the next phase of the course. what a shame. I will really miss everyone when it ends in 2weeks. waoo!! what a cracking crowd.

A lady from the school came to chat to the class about continuation options etc. i think i understood 90% of what she said.

After the class some of us had an extended alcoholic beverage session with the König. we all spoke Deutsch but got corrected all the time by the König of course.

sorry peeps

2012-06-09T05:08:00.000+02:00

sorry guys and girls. i wasn't in class today, friday. I had to help some friends with a very very important matter. be back next week. ich Wunche ihr ein schönes Wochenende. Viel spass.

sad day

2012-06-09T05:03:00.000+02:00

The Konig told us today he wouldn't be our teacher for the next phase of our deutsch course. The orientierungs course. I told him we would go to the office and strike.
WHO DO WE WANT!!
The König.
when do we want him??
NOW!!

we did deadly easy listening exercises today. Okay the first was easy but i had to listen to the second twice, before i got it.

funny day with Joanna and michael. She sat next to his favourite seat. he then arrived late whilst the class was in full swing. he opened the door, i saw him and instantly turned my eyes right, towards joanna. The second she saw him she covered her eyes with her hand and rolled them in the socket. Sighing at the same time. i saw this event unfold and it was so so so bleeding funny. i started to laugh uncontrollably but could not say anything to anyone. Joanna obviously knew why i was laughing as she knew i caught her reaction.

The iranian senator wasn't in today.

text ubersetzung

2012-06-07T00:37:00.001+02:00

So glad i went to deutsch klass today instead of lazing about at home. I went to bed for a quick snooze after taking my happy pill and overslept. woke up checked when the library closes then decided it wasn't worth it so went to school instead. happy days! we red and interpreted some text from the course book. then we finished school early again today. wasn't expecting it. unlike yesterday when it was good we finished early as i was going to friends to watch a movie and have dinner. super dinner by the way. My belly felt a tad bloated afterwards. I guess my body is not used to receiving too much oil, but the food was absolutely delish.

Can't believe YES ma'am had watched my half naked rant on youtube. she started winding me up. cheeky sod. If i could blush this would have been the time anyone could have see it.

For our hausaufgabe, we have to write another letter to a computer company. but i have yet to finish my other hausaufgabe on describing a photo. I better get to it. ciao peeps.

how many more RULES!!!???!! konjunktiv eins

2012-06-05T03:03:00.001+02:00

i just could not help myself, after the Konig threw in another deutsch sentence rule in the mix today. i had to ask him how many more were there. Strangely this new rule clashes with konjunktiv zwei. so the rule is to ignore eins. hence zwei supersedes eins. One consolation ish though, it is mainly used in written text when one needs to quote what someone else has said.

The test results from last week came back today. My listening and reading sections were A1 level; below average. amazingly my written text was B1 good. Some consolation there. i need to go through the questions again to see what i do to improve. Good on The könig, he actually went round each person as he gave out the results of the test to explain bait more where he thinks needs improvement. Such motivational skills.

Found out today after class that the little witch has left and isn't returning. Well, she didn't really bother me, she stayed away from me and did like wise.

The Irish stallion came in today after missing the party on friday and the mock test on thursday. He looked really rough. One of the spanish sisters tried to tell him something across the class while i pop out to the jimmy. then during the exercise he did not even know his class mates name. How embarrassing. he said SIE as in SHE. OMG!!! which planet was he one. Anyway he seemed really really withdrawn, so me being me. i thought why not try to give he a little man to man pick me up; Not literally of course. So as i walked past him on my way out to lunch. I sloped him on the legs and bigger him up a bit. Thinking he would say; yo! yo!! all is well, catch you later. NOWP!! he flipped. Don't ever touch me again.!!! OKAY OKAY i said, whilst backing up out of the class. I apologised again after the coffee break. He said he didn't want it to be a regular occurrence. Hmmm i thought to myself. We've been in the same class for about seven months and i touched you once and you don't want it to be a regular occurrence. OKAYY!!. what eva.!! i said to myself. There is obviously something else bothering him, i must have stupidly stuck my naive nose in the middle.

Went out for coffee without the iranian senator, spanish sister, metal, and the other iranian guy that is almost always talking rubbish. i thought that was my job. But this guy makes me look normal. OMG. Strangely he came in today looking clean shaven and blinged up. I asked him why the bloody hell didn't he make an effort on friday when he knew i was bringing in the camera?

The rest of the day was ace. My group won the artikle game today. YES MA'AM wasn't pleased she was beaten. Pwahh ha ha. all good fun.

Zeit Frau was looking hot and sweet as ever. Can't believe the König remembered the exercise from last week when myself and the iranian senator drew DIE VIKTORIA UHR AUGEN. even mrs japan wrote it in her note pad. i know cos she sat next to me today. i'll see if i can get a photo of the exercise to post on here. Zeit frau took the paper off me.

Yet another Deutsch test

2012-05-31T23:58:00.001+02:00

Amazing we had yet another test today. Are the tests are getting easier or am i getting smarter? I can confidently say the former is the case. Because i seem to struggle writing the essay part of the test. Everyone is done and having coffee while i slave away biting my finger nails and pencil head. we have a class party tomorrow. Should be interesting. Mrs Poland thanked me for the list today.

no excuse

2012-05-31T15:04:00.002+02:00

Amazing almost everyone noticed i wasn't in class on tuesday. I turned up to class yesterday and, everyone asked why i didn't bloody come to class. i so had no excuse.

MOCK chocolate sticks TEST

2012-05-25T23:04:00.000+02:00

Got to school pretty early today. had a look at the homework after work and was like WTF is this? It all looked like gibberish to me. just didn't know where to start. but knowing me, i seem to work better under pressure. so i took a quick nap and when it got close to class time i popped to the shops, got myself some chocolate sticks then heading into the class room to finish my homework under pressure before the king smacked my bum. Lo and behold whilst with Turkish governor, i understood it, but also after a little back and forth chat with him. I told him he was wrong, i double check the rules in my book but he was right. bugger!! i apologised of course. The sentences were all on relative sentences. Lets see if i can create a sentence without looking in my book.

Ich spiele am abends sehr gut Schach, das durch mein kopf besser laufen.

ha haaaa. It only took me one hour to write out that sentence, but i got there in the end. honest no cheating.

The König then ordered us to clear our tables of all our books and dictionaries etc. We all knew what was coming. I think he is doing a brilliant job at preparing us for the exams in July. I swear our school is taking the piss with the exam date and time. it is set for friday the 13th July 2012 at 1300hrs. Come on, that is so no coincidence. Oh well, good thing i am not superstitious else i definitely wouldn't be attending. Anyway the mock test went pretty well. I felt pretty okay with all of it. The proof of pudding will be when the results come back on tuesday. as we have a long weekend. no class on monday. Jakob made sure we wouldn't be bored with several pages of homework to keep us out of trouble.

2012-05-25T08:49:00.004+02:00

i stupidly left the homework on Je... ,desto and je... ,umso till too late. meaning around 15:30. got stuck then got to the class struggling. My second Lehrerin tried explaining it to me but ended up confusing me even more as i though OMG is there a new rule to sentence structure. anyway a few second later. i got it. phew. At one point she actually thought i copied her work cos we wrote the same thing. Well, i know she is good, but i'd rather get it wrong and bare the wrath of the König's whip than get it right by copying. Whilst in the process pretending i know it. I am definitely not like the two other guys we had in our class that did the same thing; they've left now. and anyway, on this momentos alleged copy cat exercise. she got it wrong. WAO!! she is human after all. and i thought she came from planet Uranus.