Hi!  My name is Will Munshower (originally Monschauer,)  My mother and father were from Bonn, Germany.  My parents moved to the US, when my mother was 6 months pregnant with me.  Until I was 5 years old, I only spoke German.  During these 5 years, my parents were taking night classes for English.  My father insisted on assimilating into American culture, and had made the decision that only English would be spoken at home.  I understand his reasoning behind this decision, but I feel that my German heritage was ripped away from me.

So, here we are, 40 years later, and I have made it a priority mission to be fluent in German.  My 10 year old son has joined me in this venture.  Since I was injured in an accident in 2007, I was forced to retire decades earlier than I had wanted to.  This has afforded me a significant amount of time to broaden my horizons.

For a few months over the past year, I had a German tutor, that was very helpful with specific issues, but she was unable to teach lessons in order, every week.  I then purchased collegiate level textbooks such as "Wie geht's" and "German Demystified."  I was extremely motivated to achieve my goal, even if I had to teach myself.  Through hours of research, I found that "Living Language" was the best courseware for my journey.

I have found that watching German cinema, with English subtitles has helped me quite a bit. "Deutsche Welle" at www.dw.de is an incredible website.  Their podcasts, in which the news anchors speak slowly, has been an invaluable asset for learning German.  Since I'm also a musician, German music helps immensely.   "Neue Deutsche Harte" has become my preferred genre, with great bands such as Rammstein and Oomph! being my two favorites.  Singing helps me with pronunciation, grammar, and cadence, and this has been very helpful.  I also subscribe to ZDF through my cable provider.

I also hope to be able to communicate often with German students on the forum.  I am a firm believer that one should enjoy the journey, as much as the destination.  I look forward to my time here, and I'm certain that we'll be able to help each other. 

Sorry for the long, bloviated post!

Best regards...Will

Hi Will!
Thanks so much for sharing your story.  It sounds like you have a lot going for you on your quest to learn German.  Early exposure like you've had is typically a great asset and your interest in the culture of Germany is also a big plus.  Songs and movies are definitely a great tool to enhance learning.  We actually had a blog post about using movies to learn recently. My favorite German movie is Lola rennt. I highly recommend it if you haven't already seen it.
I hope you continue to enjoy the Living Language course. Definitely share any songs, movies or aspects of the German language or culture that you find interesting on the forum! 
Tschüss!
Erin
Living Language

Will,

It's nice to meet a fellow Rammstein fan!  I listen to it everyday and every now and then I would recognize a new word or phrase.  I personally watch Kommissar Rex, an Austrian show with English subtitle.  I like it.  The only drawback is that sometimes I can't tell which part of the dialog is in Hochdeutsch and which part is from the local dialect (Viennese German).  Just thinking out loud here....but do you still have any relative in Germany?  If you do, perhaps you could visit them.  If you don't...you could still visit Germany if you are able to (we all know airline tickets are getting more expensive these days).

Grace

Erin,

Two of my favorite German movies are "Auf wiedersehen, Lenin" and "Der Untergang."   I haven't watched "Lola Rennt," but I will make a point of finding a copy for this weekend.  I read the premise, and it sounded most interesting.  Thank you kindly for your recommendation!

Grace,

If I have any remaining relatives in Germany, I'm not aware of them.  My family hails from what is now known as Nordrhein-Westfalen, specifically, the Districts of Aachen and Bonn.  In Aachen, there is a town named Monschau, which is where I assume my last name is derived.  It was Anglicized from Monschauer to Munshower when my parents emigrated to the USA.

Ah, Rammstein.  They are such a fun band.  Although, some of the subject matter in their lyrics can be overly racy.  If you live in The States, you may be aware of  a TV show called "Grimm," which is a modern take on "The Brothers Grimm."  In the latest episode, one of the main characters walks into a bar, and the song "Bück Dich" is playing, quite loudly.  They played the whole song!  I just sat on the couch in disbelief!  Somebody at NBC was not doing their job.  Even though I love the show, they butcher the German language quite often...Much to my annoyance!

Oh...I just remembered another immersion technique that I use...All of my devices (Computer, cell phone, gaming consoles, TV, etc, are set to German.  This really forces you to be quick on your feet, especially when you're in a menu that you've never opened before!

Well, I've babbled on long enough.  Thanks to all for your responses.

Best regards...Will

Will,

You got me intrigued and I looked up the episode on Hulu.  Oh my, I think someone at NBC wanted to uh, shove something in the FCC's face.  It's quite interesting that the characters sometimes pronounce words the German way and sometimes the English way.  For example, they pronounced 'vesensdat' for the word wesenstadt....German for the first half and English for the second half.  How odd! 

You brought up a very interesting point.  Sometimes characters speak a bit of foreign languages in English language films.  The characters are supposed to be native speakers, but the actors who play them are not.  If I don't understand the language, then I just follow the English subtitle and everything is well.  If I do...then the accent can sometimes ruin it for me.  By the way, after watching a few German language films and shows, I am starting to see familiar Austrian, German, and Swiss actors on a regular basis.  Speaking of Der Untergang, the Cleveland Show (an American cartoon spin-off of Family Guy) did a parody of the scene of Hitler throwing a tantrum. 

Grace

Hi everyone! First off, I have no idea how often I'll be on the forums since I mostly use my phone and don't get on my computer much anymore.

I'm Marissa from L.A., born and raised in California. I still consider myself fluent in French, though it takes me a bit to remember it at times, I lived there for 3 months once and the last time I went within an hour or two I was fine. I took a year of Russian, a year of Italian, and a quarter of German (that I didn't go to very often) when I was at UCLA, but I don't remember much. In Russian I still remember some words, most I hear and think "I used to know what that meant". With Italian, I can still understand it most of the time if standard Italian is being used, but there's so many dialects it's rare to hear it. When I try to speak Italian, I usually end up speaking French with an Italian accent, which is horrible. I can remember a Christmas song in German I learned in 4th grade, and a few words, but not much else.

I'm currently trying to do the Spanish course, I'm going to Peru at the end of April and while I've got one of my best friends who's from Mexico with me, I like to be able to speak the language at least a bit. Also, I live in L.A. Knowing French and Italian both makes it easier to learn and harder to keep separate. I'm also attending a class that teaches Irish once a week, and since there's a class and homework, that seems to get done before the Spanish does. They're so different I figure it can't hurt to do them at the same time. After Spanish I also have the German course, my family is going to Vienna, Prague, and Munich in September (yay Oktoberfest!). After that, Hindi is next on my list to learn as I watch way too much Bollywood to not understand it. I'd also like to pick up Russian again.

For those of you guys that like Rammstein, try KMFDM, Wumpscut, Wolfsheim, Nitzer Ebb, Rotersand, or just put Pandora on Industrial. It's my favorite music, though I have to say I don't care for Rammstein too much. :)

Hi everyone,

My name is Bill. I'm 69 yers old and recently retired. I have always had a problem learning languages. I had 3 years of Latin and 2 years of French in high school. In college I had three years of German. I thought I remembered none of it. I always wanted to learn a second language, so when I retired I thought I'd give Spanish a try. To my surprise, when I tried to translate things, a lot of the German I thought I'd forgotten started coming out, so I decided to switch.

I'm fairly new to Living Language, just on Chapter 5 of the Essential book, although I have studied some other sources as well. My main aim is to be able to read the language since I'm interested in History and would like to read the original sources in German, including fraktur. Speaking if also important, however.

If any one could tell me the source of German films, I would appreciate it. When I'm working at my desk, I usually have Antenne Bayern on using my computer, either "Info" or "Hits for Kids". I figure the latter will speak more slowly and use a more limited vocabulary. Since it's usually just background, I don't get to pay much attention to see how much I understand, but I hope some of it is sinking in.

Auf wiedersehen (or is it Auf Wiederhoren?)

Bill

Bill, Auf Wiederhoren is when you tell someone on the phone that you will see him/her later :)

Grace

I would think "auf wiederschreiben" would be the best fit, no?

Oder auf Wiederlesen!

Christopher,

Ich mag das am besten.

Mit freundlichen Grüßen...Will

 

Hi Everyone. My name is Doreen Dawson. I am almost 28 out of Sun City, Ca. I am just learning how to speak italian. The language is similar to spanish so I felt it would benefit me to learn a second language besides english for work and to challenge myself. I am actually german, irish and scottish. XD But learning italian will be fun ecspecially with my boyfriend learning italian with me.

Nice to meet you all, ciao Doreen (:

Doreen, brava. Not sure that studying a language with a significant other would help (emotions emotions) but at Living Language we do have many couples learning together, particularly Italian. Must be the romance thing. :) 

Hi, Doreen!

I can't tell you if learning a new language with a significant other helps or not.  What I can tell you is that it can be frustrating if your SO is not learning with you.  What makes matters worse for me is that I am teaching our 10 year old son German.  She gets quite frustrated when we speak to each other in German.  (Maybe she thinks we're talking about her!) LOL

Good luck on your endeavor.  Living Language is a fantastic way to learn a new language.  I've learned more in one month than I've learned in a year, working on my own.  Welcome aboard!  And as Max stated...Please have your boyfriend stop by and say hello!

Best regards...Will

I provide the entrance exam Coaching for JEE at Jabalpur.