Friends as Language Learning Buddies

If there's anything most of us have learned, it's that it's easier to learn a language with a friend. :) The class has been happily bonding with each other before and during class the past month or so that things become interesting on different levels: learning with each other has become a sort of everyday ordeal- a goal we were wishing to achieve from the start of the semester.

I consider myself highly blessed that I have other friends outside class that have not only come upon appreciation for the language (a good amount of people in the college of music are not only familiar with the language, some are even fluent.). We feed off each others knowledge and have fun with it. Just a couple of weeks ago, my college of music friends and I got together at our house for a sleepover and one of them who had come from a Europe tour the past summer brought a card game from Germany called Phase 10. It was similar to our local "Tong Its" with different twists.... and those twists were for us to discover! The instructions to the game were all written in Deutsch, and aside from playing the game, we found thrill in decoding the manual until we finally played the game as it was supposed to be played: half the night was spent altering some rules so we could play despite the seemingly incomprehensible instructions. But our minds kept working (despite it being past midnight) until we finally decoded what the special cards truly meant (instead of all of them becoming immediately a "lose a turn" card because we didn't know what they really meant).


Another thing I consider myself blessed to have are friends who are based in Germany that have been more than willing to help me with my Deutsch. I can't believe it didn't dawn on me earlier that they were based in Germany, but know that I know... things must be fun :)

My previous substitute ballet teacher is now based in Lüneberg, Germany and is now making a living as a dancer in Theater Lüneberg. He'd just recently celebrated his birthday and my greeting him (and his response) reminded me that he was actually all the way in Germany. I'd informed him that I had taken a German course for this semester, and I was glad to know he was willing to help me with it :)

me (leftmost) and Kuya PJ Rebullida(4th from left) and our dance studio
recitalists and teachers- it was a show he directed :)

my convesation with Kuya PJ. (Random, really, everything from his birthday,
to dance, to my recent ACL injury to me learning German. It warmed my heart to
see (and understand!) the phrase "Du kannst dein Deutsch mit mir üben"- You can practice
your German with me.

Other than Kuya Pj, I had met a certain Lillian Rosales-Eder last year during my grandmother's wake. She was my aunt's best friend and happened to have married a German. She lives in Munich, Germany with her family. Once she'd left for Germany after my grandmother's burial, she'd been messaging me a couple of German phrases that have come in handy for me during this class.

All in all, it's been fun to learn this amazing language with amazing people. Though the will to learn comes from inside us, it never hurts to know that we're learning with other people, whether they be on the same or levels above us. Having Language Learning Buddies gives us EVERYTHING to gain and nothing to lose :)
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and here, for our regular German classical piece fix.


Leise flehen meine Lieder
Durch die Nacht zu dir;
In den stillen Hain hernieder,
Liebchen, komm zu mir!

Flüsternd schlanke Wipfel rauschen
In des Mondes Licht;
Des Verräters feindlich Lauschen
Fürchte, Holde, nicht.

Hörst die Nachtigallen schlagen?
Ach! sie flehen dich,
Mit der Töne süßen Klagen
Flehen sie für mich.

Sie verstehn des Busens Sehnen,
Kennen Liebesschmerz,
Rühren mit den Silbertönen
Jedes weiche Herz.

Laß auch dir die Brust bewegen,
Liebchen, höre mich!
Bebend harr' ich dir entgegen!
Komm, beglücke mich!

An english translation from www.asortofnotebook.blogspot.com
"Ständchen" ("Serenade")

My songs quietly implore you
through the night;
down to the silent wood
my love, come to me!

The tree tops whisper
in the light of the moon;
Don't be afraid, my love,
no-one will observe us.

Can you hear the nightingales?
Oh! They implore you,
their sweet lament
pleads with you on my behalf.

They understand the yearning I feel,
they know love's torture,
with their silvery notes
they touch every soft heart

Let them touch yours, too,
sweet love: hear my plea!
Trembling I await you,
come, bring me bliss!
We learn of love's sweet side to the German's this time. :) What poetry these Lieder are! I'm falling in love with their music over again.

Til next time,
Liya

CROSSWORD PUZZLES AND SUDOKU= NUMBER PRACTICE!

Learning German pays off. I was hero to someone who was answering a crossword puzzle last week.

I was in Moro Lorenzo that afternoon for my everyday therapy routine thanks to an ACL (knee) injury I acquired during the summer when one of the therapists (it was a bum hour... I was one of 3 patients at that time, if I remember right) suddenly asked out loud "Sino marunong mag-German?"

Hesitant to say yes, since its only been a month since we started this class, I asked "What's the question?"

"Ano ang 3 sa German?"

Hallelujah to answerable questions! I quickly spelled out drei to him and he thanked me. Conveniently, it had occurred the week after we discussed numbers!

This past Sunday too, I found myself bumming at my grandmothers house and borrowing my mom's phone. I decided to play Sudoku, and I must have been really bored to pick out the Deutsch choice of language for the game. Not like German numbers looked different... but I realized it was a good way to master numbers, at least those from 1-9! Even if they didn't look any different, I found myself counting from 1-9 in German!

They're funny occurrences the past week that involved numbers, puzzles and German that I thought it was just worth noting. :)


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I've decided a fun way to get about this: since I wasn't the only one who enjoyed the German arias I posted last week, I've decided to post one aria per entry :)

Meine Ruh ist hin,
Mein Herz ist schwer,
Ich finde sie nimmer
Und nimmermehr.
Wo ich ihn nicht hab,
Ist mir das Grab,
Die ganze Welt
Ist mir vergällt.

Mein armer Kopf
Ist mir verrückt,
Mein aremer Sinn
Ist mir zerstückt.

Nach ihm nur schau ich
Zum Fenster hinaus,
Nach ihm nur geh ich
Aus dem Haus.

Sein hoher Gang,
Sein' edle Gestalt,
Seines Mundes Lächeln,
Seiner Augen Gewalt,

Und seiner Rede
Zauberfluss,
Sein Händedruck,
Und ach, sein Kuss.

Mein Busen drängt
Sich nach ihm hin.
Auch dürf ich fassen
Und halten ihn,

Und küssen ihn,
So wie ich wollt,
An seinen Küssen
Vergehen sollt!

~0~

My peace is gone,
My heart is heavy,
I will find it never
and never more.

Where I do not have him,
That is the grave,
The whole world
Is bitter to me.

My poor head
Is crazy to me,
My poor mind
Is torn apart.

For him only, I look
Out the window
Only for him do I go
Out of the house.

His tall walk,
His noble figure,
His mouth's smile,
His eyes' power,

And his mouth's
Magic flow,
His handclasp,
and ah! his kiss!

My peace is gone,
My heart is heavy,
I will find it never
and never more.

My bosom urges itself
toward him.
Ah, might I grasp
And hold him!

And kiss him,
As I would wish,
At his kisses
I should die!

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pardon it's depressingness: I just watched the Romeo and Juliet ballet yesterday and the whole death for your love thing is just stuck :))

I'll be back soon ;)
Liya


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UPDATE! (July 28,2011)
I came from Iloilo a little over a week ago and we were playing a card game called heart attack: on a same note, we were all counting in foreign languages during the card game! It was confusing... but that's what made it fun!

Music, Expression and the German Language

Music, they say, is a universal language. It expresses the way nothing can, and can make you feel things like nothing else is capable of.

I find it highly ironic that I find myself in our class now, learning the German language due to my opinion that although the romantic languages (Spanish, French, Italian, etc.) have been widely used in composition of a lot of Arias for operas, I rarely find any as raw and expressive as those sung in German.

I remember a certain scene in the movie Amadeus which speaks of the life of legendary German composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, where Emperor Joseph II speaks of commissioning Mozart to compose for his court. The emperor's people had a common outlook towards the option of having Mozart create an opera in German: Italian was, at that moment, what they found to be the proper language for the opera (even reasoning out that all educated people were aware of such) and that German was simply too brute a language for singing.

Despite the qualms of the emperor's men (the Opera director and the Kapellmeister), Mozart was allowed to compose his operas in Deutsch. But little did they know that the language's brute nature would not put a stop to the music's ability to extensively express what the character and much more, the composer, desired to express. Despite Deutsch's non-inclusion in the romantic languages, such would be a language that would be equally, if not exceedingly more able to justify the composer's intended emotions.


"Ach Ich Fuhls", An emotional Aria by Pamina, an excerpt from Mozart's famous last singspiel "Die Zauberflöte"


Another Aria ("Ruhe sanft, mein holdes leben") from Mozart's unfinished "rescue" opera, "Zaide"


I am part of this German language class thanks to the first song. I had been part of the College of Music's english production of the Singspiel as part of the chorus and hearing the song (finally willing myself to search it sung in it's original Deutsch text in youtube) inspired to add a new dimension of understanding to my singing. I find that as it is my reason for taking up this course, such music- these arias masterfully crafted by Germany's master musicians and geniuses- whether it be by learning new arias (two birds with one stone! my voice teacher should be proud :D) or by just simply listening and immersing myself in the music, will be able to aid me in not just learning but fully understanding German beyond our four classroom walls.