AMD 3 Cole Grisham

For my third AMD, I decided to read a Deutche Welle article auf Deutch. The article, 50 Jahre Europäische Sozialcharta, is about the European Union Charter. Although difficult to read straight through, many key words jumped out at me, from which I was able to piece together key concepts—much like the dense restaurant worksheet we did in class. Words like “Arbeitszeiten,” “Soziale Sicherheit,” and “Kollektivverhandlungen” allowed me to figure out that the first paragraph was related to worker-government relations, and from there I could piece together much of the rest based on the context. That said, “zusammenzuschließen” threw me off. Apparently it means “come together” more or less. I was way off…

It was really interesting to see how much I did actually know as the story progressed, but the piece was still a little above my level. I enjoy attempting to read German related to topics I am fundamentally interested in (politics, specifically), but perhaps next time I’ll try to find German news aimed at children. That seems to be more my reading level. Anyway, I included a link to the article below. If it comes up in English, just go to Deutche Welle main page and switch the settings to German.

http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,15457497,00.html

-Cole