German Culture AMD6

We often read the Spiegel articles (which are great fun, by the way) about German personality and society traits without much thought as to whether or not an entire society can be generalized so easily. Or, we simply do not wonder if those traits would have a positive or negative effect on other people, German or not. Recently, I got to examine German politics through the lens of the Euro debt crisis, and I think that many of the articles that we read have been proven accurate.
Basically, the German role in the debt crisis is the lender of last resorts. Countries like Greece need money to pay back huge loans, and Germany is really the only one capable of giving it. But…Germany doesn’t really seem interested, despite the distressed cries from more or less the rest of the world to do something. Why is this?
Observing some of the German personality types can be quite revealing. We read that the German people were very pessimist; this situation is the perfect opportunity to be so. Many people think the Euro is already screwed, so the Germans are left to wonder: why bother? Should we punish taxpaying Germans in order to help out a lost cause? This also falls into the brutally honest tone of many Germans. They’re fine telling other people that they think the game is up. They’re just as vocal when they call out Greece, Italy, and the like for being terrible fiscal managers. Using their skill with information and statistics, German politicians will go on massive tirades about how the last century has proven that Greece will not be able to repay whatever loans Germany makes, and as a result it can just go deal with its problems on its own. When other suggestions are made, such as the European Central Bank issuing bonds backed by all the EU nations, Germany is the first to find the clauses in the Lisbon Charter (that creates the EU) that make such a thing illegal, leaving other countries groaning in despair. One of the articles we read even had the phrase “There’s no such thing as a free ride” in the title, and that’s exactly what the German attitude is with regards to the debtor nations. Essentially, the stubbornness of the Germans is going to lead to a massive economic collapse. Other factors may play a factor, such as fears, both German and non-German, of a Europe completely indebted to Germany, or a Germany where over-lending has created massive inflation (German government has been perhaps the world’s most active in anti-inflation measures, for good reason). It’s interesting to see how one culture can be so influential on world affairs.

AMD 6 - Benjamin Oztalay

So, I watched the Simpsons for this AMD. Unfortunately, I couldn't find Bart's day anywhere, so I watched a chunk of another episode. The only things that I really noticed that were similar to Lola Rennt were the scene where Lisa was running, and the couple of times a car almost hit somebody.

Watching the Simpsons in German wasn't exactly easy, as I couldn't pick up on most of what was said. It was easier than other German TV we've watched before, probably just from practice. I think the biggest change I noticed in understanding the German that was being spoken is that I was able to hear individual words better. I didn't know most of the words, nor was I able to pick out the sentence structure, but it's a step in the right direction, I suppose. It let me recognize words that were said more often (I think I heard "Tut mir leid" or something like that a few times), and I could hear words that I already knew.

I don't think I could watch TV in German and pick up on any details, and most of my understanding of the story comes from the images, but I can tell that it's starting to come together, which is exciting.

Willkommen!!

Welcome to our class blog!

We will be using this blog throughout the semester for two kinds of assignments:

1. Once per chapter, the homework plan will direct you to post a response to the culture readings for the chapter on the blog.

2. Roughly every other week, the homework plan will direct you to post here for your Abenteuer mit Deutsch (AMD) assignment. First you do a fun activity that involves German, then you post about it. You should spend an hour total on this (maybe 45-55 minutes doing something, 5-15 minutes posting about it). See Was ist ein AMD, AMD Ideen and Beispiele for ideas. This should get you excited about the kinds of things you can do!

Whenever you post something, please include your name and the name of the assignment (e.g. AMD2, Kultur5) as labels. See "Blog: How To" for more details!