If Only I Could Pronounce German 'R's Correctly!

I have been collecting my plastic bottles for quite awhile (since at least December!) and I figured that I should probably turn them in and get some money back! So I went to Rewe where they have an automatic bottle exchanger (no idea what you call it in English) and just as it was my turn, the machine started beeping because it was full. As one guy went to get someone to fix it, about three other people walked up and were in line behind me. I felt really bad because I had so many! But I ended up getting 6 Euros back so I bought some more water and even found a big bottle of Cherry Coke. I kind of felt like I was in a Third World country when I saw the Cherry Coke. I got so excited for some reason!

Something I've noticed a lot lately is that when older people (or kind of unkempt people) walk past a trash can, they always stop to look around inside. They are looking for bottles that have a refund. I know that happens in the US with cans and such, but I notice it ALL the time here and it bothers me for some reason. Especially when it's elderly grandma-looking ladies. Anyway.

I showered and then got ready for class. Since it's less than a 2 minute walk from my apartment, I just wore my flip flops and no jacket. It was actually nice enough that I didn't need a jacket and my feet weren't even cold. But when I opted to wear the flip flops I knew that Voigt-Zimmermann would say SOMETHING about it. And of course she did. As soon as she walked in the door she said "you do know that it isn't summer yet?" Yes. But I'm an American and we wear flip flops all the time! haha We had to interview someone we didn't know in the class so I got to know a girl from Bulgaria named Vesselena. She was interesting. Then we had to get up in front of the class and tell them about the other person. We weren't supposed to say "um" or "eh" or anything like that, but once we were aware of it, we said it a lot! I had written most of what I was going to say out on a sheet of paper, so I didn't "uh" really, but I guess that wasn't really fair since most of them were just speaking. Then again it was only like three or four things of information. There are only 8 girls in the class and three are from the US, three from Hungary, one from China and the other Bulgaria. After that we had to read Der Nordwind und der Sonne. One by one we went in front of the class and she recorded it. Since I was one of the ones who had taken her last class where we read it a lot, she had me go first. I was happy to get it over with! Then we sat there and analyzed how we did and how much we breathed as we read. She had us pay attention to the different sounds that we make when we breathe. For example we had to determine if we were breathing out of our noses or mouths. I breathed 11 times during my reading. We counted 18 for one and then 5 for another! Quite a wide range! Voigt-Zimmermann doesn't hold anything back and she even told Katie Wachter that her R's were really bad and that she shouldn't speak any English because it's really affecting how she speaks. But it didn't really sound any different to me than how she spoke last semester. She told her to not talk to me as much...and I wanted SO badly to say that we NEVER talk and NEVER hang out, but I didn't. But German R's are so hard in some words and she told me that was what I needed to work on too. Sarah rolls her R's ALL the time and she apparently never knew it. Voigt-Zimmermann wanted to prove it to her so we listened to her recording again. That was one of the first things I noticed about Sarah! Her mom is German so maybe she got it from her? Voigt-Zimmermann said that it was wrong and she shouldn't be rolling them from the front at all. Man. We have so much to learn! We were also given a new text for next week and we have to practice reading it as if we were reading it aloud to three different groups - children, adults and then elderly people.

I came back and had lunch and worked on my homework for awhile. At 6 was Frau Heckmann's class and we learned about Kanak Sprak which is like slang of a language usually spoken by the minority group and in ghettos. We learned that in Germany it is usually spoken by Turkish boys. I've noticed on the bus a few times that the Turkish boys speak a little differently and that their German is kind of weird and now I know why! Not to say that all of them do it or that it is just Turkish people, but they are the majority. A lot of school-age kids use it too. Patrick and Davor thought it was really cool and want to learn how to speak like that too. Frau Heckmann just kept saying how bad it sounds and that it is not something that they should aspire toward. My favorite phrase we learned was something like "what are you looking at? Am I am movie (Kino) or what?" It sounds better...well not better, but it works better saying it in German!

I feel like I learned a lot today and I like both of my Monday classes a lot. Alexander came after class and was showing off his new French skills because he's taking an intro. class. I just don't get that language and all of the weird sounds!! Maybe someday I'll learn it too, but for now I'm just going to stick to German! I have enough new words rattling around in my head!