german #4

My laptop was having some connection problems in the past few days, so I didn't get to update my German class progress m(_ _)m Life's been getting busier as expected, but I'll try to update more!

We've been learning a lot of things in the forth classes, and the amount of learning materials increases as we progress. This week, we have been learning about countries and a little about the German grammar. I start to find it a little hard to learn a new language without constant practicing and revising.

We started off the day learning (and guessing) the names of the capitals of different countries. You can somewhat relate the names to the ones in English, but the pronunciation can be very different. For example, China (pronounced like Hina with a silence C), Japan (Yapan since J is pronounced like yott) and Taiwan (Taivan). And you will realize all the country names ending with -ia are all changed into -ien, e.g. Indonesia, Malaysia, Australia, Albania...

What is the name of the country?
Wie heißt das Land?

Capital | Country
Hauptstadt | Land

Djakarta | Indonesien
London | England
Berlin | Bundesrepublik Deustchland
Manila | Philippinen
Wien | Österreich
Peking | China
Ottawa | Kanada
Canberra | Australien
Tokio | Japan
Paris | Frankreich
Taipeh | Taiwan

After the fun part, here comes the confusing one: The grammar! (Maybe because I learn new things pretty slow, or maybe I didn't like memorizing stuff like these, I find it a little more difficult)

Who am I?
Wer bin ich?

Who is this/he/she?
Wer ist das/er/sie?

Where are you from?
I'm from (name of country).

Woher kommen Sie?
Ich komme aus (Land).

P.S. Sie (you/they) and sie (her) are different!

In German, verbs come in different forms depending on the subject one is talking to.
The basic form of the words normally ends with 'n'.

Examples:

name
heißen

Ich heiße ________.
Du heißt _________.
Er/sie heißt _________.
Sie heißen ________.

come from
kommen

Ich komme aus ________.
Du kommst aus _________.
Er/sie kommt aus ________.
Sie kommes aus _________.

staying
wohnen

Ich wohne in/im __________.
Du wohnst in/im ___________.
Er/sie wohnt in/im ___________.
Sie wohnen in/im __________.

be
sein

Ich bin __________.
Du bist ___________.
Er/sie ist __________.
Sie sind ___________.

Confusing, right? Notice the ending of the verb, they changes with the pronouns.

We did our first reading comprehension, and it was pretty interesting! I learned some new phrases:

Children all over the world
Kinder aller Welt

They stay in Düsseldorf then their parents work.
Sie wohnen in Düsseldorf denn ihre Eltern arbeiten da.

In Germany lives about five million foreigners.
In Deustchland leben etwa fünf Millionen Ausländer.

That's all for now! We just had our fifth lesson today, but I guess I'll leave it for tomorrow!
Tschüss!