Kapital 2 - Ashley Britt

The staring article was very interesting to me. In our culture, staring is considered very rude. When someone catches you staring at them, intentionally or not, your general reaction would be to quickly look away, and you might feel guilty about being caught doing something socially unacceptable. It seems, however, that there would be no reason to feel guilty about it in Germany. It is quite common, in fact, to have neighbors and other people watch you and "know your business" in a sense.

I never realized that complaining was such a big part of German culture either. Also interesting was the fact that they prefer brutal honesty as opposed to the little "white lies" that Americans tell all the time to be polite. In all honesty, I like the idea of being honest about things like, whether or not you like a certain meal. If you don't like it, you shouldn't have to eat it! I may find it slightly bothersome if people were asking me about my weight. I guess I'm just used to questions like that generally being a social faux pau in the US.

Kultur 2- Kyle O'Meara

In my readings about the German people from the Kultur 2 assignment I have found that Germans are very direct people and will give you a complete honest outlook on life. The first article mentions that Germany is generally viewed as a marvelous, and efficient country from foreigners, yet Germans are generally pessimistic about services such as their transit and try to find little things wrong with their countries' services or politician. However, I believe this viewpoint from many Germans causes a higher standard of living and the constant wish to always improve and to not be complacent leading to having a high standard of living compared to the world. The next two articles ("The Germanic Stare Down": Watcha Lookin’ at, Granny?,Brutally Honest: "Have You Gained Weight?") led me to generalize Germans as very honest and open people. It seems as if they do not believe in the concept of the "white-lie" and tell what the think honestly about everything they encounter. This however, leads to people not being offended like they are in America because the asker is always expecting a truthful answer. I also viewed German vigilantism through staring/looking as beneficial to living an orderly lifestyle and way of life for Germany. I also loved the last article mentioning how Germans viewed statistics. I found it to be very positive for people to know a lot of information of the places they are from and to share it with others. This I believe leads to a more knowledgable society. Overall I now view Germans with a very high regard based upon the importance they have for order, efficiency, truth, and knowledge.

Kapital 2 Kultur - Eric

I found the articles for the chapter 2 culture to be very interesting. It was funny to read about how different the culture is in Germany. I never knew that Germans stare a lot or that they ask very direct question, and it was funny to read how someone from Germany compared it to America.

The article about statistics I found to be the most entertaining article. If I was ever asked most of the questions that were listed in that article I would have no idea what the answers would be and I would probably wonder why the person was asking me such a ridiculous question.

If I ever end up traveling to Germany, I feel these articles will help me fit in with the culture and not look like a tourist.

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!