DE Video 1

One week ago, we had a Christmas party. My colleagues and me were invited by our bosses to a stand up comedy club. We had a nice dinner and then the show started. There were 5 comedians and I understood like 70 % of what they were saying (except for one annoying guy from Berlin who read really fast some story from a paper). But even though I got the point, my brain, being busy recognizing the words, kind of had no time also for laughter :) But it was a really nice exercise. Then we drank and spoke until late. A really nice evening.

However, the main point of this post is my first German video. I made it 4 weeks ago, but because of, first lack of internet connection and then laziness, I am uploading it now. It was made really spontaneously, without any preparation whatsoever. I dare say my speaking abilities got better in the meantime. So enjoy.

Christmas in November & Free Hugs

Guys, I want to write you more about Hamburg and Elmshorn, but that will come a bit later. After 6 hours spent looking for bugs in PHP SoapClient, I am able to create only a short post. So this one will be about Christmaaaaas and the action called Free Hugs.

Christmas Tree in the middle of the Binnenalster lake

Last week got Hamburg full of all sorts of booths, containing goodies like Glühwein (mulled wine), sweets and goodies prepared in million ways and of course, a lot of souvenirs. There are at least three big Christmas markets here. Commerce cannot be eradicated, so I will be enjoying Christmas the whole month :)

But before all this started, I devoted one Saturday afternoon to an event called Free Hugs. Free Hugs consist of one or more crazy people that walk the streets with a transparent and hug people going by. Just for fun. It was all started by one guy from Australia and one music video. Nowadays, you can see huggers in many big cities throughout the world.

So one an half a week ago, I wrote on Couchsurfing forum, so that people can join me and set off for the chilly streets of Hamburg. I wrote it too late, so I was alone, but I have to say it was an awful load of fun. I spent there one and half and hour and it that time, I got around 20 hugs, one group hug from a group of Spanish tourists and I made cca 100 people smile after they saw my sign (before that, it only happened when I asked a question during a lecture at the university). I even got a free beer from some guys, that were advertising there. Not a bad score for an hour and a half, huh?

One week after that, we got organized! Maike from Couchsurfing made an event and we hugged together. It was completely different and again it was really nice. Thank you girls for the evening!

What are these things made of...

Oh my god, it's, it's.... chocolate!

 

So I wish you a very nice commercial-pre-christmas period :)

First weeks in Germany

So two weeks in Hamburg already, huh? Actually three. But let's tell the story from the beginning...

Hamburg's night skyline

When I wrote my mission announcing post, it was not actually my first time in Hamburg. Three weeks ago, I left for Hamburg for the first time, spent one whole week looking for a flat. I did not succeed and then I found out I cannot access my saving account at ČSOB bank from Germany. So, I returned home. One battle lost, but that does not mean a lost war.

On 3rd of November, I returned in the second attempt. In the meantine, I sent from home some 30 mails as replies for IT positions announcements. Success, I got an invitation for an interview! I set off for Hamburg for the second time.

This guy was just walking in the street, begging for food.
Definitely the prettiest beggar in Hamburg though.

And also this time it was horribly hard to find a flat or room in Hamburg. All in all, I sent around 40 replies to the shared accomodation offers at wg-gesucht.de (one of the largest shared flat finder), but I got only 2 responses. I have no idea why the demand for accomodation here is so much higher than the supply.

Eventually, I rented a room in Elmshorn, a city some 45 km to the north of Hamburg. 300 €/month. Trains go every hour, so it's not that bad. The only thing that I miss here is a good internet
connection. And even this place I got thanks to the fact that I met an owner of the flat in the hostel.

The job interview was successfull, now I work as a PHP programmer for a company that deals with financial products. I am working on a kind of a comparator for insurance agents. PHP + MySql + MVC framework CodeIgniter. CodeIgniter looks pretty, but the project would need serious refactoring. I got a nice senior colleague though, who knows that and he is willing to do something about it.

The second floor. There I turn coffe into code.

So I am slowly getting used to being a "Hambuger". The sky is dark most of the times, people do not smile much, but when you talk to them, they start smiling and are really nice. Also at work, they have been very helpful. I live alone in this flat and sometimes I feel lonely, but I know it is worth it. I know I am growing. I know I am getting better at something. I bought Donald Duck comix and Harry Potter 7, both, of course, in German. No spoilers please! :)

Bundesliga fan, Hamburg played a match that day.

Hamburger DOM. I always wanted to buy this sugar
coated apple.

One of the couchsurging meeting is regularly held in a bar
with moravian beer. Good price, good taste, I must admit.

One of the pretty ships in the Hamburg port

This little thingie is Karina, with whom I had really nice time
exploring the city. She was from Rio de Janeiro, so she was
freezing her ass out even in my cap and gloves.

So, do we set off to seek the Fountain of Youth
or the Treasure Island?

CamelCase for the German language!

German has two nice properties: The first being that they write all the nouns with first letter capitalized. The second ist the posibility to form complex nouns by simply putting them together. The "protected nature area" is then "das Naturschutzgebiet". The latter is really nice to use when speaking, but pain in the ass when you are supposed to read a whole-line long word.

Why not get inspired from the programming languages and use the CamelCase for these compound words? :) "Das NaturSchutzGebiet".

Hm... When I see it written I have to admit the Esperanto way with dashes looks nicer "Das Natur-schutz-gebiet."

Ok, enough procrastination, back to my vocab...

German Mission

It has been one and half a month since I returned from Romania. Home was nice for a while, but it's time for another language mission.

I am writing these lines from the Generator Hostel in Hamburg, Germany. I will stay in Hamburg for the next four months, during which I will read, speak, eat, breath, do everything in German. My starting point: After 8 years of lazy high school German studying I can pretty much express myself. And I want to take it to the C2 level. As a motivation I will go again at the end of my stay for a C2 language exam. I might not succeed, but I will do everything I can to reach the desired level.

If the German subject-object-verb word order does not kill me, than nothing can. Let's rock'n'roll!

How Do I Study - Tips for Rapid Language Learning II

Continuing with tips for language learning:

9. Use verb conjugation on verbix.com

Ah, this verb is irregular, how the hell was the third person in plural? Verbix or some other inflexer online helpes a lot in these situations.

10. Learn words using image associations

You are sitting outside, learning new vocab. You just read a new word, that sounds completely unfamiliar to anything you have seen before. You read it 3 times together with the translation, but you know that after 5 minutes, you will not recall a damn.

The safest way to remember a word is to learn it in a context. With either visual, acoustic or strong emotional association, preferably all of them. When is it more likely that you remember a word? When you see it in a dictionary, or when your friend tells you that new word in a sentence, when lying next to you on a beach? After what he explains the word to you, except for the meaning of the word you will also remember the beach, the sun, the whole situation and the story in which the word was used. Then, when you recall the situation, you also recall the word and vice versa.

Unfortunately, if we depended on naturally occurring situations like these, learning would be terribly slow. So why not create associations on our own? I like using the beginning of the sound of the word and connecting it with some funny scene that I make up in my mind. An example: In Romanian, the verb "to land" is "a ateriza". It does not remind me of any other similar word in other languages. But "a ateriza" sounds a bit like "Asterix". So I imagine myself standing on a pretty, grassy meadow in Galia around the year 0. It's warm, the sky is blue and soft wind is hitting my face and whips the grass. I look up and I see Asterix, slowly descending, the wings on his helmet rotating like a rotor of a helicopter. He is slowly landing.

It takes a bit more time to make such a scene up, but if it is good, it is granted that you will never forget the word. The more detailed and weirder the scene is, the bigger the chances that it will get stuck in your mind. Add temperature, smells, sounds to the scenes. It helps when the scene is funny, disturbing, gross, even sexually related. Do not limit your fantasy, it has a higher purpose!

In time you will get better at creating these images in your mind and you will need less time to make them. It might have an unwanted consequence that people will see you laughing on your own over your fantasies in the middle of the street, but isn't it worth it? :)

11. Learn songs by heart and sing them

Try to learn a few songs of your favorite genre, sung in the target language. Be alone, read the text and sing the song along with the singer. Song lyrics are one of the greatest context-full source of vocab. I read that hip-hop is especially good for this. Hip-hop did not work for me (it is just not my cup of tea), but it might help you.

12. Think in the target language

This is a common advice, but hard to fulfill if you do not know what it means. I will make it more specific: When you walk outside, talk to yourself about things you see and about things you have done or you are going to do. For example: "My name is Peter and I am going to work. I see pretty green trees..." (nice, let's try to use a more complex vocab) "... I wonder what kind of trees they are... Anyway, I like my work. My boss is nice and I also like my colleagues. Look, a dog!". And so on. Embrace your inner schizophrenia and talk to yourself!

13. Look like an idiot

Let's say you walk somewhere with friends and you say something wrong that everybody laughs at. You feel a bit embarrassed but after one of them corrects you, because of this strong emotion behind it, you will never forget the correct form of the word. Embarrassment is a great tool that helps you learn faster, if you are not afraid to be exposed to it from time to time.

14. Make mistakes

This piece of advice is something that Benny from Fluent in 3 Months emphasizes all the time. Mistakes help you learn. Even if you are not sure if your sentence is correct, say it. What can happen? Oh yeah, you can be corrected. An unbearable shame, isn't it?

If you are learning a language and do not make hundreds of mistakes every day, it can mean two things. Either you already speak like a native or you are working below your potential. In the case of the latter, do something more difficult. Change magazines for books, try to talk about some more complicated topics. DoMake mistakes!


These things helped me when learning a foreign language, but I realize that people are different, so not all of the tips have to work on everybody. So pick those that you like and try them out. Have fun, play with them,  modify them, find your own way. And when you discover something new that helps you learn a language faster, let me know, I will be happy to hear about it.

How Do I Study - Tips for Rapid Language Learning I

During my stay in Romania and even before that I learned many tricks that allow for faster language learning. Many of them are inspired by http://www.fluentin3months.com/. Maybe some of them will also work with you, so here is the brief list. Because I promised I will keep my posts short, the list will come in two parts.

1. Use Anki

Or other SRS system. SRS stands for Spaced Repetition Software and it is based on the idea of flashcards. Flashcards are paper cards with a word on one side and its translation on the other. Except for providing these flashcards in a software form that is certainly more practical than the physical ones, SRS also helps you concentrate on the words you have problems with and does not bother you with words you already know. How does it do that? After seeing a word and guessing a translation, you evaluate how well you knew the word (e.g. "very easy", "hard" ...) and based on that, the software will show you that specific card in a few days, or later.

2. Learn outside

Try to sit down behind a desk, open a textbook and study. After a week of doing that every day, you will be so burned out that any next attempt to study will just end up in procrastination. This moment will come for sure sooner or later, but there is a trick to postpone it. Take the book and go learn outside! In a park, on a beach, anywhere. And change places often.

3. Use every moment that would otherwise be a wasted time

Waiting in a line? Travelling in a bus? Take out your book or your smartphone and study. You will not feel nervous to wait and you are actually using that time effectively. These shorts bits of studying are not that tiring for your brain, as studying for long hours. I bought my first smartphone just to be able to use Anki flashcards when I was walking to work.

4. Use italki.com

Or other social network for language learning. At italki.com, you fill what languages you know and how well and which one you are learning. You can find people that want to learn languages you know and can teach you the language you are learning. You can then speak with them via Skype. It also contains a feature called "notebook", where you can write short texts in the target language (a story, sentences to train grammar) and the others can post corrections of your text.

5. Speak

This rule is hard to keep when you are a complete beginner in the language, but it is important to try. If you think the native speakers will not be patient with you, try to find somebody who is learning the language as well. If you are not in the country where the target language is spoken, find somebody on the internet.

If you go out with native speakers, from my experience it is better to go out with just one person, rather than with a larger group, because a single person tends to be more patient with you when you make mistakes. Also, usually you get to speak about "deeper" and more personal topics people are usually shy to discuss in big groups. That forces you to use a more complicated vocabulary.

6. Write

A rule that might not be for everybody, but writing texts helps me immensely to remember words and grammar rules. It is an ideal way to put into practice things that you have just learned. Bit by bit, every day. If you put your text on italki.com, you get a feedback and that encourages you to write on.

7. Read real books, not just textbooks

The problem with textbooks is that they usually contain artificial dialogues and they are booooring. On the other hand, if you read a real book, about something that you like, it will be much more fun. Even though you might end up looking up every fifth word in the dictionary, it is worth it. At the end of the book, you realize there are pages on which you did not scribble any note with a translation of a word and that you are actually reading in another language! In the early phases of learning a comic book might be a good alternative (thanks to Michael Őlvedy for this tip).

8. Watch cartoons

They are fun. And usually, they speak clearly there, using simple constructions.

None of these tricks help unless you put serious effort into the process of language learning. However, they can speed things up.

Romanian Mission: Completed!

After a pause from blogging lasting more than one month, during most of which I was trying to spend every moment studying, the Romanian mission is successfully behind me. In the middle of August I quit in the water park and turned my dorm bed into a battlestation equipped with bunch of books, a dictionary, my mobile phone and the internet connection. I dove into studying.

The C2 exam was awaiting me on 14 of September in Bucharest. On the 13th, I said goodbye to all the people that I became friends with in Constanța and left this city that had become my home for three months. After spending a night at a very nice and cheap Happy Hostel (guys, you were great, I am sorry you are closing down), I went for the test. And I am happy to announce that I passed and am now an owner of the C2 certificate in Romanian!

All these people wanted a certificate! From left to right:
Poland, Slovakia, Ukraine, 3× Romania, Spain

Then I was just enjoying. My friend Roman came from Brno and we had a beautiful ride back to Slovakia/Czech Republic through pretty places of Romania. We tasted the nightlife of Bucharest and took some pics in front of the royal palace of Peleș in the Carpathian mountains (they did not let us in due to some exhibition—as if that was more important than us). We spent a very pleasant evening in Brașov, a medieval city with part of the city walls reconstructed and a Hollywood style sign shining over it, passed through Transfagarașan—a mountain pass coming very close to the highest point in Romania—Moldoveanu peak.

Bucharest!

Bucharest: The Unity Square (Piața unirii)

Bucharest: Casa Poporului (The House of the People),
the second largest office building in the world after Pentagon,
Ceaușescus's heritage

Peleș castle

Czech and Slovak tourists in Romanian mountains.
Only socks in the sandals are missing.

The last stop was Sibiu, where we spent another night. Sibiu has a beautiful medieval city center and is becoming one of the most important industry centers in Transylvania. Interesting enough, the hostel in Bucharest was half the price of the hostel in Sibiu (7 euros vs. 12 euros). In Sibiu's hostel, there was a Dutch manager, who lived there for several years and did not really know much from Romanian. That kind of made me feel good about my progress and made up for all those moments when I felt I did not improve at all and that I could not possibly get to the C2 level by the end of the summer.

Then, we set off for home. One thing worth noticing was the tempo of highway building we have seen on our way back. There are huge parts of the Romanian A1 highway that are being built now and by the end of 2013, Romanians want to finish new 550 (!) km of highways. And they are really progressing fast. Might be because of the laws they passed, but it still looks pretty impressive, especially compared to the Slovak tempo of highways' construction.

Anyway, back to the main point. In the beginning of the summer, I set in front of myself a goal. A goal, fulfillment of which I did not really consider probable. I knew it was doable though, so I went for it. From the beginning, I was willing to fail. Failure always have to be an option. For me, it would have been better to have tried and have failed C2 than to have gone for B2 and have won it. But I studied with the idea of success in my mind, and worked my ass off, trying to subordinate my every daily activity to this goal in the last three months. And to my surprise, here I am, C2 in Romanian. A little-big victory of mine that strengthens my believe that anything is achievable and our only limit is our own imagination. I am happy, thankful and keen for more!

Constanța

The city of Constanța [konstantsa]. According to the Romanian wikipedia, has around 310 000 inhabitants and the biggest port in at the Black Sea. I dare you to read more, you will learn more that what Wikipedia offers.

Constanța in Westeros?

If I am to find a city that Constanța resembles a lot, all I can think of is the fictional city of King's Landing from the series of books A Song of Ice and Fire by R. R. Martin. Very well made TV series "Game of Thrones", named after the first book of the book series made this fictional world global-known. As well as King's Landing, Constanța is a port city (on an eastern shore :) ). Both cities are crowded and stink. In both there are huge social differences (e.g. huge 4x4's parked next to old Dacias). By the number of leaflets on the sidewalks of Constanța, the brothel industry flourishes in both comparatively. And they both pulsate with life. From the architectonical point of view, the prettiest times of both lie in their past. There are many awesome buildings that wait for their reconstruction.

Architecture

The history of the town, full of conquers is visible also at the demographical content: There are many Turks and Tatars, although they all speak Romanian. There is a mosque next to an orthodox christian church and a synagogue. Big boulevards built in the French style. Beautiful buildings built at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century, with the Casino of Constanța, the symbol of the city, being the prettiest. And also a witness of how the historical center on the Peninsula of Constanța deteriorates.

Constanța is, when it comes to size, comparable to Bratislava. Also, when it comes to the area of the historic center. But in Bratislava, most of it (not all of it, until now, which is a shame), was reconstructed during the 90's. In Constanța, nothing on that scale happened and many buildings are literally falling apart. I understand that the crisis stroke hard in Romania, but still, there are many construction projects on the ourskirts of the city and on Mamaia (resort close to Constanța), but nothing big in the city center. That it sad and the reason for this I do not yet know. Stupid legislation? Corruption? Or unwillingness of inhabitants of the old center to make money on renting their houses? Hardly the last one.

Ship at the entrance to Mamaia

Romania is full of communistic blocks, but there was
much more architectural effort put into them
than into Czechoslovak concrete cubes

The building on the right is influenced by the traditional
Romanian family-house style. Beautiful.
Also notice all the wires in the air. The unused parts of wires
 just hang on the columns.

The Turkish/Otoman influence on the architecture

The famous Casino of Constanța

The mosque at night. Like from a fairytale.

A gypsie child sleeping close to Aqua Magic.
Not a common sight, but still, one can encounter it.

Skyline I: There is a tower of the mosque on the left
and tower of the museum on the right.

Skyline II: Pretty communistic round building on the right 

Beaches

Beaches directly in the city are almost empty. Consțantians go have fun to Mamaia. Mamaia is a conglomeration of hotels, restaurants and other touristic facilities that spawn the long sandy spit between the Black Sea and the Siutghiol Lake. The city beaches have improved in services and appearance in recent years, but still would deserve a bigger attention.

Once I woke up really soon, so I went to watch the sunrise

The Borsec mineral water should pay me for this pic

My language learner T-shirt. Thanks a million Ann!

To come or not to come?

Constanța is definitely worth visiting. Everybody tells me that Bulgaria has prettier resorts and they know how to attract tourists better than here, in Romania. The truth is I have not seen many foreigners around here. Constanța and Romanian seaside are still used mostly by Romanians themselves. Well, we will see how that changes in the future...