Guus Bosman

Today was the Zaterduitsdag at the Goethe Institute; I spent the whole day studying prepositions and their cases. It was very useful and fun to do.

We had a very good teacher. She focussed more on the understanding of the general principle than on the small details. I didn't learn a lot of new things, because most of the subjects we had already in the regular course, but it was very useful to repeat things and hear them from another perspective. We did a lot of different exercises and at the end of the day we got enough homework to fill a whole month.

It was a nicely mixed group, with people from all ages.

The course was over around 17:15 o'clock. I went for a walk from the Leidseplein through the Jordaan to Central Station; the weather was very nice and the city was full with people.

Now I'm in Middenmeer; Ettie wil celebrate her birthday tomorrow.

I had a lot of homework for the yesterday's German course. It took all Sunday! But of course, that's my own choice and I enjoyed doing it.

Yesterday we learned a bit less than usual -- no new big grammar subjects. It was cosy though.

Yesterday we learned about the prepositions and corresponding cases (Falle) when talking about time and date. So now I know for sure how to say: "in the weekend", it's "am Wochenende" (Dativ and preposition an).

I also signed on for the Zaterduitsdag, Saturday April 24th. There will be lessons German all day. It's organized by the Goethe Institut, where I'm doing my German course, and it's open for everybody.

There are a couple of different programs that Saturday, such as a conversation training and "intercultural differences". I choose the grammar program: cases and prepositions. Ten years ago I would have never imagined voluntarily spending a Saturday learning German grammar.

I'm afraid I was 15 minutes late for my German lesson yesterday -- the train from Haarlem had a big delay. I had dinner at Chess again, this time noodles with a salad.

We did a very interesting exercise at the German language course. We had a chat with the whole group, where each participant was a representative of a country. Together with Noortje I was representating Germany. It was great fun to discuss the national eating habits, especially because the teacher was filming us all with a camera. After the break we watched ourselves -- this is always painful but it was very interesting. I was describing the "Biergarten", where German people would come together once a week at their "Stammtisch" with friends. I haven't actually done that but German friends have described it so it was easy to talk about it.

Later I gave my presentation. It went reasonably well. My German always degrades when I have to talk in public but that's exactly why I'm following a course. It was a great exercise, the whole lesson yesterday. Slowly but surely I notice my German is improving.

Tonight we started with the grammar of adjectives. Slowly but surely all the grammar that I once learned at school is coming back. The big difference between learning it now and learning it then is that I really enjoy it (that was quite different, then). The teacher gave us a big homework assignment. It is a text in which we have to fill in the endings of all the adjectives and nouns. It's a really useful exercise to practice all the 'Falle' grammar; it will probably take a lot of time.

The German course starts at 18:30 o'clock, and I have been trying to find the best way to have dinner. I don't want to eat in a snackbar every Monday, but I can't wait with dinner till after the course either because it ends at 21:00 o'clock. I think I've found a solution now; today I got a salad and a sandwich from the supermarket and ate it at work. I can eat pretty healthy, and I don't have to be in a hurry.

For my German I found a good program for word-rehearsal: Teach 2000. It's not very extensive, but the program works well and I don't need too many whistles and bells anyway.

Today I studied mainly country names, as well as the names of the citizens of these countries.

I was home around 22:00 o'clock from the German language course. Tonight we talked about a new grammar subject, the declination of Der-nouns.

It was a nice evening, but I was very tired today and my German was pretty bad tonight.

Dutch newspaper Trouw reported yesterday:

Speaking German is getting easier

The variation of 'accepted German language' is getting wider, said Prof. Dr. Eichinger, chairman of the Institute for German language. Spoken sentences that are strictly speaking grammatically incorrect, are getting used more often due to the influence of television.

Well, I suppose that's good news for me.

I went to my second lesson of the German course tonight. Part of today's homework assignment was to write a letter of complaint to a travel organization. I spent quite some time on it this weekend and it was a great exercise. It had been many years since I wrote a German text!

I sent my homework assignment by e-mail yesterday, and in the morning I received the result by e-mail. There were still quite some mistakes in it, but it wasn't as bad as I had thought.

In the course tonight we spoke again about prepositions. First of all, you have to learn when to use which preposition (zu, in, nach, an...). Second, you have to find out which case should be used with the selected preposition. With some prepositions it's easy, for example zu and von always have the 3rd case, the Dativ.

However, the prepositions we looked at these lessons are a bit more complicated. They're called the Wechselpräpositionen. In general the rule is: Wo? implies Dativ, Wohin? implies Akkusativ, but there are some exceptions. The verb 'to float' (schweben), might feel like a Wohin?-type of verb, but it actually comes with the Dativ. That's language for you.

Tonight we did various exercises, and practiced conversation with the newly learned rules; it was a fun evening.

Tonight was my first lesson of the German course and it was a lot of fun.

We were a group of ten people, and one teacher. She is a native German speaker. I was a little bit scared to go, because I had missed the first lesson and I wasn't sure what to expect. However, it was a very nice evening -- it's really fun to go 'back to school'.

The lesson started at 18:30 o'clock. Tonight's theme was der Urlaub. We talked a lot of German with each other and the teacher. The grammar tonight was about Wechselprëpositionen, prepositions that can be followed by either der Dativ or der Akkusativ. We were done around 21:00 o'clock.