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Would you like to learn more German?
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- Category: German culture and food
The brothers Albrecht founded the discount chain Aldi in Germany after World War II. Now, four years after his brother Theo, Karl Albrecht has passed away, signaling the end of the first generation at Aldi.
The brand Aldi has grown to become a world-wide chain of discount stores, with their own Aldi-branded products and efficient store layouts, with weekly specials on special purchases--a different theme every week.
One of the things the brothers Albrecht were best known for was their incredibly high level of privacy and lack of publicity. There is only one famous picture available of them (left), partially because they were not interested in fame, but in running their business, but also because Theo Albrecht, who died in 2010, was kidnapped in 1971 and returned after 17 days and a ransom of 7 million Marks was paid.
Aldi is significant in German culture and the German economy, as anybody and everybody shops at Aldi--their products are frequently top-shelf, but with bottom-shelf pricing.
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- Category: German culture and food
Schlager is a form of music unique to German--it's its own genre. Comprised mainly of catchy tunes (that lead to ear worms), straight-forward forms and uncomplicated texts, you can hear Schlager at Oktoberfest, pretty much any Karneval celebration anywhere in Germany, and of course on German television.
You can easily dance to it and it's a good bet that you can dance with your kids to it and not worry about the texts.
A lot of Schlager shows are shown on TV in the evenings and are recorded performances in front of live studio audiences; and frequently, the singing is not live, it's lip-synced in-studio. I don't know why this is, but it happens all the time--even Nelly Furtado lip-synced one of her songs live on a German show.
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- Category: German learning methods
Students of foreign languages sometimes get upset when they get frustrated. They get really frustrated and really upset because what they want most is to speak a foreign language, they've done their homework, they've studied, and somehow the pieces just don't fit together or the pieces they want don't come together when they speak.
It's a hard-core experience.
Some students think I learned German easily because I learned it quickly--it was not easy and my German skills were and are hard-won with hundreds and thousands of hours of listening, reading, and practice behind them; here's a short story to highlight one of my hardest moments.
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- Category: German culture and food
Not far from the German Settlement in St. Croix County and the bake house/smoke house that is still used for bread baking demonstrations is the German Settlement Cemetery. Be sure to visit it if you have time on your way through Hudson, Wisconsin sometime. It's set beautifully and is a peaceful reminder of where so many of us have come from (another place) and connects you with another time.
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- Category: German culture and food
Harald Schmidt, who has since given up his late night spot on German television, is to Germany was Letterman and Leno were to the US. He's also a Schwab, he's an incredible mimic and can reproduce pretty much any German dialect.
Here his Sprachkurs (Crashkurs) Schwäbisch.
If you're not yet familiar with Swabian, here's a comparison that should help you understand how it relates to German:
Swabian is to German as Creole is to North American English.
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