English for cultural scientists - let's talk about it ...

Hooray! ;)

I hope we can find someone (native speakers, hands up!) who can correct us...

P.S. "my English is not the yellow from the egg, but it goes."

My former physics teacher used to say: "I speak English very well, but I find die Wörter nicht so schnell" :D He was a wise man ...

A trick that works very well for me, is to do as much as possible of my leisure reading in English. Especially if the book was originally written in English anyway.
Watching movies without dubbing and subtitles helps as well.

"We are all sitting in one boat."

A rumour says, that the second German Federal President Heinrich Lübke once said to an English business partner: "Equal goes it loose" - he wanted to translate in English the phrase "Gleich geht's los!" *LOL*

MollyleiN wrote:

Watching movies in english with english subs really helps a lot! If you do so, you connect reading and hearing and it´ll help to memorize the vocabulary and phrases.

My problem with subtitles always is that I try to catch the spoken words and to read the subtitles to make sure that I understood everything. For me it's easier to watch a film first in German and then in English.

The Problem is that sometimes the people are talking this fast, that it is impossible to read AND understand the text at the same time!
The best method is talking or writing with other people in english. That is what I am doing each day

_jg_ wrote:

The Problem is that sometimes the people are talking this fast, that it is impossible to read AND understand the text at the same time!
The best method is talking or writing with other people in english. That is what I am doing each day;)

Sometimes it is even easier to talk in English - to me it's funny, but writing takes more "brain work" than speaking.

Yeah, because you need to be careful with correct writing and additionally your text is supposed to have sense. In talking you can say: "sorry, that was senseless, but hopefully you know, what I mean..." And you can use your hands and legs

In April an English and an American walked through the Central Park in New York. Suddenly the english man sniffed and said: "Oh, spring in the air!" Thereupon the American asked: "Why should I?"

But for uns german-speaking people that sounds much better than the american in november means "fall in the air" :eek

Everyone would understand them better, if they used the little predicate "is"

MollyleiN wrote:

i am working together with italian, australian, latvian, romanian, some british, canadian, american, greek, norwegian, finn, chinese and i couldn´t remember the other nationalities people ... our english talking is really funny i think :D using hands and feet is common business and we are all very sporty and agile :)

If you want to bring your expressiveness to perfection, just try to communicate with a French in English! Whatever French people say, it always sounds - French. This might be an excellent opportunity to improve your French skills, too.

but not everybody has learned French at school, e.g. me!

_jg_ wrote:

...but not everybody has learned French at school, e.g. me!

Don't worry... I've learnt French @school a long time ago and I've forgotten nearly all of it. :(
@Bradbury: C'est vrai.

and that´s the way it goes...
it´s the same with spanish, because noone really uses these languages...

I can recommend watching "Friends" in English. It's very funny and they don't talk too fast. It's possible to watch it without subs. And the topics aren't that complicated.

And a tip for all writing in English: It's better to use the " ' " than the " ´ ". If you have to write a paper in English it's wrong to write with " ´ ". Example: "don't" is right; "don´t" is wrong

_jg_ wrote:

and that´s the way it goes...
it´s the same with spanish, because noone really uses these languages...

I don't agree. There are many people in France and Spain who use these languages very often.

I love to watch MASH in English. My boys bought the Martinis and Medicine Collection for me (with Daddies help) for mothers day two years ago.
So much gets lost in translation, is translated sloppy or even plain wrong. The original voices work much better too.

And the benefit is that you can watch these episodes earlier;) I like supernatural, too, and Vampire Diaries.

Years ago I used to watch all of the sketches of "Monty Python" on tv. Best British comedy ever - all-time! Still love them.

One of my favourites:

[media=youtube]zP0sqRMzkwo&feature=related[/media]

Don't mind the Portuguese subtitles. Confusion might be increasing if you pay too much attention to them...

This one is funny! I like the one with the Spanish Inquisition [media=youtube]uprjmoSMJ-o&feature=related[/media]

and of course The Parrot Sketch: [media=youtube]npjOSLCR2hE&feature=fvwrel[/media]

I also recommend Friends - very funny. And Mad Men. This is not only good to understand but also a very good tv series.

And for those who like the really difficult stuff: "Life on Mars" by the BBC (most of the people talk in Mancovian accent which is really hard to understandd), The Sopranos and The Wire. The latter two may be the best fictional stuff seen on the telly...

krid wrote:

"Life on Mars"

YES! Great stuff! I watched it on Kabel 1, the German dubbing, of course. The music reminds me of all ups and downs being a pubescent teen in the seventies, OMG...:rolleyes::D Guess, I' gonna buy the complete season on DVD and try to crack the Mancovian code. "Ashes to Ashes", the sequel, might be interesting, too.

Ashes to Ashes is even better!

And not only because I grew up with the music from that time. The sequel is set in the early 1980s in London - so it is also easier to understand. But start with Life on Mars anyway because it is really great stuff!

You should order the original DVDs on Amazon.co.uk because the German dubbed version has been cut to make them shorter (so that Kabel Eins could do some commercials.) Ashes To Ashes is not available in German anyway.

You can order on the British Amazon shop with your German account but you'll have to pay with a credit card. And you'll have to pay shipping but it is cheaper than ordering in Germany. The funny thing is that they will ship the stuff from Bad Hersfeld anyway...

Yah, Monty Python is really great. Father-in.law has got the big (really big) DVD box with all the Flying Circus episodes and the films, and we had some great weeks watching them.

House M.D. also is great, but the subtitles really are necessary due to all those medical terms (which are hard to follow even in German. But don't be afraid, it's never Lupus).

(Speaking of hard tasks in understanding languages: that reminds me of the time when I hadn't found out how to get the right channel for German ARTE into my SAT receiver and I had to watch the samurai classic special in Japanese with French subtitles...)

We used to watch all the Monty Python movies during our English classes at school. Very funny, I enjoyed them a lot. Typical British sense of humor :).

krid wrote:

You can order on the British Amazon shop with your German account but you'll have to pay with a credit card. And you'll have to pay shipping but it is cheaper than ordering in Germany. The funny thing is that they will ship the stuff from Bad Hersfeld anyway... :D

Thanks for the useful hint! Unfortunately I don't have a credit card. I'm afraid, I'm an old-fashioned lady, completely out of time... :o\

papagorilla wrote:

House M.D. also is great, but the subtitles really are necessary due to all those medical terms (which are hard to follow even in German. But don't be afraid, it's never Lupus).\

But, to be on the safe side, we should make a tox screen. ;)
Apropos Mr. Laurie - these two guys are worth seeing as well:

[media=youtube]CJW_yTbYGoI[/media]

So cute! Especially Mr. Fry, shaking a leg or two...

This is funny!:D

I must say that the BBC does have a lot of highlights in its programmes. I know the British are complaining about the BBC all the time but compared with the tax funded German broadcasting services they are way better! They even have a regular (!) programme about numbers and statistics ([url=https://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/more_or_less/]BBC NEWS | Programmes | More Or Less[/url]) and they have produced interesting and popular pieces about mathematics ([url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/maths]BBC - Podcasts - A Brief History of Mathematics[/url]) – just to have two examples that might shock you cultural scientists... ;)

On the more – say – masculin side they have Top Gear. Even if you're not interested in cars this might be some of the most funny (and sometimes even most beatifully filmed) stuff ob the telly. Watch the three-part series about the team trying to wreck a Toyota pick-up truck.

[media=youtube]xnWKz7Cthkk&feature=fvwrel[/media]

MollyleiN wrote:

Watching movies in english with english subs really helps a lot! If you do so, you connect reading and hearing and it´ll help to memorize the vocabulary and phrases.

Well, especially when watching "Gilmore Girls" 'cause the one Girl named Paris has a great WPM - so we had to watch some of her sayings with subtitle.

"the kings speech" is one of the best film, that i have ever seen. I've seen the original film with subtitles in the cinema. Very, very great.

Cool thread :) I am half english, actually grew up speaking english first even though we were living in Germany so would be glad to correct anything if you guys (also includes women ;)) are interested. And I must agree that the best way to learn english is not in school but by watching telly or listening to bfbs (british forces radio in germany who incidentally also play great music) or trying to simply speak english as much as possible. I would also recommend reading the news in english instead of or with the german news, cnn.com or bbc.co.uk for example.

or having phone conferences - as I had yesterday. And, as I already had feared, my spoken English grew extremely worse, not with the technical phrases, but all those little chitter-chatter-in-betweens. omg, I really need practice.
But, perhaps we'll buy the software we talked about yesterday, and I'll have more opportunities to talk with the English technicians

Yeah, i really love listening to bfbs, especially around christmas. And you get to hear good music earlier than in german radio.

BFBS - for those who don't know - is the British Forces Radio Network. Pity they lost their frequency in Bonn. There is the local radio station on it now (and their frequency is now used by Deutschlandradio Kultur which I don't like so much - although I'm a regular listener of their sister programme Deutschlandfunk).

Difficult to write in english on an iPhone because of the autocorrect function in German.

Cheers :D

I'll join you!

flintstone wrote:

Cool thread :) I am half english, actually grew up speaking english first even though we were living in Germany so would be glad to correct anything if you guys (also includes women ;)) are interested.

Cool thread -- cool offer. Yes, I am interested. Many thanks!

Maybe, you could comment on the thread's subject: "English for cultural scientists". Do we study "cultural sciences", or "cultural studies", or "humanities"?

And how to translate the concept (not the word) "Literaturwissenschaft"? There are "literary theory" and "literary criticism". Is there also a (common used) generic term "literary studies"?

I would use the word humanities, as often a b.a. for humanities will include exactly what we are doing in our studies while the other expressions arent as known. For literaturwissenschaften you would simply use the expression "literature". One simply says that one studies literature which includes everything relevant to the field. I hope that helps!