German Language Blog

Songs are a great way to learn a language. By listening to native speakers, you get a feel for the sound of the language. By listening to the same text repeatedly, you get a feel for the structure of the language, for its word order; and you’ll be remembering phrases, words, and articles. Just listen to Perfekte Welle by Juli twice, and you’ll know forever that it’s “die Welle” and “der Tag”. You’ll learn even more if you sing along. Plus, it’s fun anyway! Anything that enters your brain through as many sensory channels as possible has a bigger chance of staying there. So, listening to the song while reading the lyrics while singing along is as much fun as it is intense language practice.

To get started (or to further your studies of German songs), let me point you to two popular German songs with great lyrics!

The first song is by the German rock-pop-band Juli. The band was formed in 2001, and reached international fame in 2004 when they published their first single “Perfekte Welle” and album “Es ist Juli”. That was at a time when other German language bands – like Wir sind Helden or Silbermond – were being very successful, too. A compilation of German language pop songs was named after their song: “Perfekte Welle – Musik von hier”.

Juli: Perfekte Welle (2004)
-> the song on youtube, and on mtv.de

The second song is by the German punk-rock-pop-band Die Ärzte from Berlin. The band was founded in 1982, and can without doubt be called a German cultural phenomenon. Most of their concerts for this year are already sold out. The songs by Die Ärzte range from absurd and silly to serious and political. Almost all of them are fun, and many exhibit a masterful use of language. One of the more political songs is “Schrei nach Liebe” (1993), which opposed the sprouting Neo-Nacism in reunified Germany.

Die Ärzte: Schrei nach Liebe (1993)
-> video on the band’s website, on youtube

What is your favorite German song?

The movie

„Jeden Tag, jede Sekunde triffst Du eine Entscheidung, die dein Leben verändern kann.“

(„Every day, every second you make a decision that could change your life.“)

You can say that this Satz (sentence) is something like the credo of this fast-paced movie made by Tom Tykwer in 1998. The story of the movie is quite simple: Manni (Moritz Bleibtreu) has an urgent need of 100.000 Marks that he ows some gangsters. He calls his girlfriend Lola (Franka Potente) to tell her and she instantly tries to help him. Generally speaking, that´s all!

But: How the movie is made is something that makes it really special. The story is told mehrere (several) times, but each time, the action shows leichte (slight) differences that lead to different endings. Each of the three runs is a literal run through Berlin by Lola.

Due to its treibendem (impulsive) electronic soundtrack (also made by director Tom Tykwer by the way) and its creative cuts, the movie is totally entertaining and keeps your feet moving while watching.

Watch the trailer:

The language

Lola rennt is in many ways ideal for language learners. Anyone learning German will enjoy the Herausforderung (challenge) of trying to understand the fast and very zeitgenössische (contemporary) German used in the film. With the help of subtitles, the listener will even be able to pick up some slang words like „Kippen“ for cigarettes („cigs“), just to metion one example.

Tykwer’s use of “Groundhog Day” repetitiveness, with its three parallel realities, often gives us a second and sometimes even a third chance to hear certain lines in the movie. But there are also subtile (subtle) variations and surprises that keep any repetition from becoming boring.

Cast and crew

Meanwhile Frank Potente is one of the best known German actresses and also made her way to Hollywood. So she played in the movie „Blow“ starring Johnny Depp and „The Bournde Identity“ with Matt Damon.

Moritz Bleibtreu is as well one of the best known actors in Germany. Beside some international productions, he can be seen in zahllosen (countless) German movies. It is totally clear, that Lola rennt was a steppingstone for both of them. Potente and Bleibtreu.

Tom Tykwer, the director of the movie made some international furor with the film adaption of Patrick Süskind`s „The perfume“ starring Dustin Hoffmann.

So if you see the DVD while shopping, get it and you won´t regret it!

Some vocabulary to this post:

der Satz – sentence
mehrere – several
leicht – slight
treibend – impulsive
die Herausforderung – challenge
zeitgenössisch – contemporary
subtil – subtle
zahllos – countless

Do you play an instrument? Maybe the carrot? The cucumber? The pepper? The celeriac? Leek? Or parsley? What sounds like a vegetarian shopping list are, for some people, indeed tools to make music. How can music be fresher and healthier than that?

The Vienna Vegetable Orchestra was founded in 1998 and consists of twelve members who use different vegetables to produce a quite experimental kind of music that fuses a variety of music styles such as contemporary music, beat-oriented house, jazz, noise, dub, and clicks’n’cuts.

All instruments are self-made of fresh vegetables and dried plant material. Very popular veggies are carrots, peppers, cucumbers, dried pumpkins, leek, artichokes, celeriac, and onionskin. This results in instruments like: pumpkin drum, celery guitar, cucumber phone, carrot recorder, eggplant clap, celeriac bongo, leek violin, radish bass flute, leek zucchini vibrator, pumpkin triangle, and carrot marimba. In order to build the instruments the musicians use drilling machines, sharp knives, and other kitchen tools. How long it takes to prepare a vegetable instrument depends very much on the instrument. For example, a tomato takes no time at all, and other instruments like a cucumber phone or carrot recorder take between ten to thirty minutes.

The members of the Vegetable Orchestra don’t see their music as a fun project but take it serious and they give concerts all over the world. This can make it sometimes difficult to get the right vegetables. Since vegetables go off soon the musicians have to build their instruments immediately before a concert. Further, they cannot carry the vegetables with them on the plane. Therefore, they need to buy all the vegetables in the country where they appear on stage. One problem is that the quality of the vegetables differs from country to country. For example, in order to build a carrot recorder it is necessary that the carrot has a certain size. Since the instruments do only last for one concert, the Vegetable Orchestra gives some parts of the vegetables in a soup and distributes it to the audience after the concert.

The members see themselves as “Gemüsiker” and “Gemüsikerinnen”, which is a blend of the German words Gemüse (vegetables) and Musiker (m) / Musikerinnen (f) (musicians). So, that you can talk of “vegeticians” in English.

Until now the orchestra has released three albums. The latest one is called “Onionoise”. If you want to know how the instruments are built and how they sound watch the clip below. Enjoy.

If you live in Russia, France or Hong Kong you have the chance to attend a concert this year. The dates are:

30.11.2011 International House of Music, Moscow (Russia)

13.12.2011 Reims (France)

30.12.2011 Ngau Chi Wan Civic Center/Theatre, Hong Kong

31.12.2011 Tai Po Civic Center/Theatre, Hong Kong

1.1.2012 Yuen Long Theatre, Hong Kong