{"id":4835,"date":"2013-12-13T21:54:14","date_gmt":"2013-12-13T21:54:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/?p=4835"},"modified":"2017-11-15T14:17:21","modified_gmt":"2017-11-15T14:17:21","slug":"the-coldest-winter-bilingual-thoughts-on-the-weather-and-how-we-perceive-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/the-coldest-winter-bilingual-thoughts-on-the-weather-and-how-we-perceive-it\/","title":{"rendered":"The Coldest Winter: Bilingual Thoughts on the Weather and How We Perceive It"},"content":{"rendered":"

Es wird immer k\u00e4lter hier in Chicago. I\u2019ve been thinking a lot about the last two winters I spent in Germany. Irgendwie fand ich das Winter dort krasser als hier. Of course, last year\u2019s did make headlines in Europe as the darkest winter Germany had seen in 43 years<\/a>. Je k\u00e4lter der Winter, desto sch\u00f6ner der Fr\u00fchling, oder? But no matter how poetically you look at it, cold is cold. Es hat nat\u00fcrlich nichts einfacher gemacht, dass meine damalige WG keine zentrale Heizung hatte.<\/p>\n

But even if I take the cold apartment out of the equation, I still have the feeling that winter as I know it in Germany is colder<\/i> than winter as I\u2019ve known it in Chicago and (yes, even) Minnesota. Die durchschnittliche Temperatur in K\u00f6ln in Januar ist 36 Grad (Fahrenheit). In Minneapolis, the average high temperature in January is a full 12 degrees colder. Trotz diesem wissenschaftlichen Daten glaube ich, das Winter in K\u00f6ln ist k\u00e4lter als hier.<\/p>\n

Leaving wind-chill out of it, how can it be that winter seems colder, even when it isn\u2019t? Ich glaube, es liegt daran, wie wir einen Winter wahrnehmen. It\u2019s all relative. Ein unerwarteter Faktor f\u00fcr mich war wie oft ich \u00fcber das Wetter in Deutschland gesprochen habe. The weather is always a trusty topic of conversation, especially if you find yourself someplace where you don\u2019t know many people. Ein Lerner wird auch sehr fr\u00fch in einem Sprachkurs die relevante Vocabular lernen, um das Wetter zu beschreiben. So that could very well be part of my distorted perception: if I talk more about the weather, I will appreciate it or suffer from it more. Das macht einfach Sinn!<\/p>\n

A second factor is the way I would get around in Germany. In Minnesota bin ich den Winter lang mit einem Auto hin und her gefahren. In Germany I did not have a car, so I would spend more time walking through the city, letting the cold air sink in. Man wird sich schnell daran gew\u00f6hnen aber ich glaube, dieser Prozess hat mich im Endeffekt mit einem tiefen, ungreifbaren, kalten Gef\u00fchl hintergelassen. It\u2019s not so grave as it sounds, though. Gestern, zum Beispiel, als ich auf meinen Zug gewartet habe und eingefroren bin, musste ich nur an kalte K\u00f6ln denken und pl\u00f6tzlich f\u00fchlte ich mich nicht so kalt an.<\/p>\n

So if it\u2019s cold where you are right now, remember it\u2019s: it\u2019s all relative. Es k\u00f6nnte immer k\u00e4lter sein.<\/p>\n

krass<\/strong>\u00a0– (adjective) a somewhat colloquial word for “extreme”, often used to mean “cool” or “crazy”<\/p>\n

WG<\/strong> – (noun) abbreviation for\u00a0Wohngemeinschaft<\/em>, or, “shared apartment”<\/p>\n

durchschnittlich<\/strong>\u00a0– (adjective) average<\/p>\n

wahrnehmen<\/strong> – (verb) to perceive<\/p>\n

sich daran gew\u00f6hnen<\/strong>\u00a0– (verb) to become accustomed to<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

How do you feel about this jumping around between German and English? As I learned German, I found it overwhelming sometimes to try reading lengthy texts. My goal with this style of writing is to provide an opportunity for a beginning learner with something he or she could understand, without reducing the “difficulty” of the content to the point where a more intermediate reader would be bored. Let me know in the comments if you think I should try this again sometime. It was fun for me to write it!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\"\"

Es wird immer k\u00e4lter hier in Chicago. I\u2019ve been thinking a lot about the last two winters I spent in Germany. Irgendwie fand ich das Winter dort krasser als hier. Of course, last year\u2019s did make headlines in Europe as the darkest winter Germany had seen in 43 years. Je k\u00e4lter der Winter, desto sch\u00f6ner…<\/p>\n

Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":111,"featured_media":4836,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4835","post","type-post","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4835","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/111"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4835"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4835\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9047,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4835\/revisions\/9047"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4836"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4835"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4835"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/german\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4835"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}