Report on German Language 10th February 2020
The topic for the first conversation group of the year was the weather. Starting with ordinary day to day conversation and a quick review of the pronunciation of the German ABC, the dialogue did move into more extreme weather events, such as heavy rainfall, floods and storms, followed finally with a German to English translation exercise.

Report on German Language 24th February 2020
Starting with ordinary day to day German conversation, the topic for the day was writing a postcard in German to each other.  Every postcard was read by the writer and positively improved and corrected, much to the delight of the members.   I enjoy the group work.
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Horst Gunther

This is the second year I have presented German language at the beginner level and an even greater emphasis is being placed on pronunciation. Students are two-thirds of the way through speaking and singing through the German phonetic alphabet. Listening skills are being honed so they can reproduce the sounds correctly in speech and writing. Spelling has started using German sounds.

The sessions this year are an hour and a half long and we romp through the time. The first session was devoted to verbs in the present tense and adverbs. At home, students have made their own little books of German verbs and are learning to decline verbs from memory with increasing speed.

The next lesson was spent looking at nouns. Unlike English which has no genders, German has 3. We explored nouns looking at which gender category into which they fell.

In German ‘the‘ changes across these genders and also depending on what position (or case) is has in the sentence. There is no such equivalent in English and it is arguably one of the major challenges for learners. We made a start in looking at this, as well as pronoun changes in the sentence.

Overall, students have a vocabulary of close to two hundred words already.
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Pauline Bailey

Elementary 
2nd Monday 12 to 1.30 pm  4th Monday 10 to 11.30 am    Commences:  Monday 10 February
Conversation 
2nd Monday 12.00 to 1.30pm (Library)   4th Monday 12.00 to 1.30pm (U3A)     Commences: Monday 10 Feb
 
Both groups – Elementary and Conversation - are of about equal size with about half new and half returning members in each. For both groups, participants will need some form of notetaking and a German/English- English/German dictionary.

The topic for the first conversation group of the year is the weather. Starting with ordinary day to day conversation, the dialogue will move into more extreme weather events, such as floods, bushfires, earthquakes and tsunamis, ending with climate change.  Participants need to come prepared with a list of the relevant vocabulary.     Janet will be taking this in the library.

Simultaneously, the elementary group will be meeting in the U3A room with Pauline. Topics will be pronunciation, verbs in the present tense and adverbs.

Convenor:     Pauline Bailey