One of the casualties of the events surrounding my son’s schizophrenic show at school was his German class. The shitty strip mall school they sent him to didn’t offer foreign languages (even though everything was online) and they are “required” in Georgia. The kids don’t have to take it but it fucks up their college path if they don’t, so he ended up in German. If I tell you how he, not exactly a language person, ended up in German class I will put my fist right through my monitor, so just know that he should never have been in the class to begin with. But, he likes it and wants to continue and get credit for it. So, with that said, I found an online high school in Florida that has German and got his school system to agree to accept the credits once he is done.
The issue? German is fucking hard. Yes, it vaguely resembles English. The vocabulary isn’t that hard but the grammar is a nightmare. I have been trying to coax him through it, but we are not going to finish by the start of the school year. He will still be behind. Since we are supposed to limit stress for him, I am saying “screw it” and going at the regular pace. He should finish up sometime this fall. I have a German for Dummies book, Rosetta Stone and I bought a used copy of his text book to try to get him back to where he was in the spring, but he didn’t really absorb enough during the year to help much.
So, get your German on this week. Germany has some fine heavy metal and industrial music, right? I’m going to start you all off with a death metal band fronted by a Holocaust survivor.
Ve Ah Da Scorpions:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qAxKilg76XE
Rammstein:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EOnSh3QlpbQ
Falco:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqCtw8_53mQ
Carl Orff — O, Fortuna/Fortune Plango Vulnera
The composer is German, the lyrics are Latin.
That was cool, delurked. Here is Hans Zimmer from Pirates of the Carribean (and a little eye candy on the cello for you guys):
Hans Zimmer – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nbiKV4prSqI
Disturbing. The DJ on my local rock station mentioned this video this weekend. I guess it’s catching steam.
Nena – 99 Luftballoons – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=La4Dcd1aUcE
Not a German artist, but you can’t beat David Hasselhoff singing in German.
David Hasselhoff – Du – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yT5rqKMaHAg
BTW rich, are you around? I assume you’re watching the NBA finals.