path: root/docs/umich/f24_deutsch.md

# Fall 2024 Course Review: GERMAN 231

2025-01-03

Course Title: Second-Year German

Rating: 3.5/5

## Instructor (Meghan Looney)

She is a graduate student and she is responsible. She spends a lot of time
correcting our assignments, catching every single grammatical mistake,
even if I proofread it three times.

## Course topics

- Grammar (Basically going over the same grammar I learned in GERMAN 103
  all over again. It's boring :blobcat_eyeroll:)
- Vocabulary (Kernwortschatz. Truth be told I never spent much time
  reviewing them. I just rely on my gut sense when I do Quizlet Live and
  Canvas quizzes)
- Culture (That's one of the things I wanted to learn. What's on an
  average German's mind?)

### Books used

- Franz Kafka, _Die Verwandlung_ (Metamorphosis), abridged easy reader
  version. It was fucking expensive, like $40 something, and nobody sells
  second hand either. I mailed the book back for a partial refund but
  still. Can't have shit in America
- Nora Krug, _Belonging_ / _Heimat_. Bought the English version to read at
  home, then we read the German version together. It's about a German who
  moved to the US and did research on her family history, only to find
  that her grandfather was in the Nazi party, but didn't directly kill
  anyone.

### Other media

- _Nika, Lotte, Mangold!_: Comic book about three kids with a lot of
  colloquials.
- _Felix_: Movie about boy who learns sign language just to date deaf
  girlfriend. Kinda emotional.
- _Neuland_: Movie about refugees who start a new life in Switzerland with
  the help of an integration school. Too busy, didn't watch it whole.
- _Masel Tov Cocktail_: Movie about Jewish German student who punched
  a racist, informed the viewers of the rise of antisemitism in Germany
  (fuck the AfD), then kicked the racist again.
- "Erlkönig": Lyrics by Goethe, music by Schubert. About a boy who was
  tempted, touched, and killed by the elf king.
- _Phoenix_: Movie, set some time after WWII, mentions concentration
  camps. Too busy, didn't watch it. Probably should have.

### Notable assignments

- 3 Deep Dives, each one is a movie or some German media that takes ~2
  hours. Mine are:
    - _Sissi_ (1955): My mother likes the movie but I don't approve the
      lack of agency Sissi and Nene had over their marriage or lack
      thereof.
    - _Der Untergang_ (2004): Probably the most famous German movie of the
      21st century. I looked up the script, and now I finally understand
      what is actually “我到河北省来” (und doch habe ich allein).
    - [_Be-troit_ (2018)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOSwjlJO-xg):
      Documentary of a group of Berlin musicians who travel to Detroit to
      collab with local hip hop artists.
- Geo-Referat: A presentation about a German-speaking city. Our group
  chose Bremen, and I talked about the Bremen town musicians.
- Letter to Nora Krug: What do we think of her book.

## The "töt dich" incident

One day we were talking about the du-imperativ. Basically, to tell someone
to go, you say "geh", because the du-inflection of "gehen" is "gehst" and
you take away the "st". This is all good.

If a verb gains an Umlaut in the du-inflection, the imperative loses it.
For example, "schlafen" — "schläfst" — "schlaf".

However, if the verb infinitive already has an Umlaut, do you get rid of
it? Meghan says yes, I say no.

So, to make a point, I interrupted her to ask:

> In the hypothetical case where I tell someone to kill themselves, do
> I say "tot dich" or "töt dich"?

:floofload: :floofnervous: :floofscared:

OK, so judging from Meghan and everyone's response, that was
inappropriate. Right before the class ended, I raised my hand and
apologized:

> I would like to apologize. I just wanted to make a point, and it wasn't
> a good one.

My apology was accepted.

### Aftermath

The next day I visited Laura Okkema in her office, and told her how
I messed up. She said an apology is the best I could do, and I did the
right thing. She knew I would never say that in real life, but it was
early September and my classmates didn't know me that well.

Also, I'm right, it's "töt dich".

I said,

> If you wanna be an incel, at least be correct.

The next morning I come to the classroom, and at one random point
I corrected Meghan again. She said,

> Fred, your 103 professor came to me yesterday and told me that if you
> correct me, you're probably right and I'm probably wrong.

I was flabbergasted. I felt like a little kid being wronged at school but
the principal was my mom. The more I talk with Laura, the more of
a motherly figure she seems to be. Help am I being Oedipus'd??

### Reflection

Yes, this is a mistake. But I will only make it once. I'm proud of myself
for apologizing.

In EECS 496, there was a lecture about allyship and how to be a nice
person in general. A classmate asked (paraphrased):

> If a word that I find innocent offends someone, am I a jerk?

The lecturer didn't come up with an answer the classmate was satisfied
with, so I replied,

> I think I have an answer to your question. A litmus test to tell if
> you're the jerk is, do you apologize?

It's true that people sometimes find random words in day-to-day language
offensive, and I can't claim I agree with all of them. However, if I utter
something to someone and they find it offensive, I have two choices:

- Be defensive about it and laugh at them for being so sensitive.
- Acknowledge that you care about them, and apologize.

One makes you a jerk, one doesn't. Which is which is left as an exercise
for the reader.

## Letter to Nora Krug

_Heimat_ is a book about some messed up history. Basically, Nora Krug digs
through some archives and finds that her family tree was, like, half
Nazis, despites attempts at whitewashing. Like, the story goes in her
family that some guy (forgot who) would refuse to say "Heil Hitler", but
instead say "Drei Liter" and nobody found out.

Her uncle — who died fighting in the SS — wrote some racist shit as a kid,
like "Jews are like poisonous mushrooms", clearly a rhetoric adapted from
some propaganda piece. Is he to blame? Or is it the propaganda? Who gets
to decide when someone is supposed to learn morals to be held accountable
for their actions? And in a fascist regime, is it possible to have morals
at all?

My letter goes:

> Sehr geehrte Frau Professor Krug,

> ich bin ein Student an der University of Michigan. Dieses Semester habe
> ich für einen Deutschkurs Ihr Buch »Heimat« gelesen. Manchmal fand ich
> etwas lustiges und lachte darüber (z.B. Struwwelpeter), aber öfter taten
> mir der Text und die Bilder leid. Ich kann mir nicht vorstellen, was für
> ein schreckliches Leben Ihre Familie erfuhr.

> Im Klassenzimmer diskutierten wir darüber, was uns aufgefallen ist. Ein
> Thema konnten wir niemals umgehen — die Nazis. Sie haben es entdeckt,
> und es zugegeben, dass viele Verwandte von Ihnen leider die Nazis
> unterstützt hatten.

> Ihr Onkel Franz-Karls Hausarbeit hat uns besonders überrascht. Nicht nur
> die Nazisymbole, sondern auch der Aufsatz, den die Juden mit Giftpilzen
> verglichen. Eine Person in der Klasse sagte etwas wie: „unglaublich, er
> war nur ein Kind, warum konnte er so rassistisch sein!“ [1]

> Sie hatte Recht. Heute kennen wir das Hakenkreuz als ein verbotenes
> Symbol, weil der Zweite Weltkrieg schon vorbei ist und die Nazis
> verloren. Im Rückblick ist alles klar: die Nazis waren rassistisch und
> verdienten die Niederlage. Aber wenn man damals geboren wurde, konnte
> man das nie  wissen.

> Ich frage mich oft: „Was wissen wir heute nicht? Wer würde Hitler II
> werden und uns alle umbringen? Und was könnten wir tun, wenn wir das
> finden, dass wir ihnen geholfen haben?“ Ich habe Angst davor, dass die
> Geschichte sich wiederholen würde.

> Ihr Buch ist eine prima Vorlesung davon. Manchmal muss man den Bösen
> helfen. Das Geld, das ich für die Uni bezahle, hilft bei den Bomben, die
> auf Gaza abstürzen. Darüber kann ich nichts tun. Aber ich suche immer
> einen kleinen Protest dagegen. Einen „Drei Liter“.

> Mit freundlichen Grüßen,  
> Ihr  
> Frederick Yin

> [1] This can be attributed to Lauren (paraphrased).

I didn't actually end up sending this to Krug because I didn't even finish
the book (we only read the first half), but personally, I believe my
letter deserves a place on the bulletin board next to »Das
Beamermännchen«.

## Zine

Finally, it's time to talk about the Z I N E!

So we took a lecture to write a rough draft, and incrementally revised it
throughout the semester, and finally we would submit a final version.

Did I overcompensate for the lack of creativity over the semester? Yes.

Here's mine: [Zine PDF](https://fkfd.me/static/deutsch-231-zine.pdf)

![Montage of Zine, pages in different
colors](img/f24_deutsch/zine-montage.jpg)

There's seven chapters and the last one got me gobsmacked.

> Pick an animal you would like to be for a day. […] Start with drawing
> a picture of the animal you want to be for a day. Then, describe a day
> you are would have as the animal you picked.

_help now everyone will know im a furry can't beat those allegations_

So anyway,

![An anthro cat with googly eyes drawn on paper. An arrow points at him
labeled "0 IQ"](img/f24_deutsch/k7-draft.jpg)

![Basically same thing but digital. Three things are prohibited:
integration, Python, and MOSFET (the schematic
symbol)](img/f24_deutsch/k7-mosfet.png)

There is an easter egg in the chapter. Can you find it?

Anyway, I closed the Zine with this remark:

> mit meinen eigenen zwei Pfoten gezeichnet

(drawn with my own two paws)

Meghan nominated my Zine for the Kothe-Hildner Prize for a chance to win
$150 (thanks!) I also showed it to Laura and gifted her a copy (I had to
bolt to my therapy session but she wasn't done reading it so I just let
her keep it). It didn't win the prize (I read the three winning entries
and boy the bar sure is high), but I still love what I made.

### Typesetting and exporting

Initially I made everything in Krita, exported the pages to PNGs, then
merged them in a PDF. It turns out the PDF was astronomically large (like
40 MiB), so I tried JPGs. But then the text was all blocky.

I said "fuck it" and basically exported layer-by-layer, imported all of
the images (like the Mosfet you saw above) into LibreOffice Writer, and
re-typeset everything with textboxes. It was so painful.

Oh yeah a couple days later I re-re-typeset it on A4 size paper instead of
Letter, which makes it narrower so the stapler arm could reach the center
of the physical Zine.

![Physical printout of my Zine](img/f24_deutsch/zine-physical.jpg)

## Verdict

Overall, I learned a lot about German culture and history, and I have
a more informed opinion on German politics (fuck AfD in case it wasn't
clear).

The Deep Dives were incredibly helpful. They forced me to sit down and
immerse myself in German. The Zine was also fun.

I did not enjoy spending a significant portion of my time going over
grammar for the second or third time. This time could be better spent
discussing topics of value, like why the hell Germans like sour bread.
Like, Plusquamperfekt isn't that useful anyway.