Ely Buendia

Eleandre Basiño Buendia (geb. 1970) - seine Freunde sagen Ely - kommt aus Naga City, Philippines. Er ist ein philippinischer Musiker. Er singt fur Eraserheads. Er spielt Gitarre. Er studierte in University of the Philippines. Ely Buendia ist verheiratet mit Diane Ventura, Eraserhead's Aufseher. Er hat einen Sohn, Eon, sechs Jahre alt. Er komponierte Songs wie 'Pare Ko', 'Magasin', und 'Huling El Bimbo'. Er spielte in Film 'Run, Barbi, Run.

German a la Cartoon

As I was surfing the library last month for a novel that I could read, I stumbled upon this book. German ala Cartoon: 101 hilarious cartoons for understanding German language and culture, by Dr. Albert H. Small. I was immediately drawn to the book because of its cover. When I read the introduction, I became more interested in reading it. I was about to borrow the book, when I decided to scan it.

The first part of the book is good. It introduced the learning language. And I learned something new. That some German words have families. For example, we will represent hospital in German as X. Using the German language, hospital bill will become XY, in which Y are added letters. What I’m trying to say is you just have to add some letters in some German words when the basic word is related to your new word. In English, hospital bill is a compound noun, but in German, it will become a single word.

(Note: I used variables because I forgot to list down and I forgot the examples of the book ; I just used hospital and hospital bill as examples, I don’t know if the ‘family rule’ is applicable to those two terms. )

Also in the introduction, it states that I will learn the language with fun, which I expected because of the illustrations.

When I finally reached the comic section, I was disappointed. I thought “how could I learn the language if the topics are random?”

At one page, you have the illustration.


And at the bottom of the page, you have the translation:


So far, so good.



But then, on the next page, you have an entirely different illustration, meaning an entirely different topic.

It’s like random cartoons are put in one book and translations are added. How could you learn if each page is disconnected from the next. It’s like the book wants to tell you to memorize each German word and their translation. Nowhere in the book would you find how to order the words in a sentence, or in what context you use a certain word. For me, the book is interesting; however, I don’t find it effective for students like me who are just starting to learn the German language. I found the comics humorous, though. :)

In th end, I found myself putting the book back to the shelf, but for those of you who might be interested in borrowing the book, go to the University of the Philippines - College of Arts and Letters Library. Here's the call number:


Tschus!

VAK

Since I don't know exactly what kind of learning style fits me best (I'm confused whether I'm a visual or an auditory learner), I first answered a VAK (visual-auditory-kinesthetic) questionnaire. Here's the link: http://www.businessballs.com/vaklearningstylestest.htm.

I found out I am no way near being an auditory learner, I'm an almost-pure visual person. Out of 30 items, 23 of which are in visual, 5 in auditory, and 2 in kinesthetics.

Anyway, as I found out earlier in our German class that nouns in the German language have gender (WHAT?!), we were advised to strategize on how we could remember the gender of those nouns. I'm thinking the gender must be based on how hard/soft the object is, or how frequent men/women use it, BUT, the hard part is, there's no fixed rule about it. For those just starting to learn the language, you just have to find a way to memorize the word together WITH the articles (articles used in German vary according to gender).

Whenever I memorize words of small number, I just memorize the initials of each word and make a word or a phrase out of it. However, this will not work in language learning. As for my strategy, I force a word to be feminine/neutral/masculine to whatever category it belongs. For example, Job, it's masculine for me 'cos more men are expected to have jobs. Another, Lowe, it's masculine 'cos lions are agressive. So yah, that's my strategy.

Hallo!

Hallo! It’s been three months since I started creating my blog of me learning the German language, and I still haven’t introduced myself in Deutsch. So, here it is.

Guten Tag! Mein name ist Jordan Charles De Guzman. Ich komme aus den Philippinen. Ich wohne in Binangonan, Rizal. Ich bin siebzehn Jahre alt. Ich bin ein freshman. Ich bin ein studierte BS Communication Research.

Das ist es. Gute Nacht!

Joyeux Noel's Beginner's Review

Joyeux Noel is a film by Christian Carion depicting true stories of German, French and Scottish soldiers during the Christmas of World War I. This war was set in France.

Joyeux Noel is a French phrase meaning Merry Christmas.

I never really liked movies about war, Pearl Harbor and Black Hawk Down for instance. Before watching the film, I had no clue that the movie is about the World War I. First, I don't know what Joyeux Noel means. And second, when I looked for an online translator, I found out it means Merry Christmas. SO there, I watched it and I expected I would be bored like when I was watching other war films.

I was confused at the beginning who the Germans and the French are. Thanks to their caps, I know who the Scottish soldiers are. Anyway, as I continued watching, I understood the movie more. However, when the couple (Sprink and Anna), were singing for the crown prince in private, I thought I was wrong again in distinguishing the Germans from the others. They were pronouncing 'r' very clearly. I thought Germans don't pronounce it markedly.

All in all, honestly, it's the best war film I've ever watched. It's profound and unexpectedly moving. And the film's not only all about war, it's about human goodwill that despite what they're fighting for (although in the film, some were merely forced to join the battalion), they still had the self-possession of laying down their arms. It is a true occurrence about an unbelievable time for peace in the utmost violence of war.

I recommend you all to watch this film. I'm telling you, this is a film of violence, with HEART. ♥

Klirrende Tower (Icy Tower), Graded

This is my grade for the previous post.

There are three words/phrases in each line, each seperated by a hypen (-).
First word: German word.
Second word: The correct translation of the German word.
Third word: My guess.

Before each German word, there's a symbol.
/ means I guessed the translation correctly.
X means I'm wrong.
.5 means partly correct.

/ Spielen - Play - New Game or Play
/ Rekorde - High Score - High Score
/ Einstellungen - Settings - Settings
/ Hilfe - Help - Help
/ Info - Information - Information

/ Einfacher, Schwerer Modus - Easy, Hard Mode - Time Trial/Adventure or Easy/Hard.
/ Zuruck - Back - Back

X Steuerung - Controls - Sound
.5 Music: Aus - Music:Off - Music (I didn't include Off that's why it's only .5)
X Spielstil - Game style - No answer
/ Figur - Character - Character
X Startebene - Start Floor - Start
/ Sprache - Language - Language
X Spiel zurucksetzen - Reset Game

/ Menuhilfe - Menu Help - Menu Help
X Spielhilfe - Game Help - No answer

/ Wilst du das Spiel wirklich beenden - Do you really want to exit the game - Quit

Out of 17 items, I only guessed 11.5 correctly. That's 67.65 %. Not bad! :)

Klirrende Tower (Icy Tower)

I just had a new game installed in my cellphone, Icy Tower. After opening the game, I was asked what language to use. Since I'm studying German, I chose Deutsch. Let's see if I can make my way through the actual game using Deutsch as the language.

After the language to use, I was confronted with six options.

Spielen, Rekorde, Einstellungen, Hilfe, Info, Beend.

I'll try to guess what each word means.

Spielen. I can't think of an English word close to this German word. But since it's the first option, I guessed it must be New Game or Play.
Rekorde. Close to Record. Maybe this is the record for high scores.
Einstellungen. If not for the small graphic beside the word, I would have not guessed its meaning. Settings.
Hilfe. Hilfe is Help.
Info. It's Information.

Then, I explored each option. After one option comes more sub-options.

Spielen.
Options:
Einfacher and Schwerer Modus. I can only guess Modus. It's Mode. I guessed it's either Time Trial/Adventure or Easy/Hard.
Zuruck. I already encountered this. It means back or return.

Rekorde.
Options:
Einfacher Modus, Schwerer Modus, Zuruck. I thought this is the high score record for the two modes.

Einstellungens.
Options:
Steuerung. Maybe sound, cos' it's close to Stereo. Haha
Music: Aus. I'm quite sure, no, I am very sure, this is for the music option.
Spielstil. Hmm. Can't guess.
Figur. Figur is close to figure. Maybe this is where you choose your character.
Startebene. There's the word start. Maybe start game, I doubt it, it should not be in the Settings section.
Sprache. Language for sure, I already encountered this somewhere, probably in my German class.
Spiel zurucksetzen. Too German. I can't guess.
Zuruck. Back/Return.

Hilfe.
Options:
Menuhilfe. Menu Help?
Spielhilfe. Spiel again, what does that mean.
Zuruck. Back.

Info.
Only information about the game, it uses English as the language.

Beend.
Wilst du das Spiel wirklich beenden? This is a question, and I can only answer Yes or No. Maybe it's quit.

There it is. I'll grade myself in my next post.

See my grade here.