My first exam is for Deutsch-English translation, for which my outlook is one seriously lacking in optimism. Not optimism so much, only optimism in a passing result. It will be a fun exam, really the whole of the course has been a blast, and extremely enlightening! The only problem (for me) is that it is a course for native German speakers who are near fluent in English. That being said, the texts/exercises are those German phrases/words which are seen as especially difficult to translate into English. I'm sure you can see the problem this will pose for someone who is in the course and arrived in Germany 4 months ago, not speaking any German. The professor has had a little mercy on me and will be allowing me to use a dictionary. That being said I need a lot of prayers and a bigger dictionary.
However, I have learned a ton about the German language throughout the course, quite intriguing. Basically, to sum it up, the German language is much more impersonal and noun oriented. I actually have fallen slightly in love with the German nouns, as it turns out. Where we would have to use many more words, or a phrase, the Germany simply use a noun. For instance, on the train a man on the loudspeaker announces, "Bitte in Fahrtrichtung links aussteigen." The word "Fahrtrichtung" is a compound word made of "trip/ride" + "direction". So, if we were to translate it literally, it would be "Please get off in travel-direction left." However, since we have no noun constructions like that we would have to say something like "Please get off the train on the left side, with regards to direction of travel." Another example. German sentence: "Wir steuern in eine eklatante Ingenieurmangelsituation." It's really only the last couple words that will pose more of a problem to translate, as you might have already guessed. The first four words are comparatively no problem, "We are heading for a...". Then you would simply translate "eklatante Ingenieurmangelsituation" as "...situation in which there will be a stark shortage of engineers." That last phrase was a sentence that we used in class to practice translations. Basically, English prefers verbs and verb phrases, whereas German loves nouns. But as you can see, the final doesn't look to promising.
I also learned a lot about English. The professor is British, which means that he doesn't speak English very well...or I suppose the better way to put it is that he fails to speak American with fluency. Many times he will translate something into English and I will be thinking to myself that I would never say that, it is truly interesting how different British and American English are.
The second final that I have on Wednesday is my B1 Sprachkurs final. This is the standard German course, which includes speaking, listening, and writing, as well as vocabulary, grammar and the like. This will also be a challenging final, but I am confident that I will be able to come away with an A or B in it. You may think it interesting that I described this course as being a standard German course that included all the above mentioned elements. The reason for this is that I also have a German course that focuses exclusively on listening and speaking, and another that focuses only on reading comprehension.
Well, all this talk of courses and German is shooing away my desire to procrastinate and I can feel a little, baby Studyseed being planted. I suppose I should heed the sign and doing a little revision (British English for "studying"). Hope that the weekend is treating you all so well so far and enjoy the rest of it!
