I am sure that there are many people that want to know what happens in a German course from Deutsch Akademie.  I mean what can it happen? People learn German.  Yes, but how? Are there beamers, laptops everywhere, fancy armchairs and special pills that fastly teach you German? NO, there are no fireworks and anything.

The 10 students and the teacher gather together in a classroom, focus on a book and the students usually write in their notebooks/papers/… A very natural way of teaching so far!

The difference that Deutsch Akademie brings to the market is that the teachers care about you, students are interested and motivated, the books are accesible and the place is central. People can come from any corner of Vienna or even from outside fo Vienna (just like my case) and still get to the course in time.

There is another part of the academy that I have not experienced yet , but I heard only good things about it, i.e. hosting students in Vienna. There are families that host the students from Deutsch Akademie and it seeems that the academy is doing a great job about it.

Ah, I am so lucky I found it from the beginning of my German „trip”!

The South Africa in Colours festival brought us closer to His Excellency Xholisa Mabhongo and his wife, Bongoza Mabhongo. His Excellency Xholisa Mabhongo is the South African embassador in Austria.

Both of them welcomed guests at the opening gala together with another person (I apologize ten thousand times, but I forgot his name).  Though the festival, both of them were participating at the activities and promoting South Africa in an active way. Both of them were reachable, were answering questiong, making jokes with the participants and were interested in all sorts of proposals concerning their homeland.

I had the honor  to meet both: His Excellency Xholisa Mabhongo and his wife, Bongoza Mabhongo, in private and I was impressed how down to Earth they are. Themselves and their children, too. If you do not know how important they are in the diplomatic field, you would think that they are just any family on the street.

Another funny thing: I met Her Excellency, Bongoza Mabhongo, at Deutsch Akademie in A 2.1. 🙂

From the 23rd until the 26th of June, there were two countries between Switzerland and Hungary: Austria and South Africa. Weird, right?

In this period: 23-26 June 2011, Vienna hosted the cultural festival South  Africa in Colours. In the first day, there was the opening gala, with many  South African and Austrian celebrities. In the second day, there was a great show, with traditional African dances and a thrilling performance from Lira, a South African superstar.  In the third day, guests were awaited to take part at workshops: drum, dancing, etc. The last day ended with many THANK YOU speeches and another fantastic show.  I think there were also fireworks, but I don’t know exactly.

All four days long, visitors could admire and buy South African art and ..I call them ”souvenirs”. Bracelets, earrings, rings and so many other different things.  About this, you can read in one of my next  articles.

My favourite part from this festival was the fruitful way of preseting the African culture. More about this, in my next articles… Keep reading!

If you have been to Vienna first as a tourist and then you moved here, what were your first thoughts? My personal thoughts were: „Let’s visit what I have not got to visit last time!!” What was that, exactly? Where should I start from? There are so many thing to do, so many sights to see…

After precise thinking, I decided to visit Stadtpark. The center and Johannes Strauss too, but more precisely what many people do not see, what many tourists froget about.  For example, by walking next to the river, on the same side with Mr. Strauss, I discovered a beautiful fountain. So simple, so pure, but so impressive! You can see it in the picture. Unfortunately, I have not discovered exactly what it represents.

What I know (almost) for sure, is that I have seen this kind of statue – or maybe exactly this model – in Schönbrunn’s gardens. There are so many there, that I have to go back and check! 🙂

How many times did you find yourself a situation where you had to speak German and you didn’t remember a word you wanted to say? No, you cannot acces your dictionary, because you forgot it at home? Yes, many times, I know!  The same thing happened to me as well.

This is the charm of this big vocabulary is that it contains all the words from all the situation there, together. You have them all there. In case you forget it, you can have your CD player with you and listen to them on the street, in the metro/tram/… A good friend of mine listens to these CDs while driving. She plays them on her CD-player in the car and is multitasking. How clever is that?

Anyway, all in all, I hope you will find the beauty I have found in this material.

When was the first time when you thought about buying your first German  book?  Did you think you would buy something for a baby, for someone small in your family or directly an enciclopedia? Directly something big and impressive? Until you get to your conclusion, let us have a look at this book that Deutsch Akademie wrote for us, the trainees. 🙂

As you might have read in my previous post, I have this book too and I consider it very appropriate for us (I am now in B1). There are 7 little stories and each of them read normally or slowly, for the people that know more German and for the ones that are learning in a nonrapid way. J That is very welcoming.

My personal favourite story is the 2^nd one, the one with the stewardess and the business man. So funny! He definitely got what he deserved!

Ah, let’s not forget the exercises! Practice makes perfect, so let’s do it!