Update on the Telenovela - "Lena - Liebe meines Lebens"

Here's an update on the telenovela "Lena - Liebe meines Lebens," which was covered in an earlier blog post:

ZDF, a major German TV channel, launched the telenovela on September 20, 2010. It was adapted from an Argentinian telenovela.  "Lena" ran for 180 episodes, and ended on June 21, 2011. Click here or here to get a list and description of each episode (in German).

I haven't been able to find any of the episodes online, besides some short clips on YouTube. If you know where to view full episodes online, you can post the link in the comments below.

If you are looking for another German soap opera on ZDF, try one of these:

• Herzflimmern - Liebe zum Leben, a soap opera taking place in a clinic in the fictitious lake-side town of Sonnenberg. This show stopped filming in February 2012, but the ZDF is still showing episodes of it online.
• Herzkino (Not really a soap opera, but this series shows a new made-for-TV romantic movie every Sunday).

If you know of any German soap operas with full episodes available online, post it in the comments below!

DeutschOnlineLernen Youtube Course

DeutschOnlineLernen is a 20-part video course for beginning German on Youtube. The course covers basic German grammar concepts, such as noun gender and declension, basic verb conjugation and more.

A couple of sentences introduce each lesson; translations and vocabulary lists follow, reviewing and introducing the words used in the lesson. A basic grammar explanation is also given. A few translation exercises at the end review what you've learned in that lesson.

The videos are done in a "slideshow" format, similar to watching a PowerPoint, with audio. The voices used are clear, and the video and voices go very slow so it's easy to keep up and understand what's being said.

I feel that the videos might be good review for basic German grammar, rather than trying to learn the grammar from the video itself, since it might help to have some more explanation of the grammar when first trying to understand it. Also, in the vocabulary lists, the genitive endings are included along with the plural endings, which might be confusing, since the genitive isn't used or explained until later videos.

Overall, good videos for reviewing basic grammar concepts and picking up a few new words.

See lesson 1 of the course here. Write your own review of the course below!

(I will review the companion website, Deutsch-Online-Lernen.com, in the next blog post.)

Learning German for Portuguese Speakers - Aprenda Alemão

Here are some links for learning German (alemão) aimed at Portuguese speakers (other languages coming soon!):

Websites

• Aprenderalemao.com: Quero aprender alemão - Cursos de Alemão (Blog)
• BabelMundo.com.pt: Língua e Cultura Alemã
• Deutsche Welle: CURSOS DE ALEMÃO
• Evandro.net: Aprenda Alemão - Deutsch Lernen (has some links)
• Goethe-Institut: Angola
• Goethe-Institut: Portugal
• Goethe-Institut: Brasil
• Wikilivros: Alemão
• Wikipédia: Língua alemã
• Wikiversidade: Portal - Letras/Alemão

Youtube Videos

• albertoflugbegleiter (Youtube Channel)
• Curso de Alemao = German-1-1
• Dias da Semana e Meses - ALEMÃO
• Expressões básicas - ALEMÃO
• PROJETO APRENDER ALEMÃO.wmv

Translation/Dictionaries:

• Google Translate: Portuguese to German / German to Portuguese
• pauker.at: Portugu Alem Wörterbuch

Post/email if you know any other sites!

"What's so funny about German?" from the BBC - Video 2

I hope you had ein gutes neues Jahr (a good New Year)! Here is video number 2 in the "What's so funny about German?" short series from the BBC, featuring the German comedian Henning Wehn.



For more info on the series, see my previous post at "What's so funny about German" - Videos from the BBC.

The main page on the BBC for this series is here: What's so funny about German?.

Frohe Weihnachten! (Merry Christmas!)

Frohe Weihnachten!

Christmas - or Weihnachten - is the biggest holiday in Germany. Here are some links about Christmas in Germany:

1. About.com: Weihnachten – A German Christmas Guide
2. Wikipedia.org: Weihnachten
3. Wikipedia.org: Christmas Worldwide - Germany
4. Vistawide.com: German Christmas Traditions
   
5. WWW-Weihnachten.de (in German)


6. Fröhliche Weihnachten: Learning Songs & Traditions in German by Linda Rauenhorst (Google Books)


7. Christmas in Germany: A Cultural History by Joe Perry (Google Books)


8. How to Say "Merry Christmas" in German (Youtube video)


9. Impressions of Christmas-Time in Germany (Youtube video)


10. WeihnachtenTV (Youtube channel)

"What's so funny about German?" - Videos from the BBC

"What's so funny about German?" - from the BBC

The BBC has 10 short videos online from a German stand-up comedian taking a humorous look at the German language. Below is the first video in the series:



The main page for the videos can be found here: What's so funny about German?.

The comedian is Henning Wehn, a German stand-up comedian based in London, who calls himself the "German Comedy Ambassador in London."
(His official site is here: HenningWehn.de, which has more audio and video from him.)

Also, check out the rest of the BBC's German language learning resources here: BBC Languages - German.

German Film: "M" by Fritz Lang

Watch a classic German thriller (with subtitles): M - Eine Stadt sucht einen Mörder by the director/screenwriter Fritz Lang.




Click on "Read More" if the video is not showing above; the video should appear then.

The movie is from 1931, and is considered by Lang to be his finest work. The plot involves a hunt for a child murderer - both by the police and other criminals - in 1920s Berlin.