"Document" films

One of the special things J and I do together, usually when we are on our own in the house, is watch documentaries in German (Dokumentarfilme). In English J calls them "document" films. 

Often we combine this with dinner. Here is one of J's favorite experiences, a document film combined with FzA ("Frühstück zum Abendessen"):

Here are several of the document films we've watched in the last couple months:

1) The ancient Celts (3 parts)

2) The ancient Greeks 

3) The ancient Romans

4) Neil Armstrong

5) Apollo 13 (2 parts)

6) Nanotechnology

7) Octopuses

8) Flying dinosaurs

9) Virgin Galactic and space tourism (one of several) 

 

Comparing translations

J has a few books in both German and English. Today he spent a couple of hours reading and comparing  these stories:

 

When I asked him if one was more difficult than the other, he told me no, he can read just as easily in German as in English. I think that can hardly really be the case, given how much time he spends working on English in school. But at home, in any case, he seems to spend about as much time reading his German as his English books. For example, he'll spend several days reading nothing but Calvin & Hobbs, but then the same thing with Asterix & Obelix the next week.   

Idiomatic German word order

J produced a wonderful sentence the other day, with characteristic idiomatic word order. We were talking about some conflict he was having with somebody during recess, and he said: 

"Der Streit ist jetzt vorbei, richtig aufgelöst hat sich das Problem aber nicht."

Furzkisten

When I was a boy, I loved reading the dictionary and language reference books. So now I've started to read J dictionary and thesaurus entries. In order to make it fun, we've started with the kinds of terms J especially enjoys at this point in his life:

  
When we came across "Furzkiste," we laughed like loons for about two minutes.

Das fliegende Klassenzimmer

J enjoyed Emil und die Detektive so much, we started right in on this:

He was especially excited about the idea of a battle between two schools, being himself very interested at the moment in war-games (capture the flag, nerf gun fights), teams, and plans of attack etc. On this level the story does not disappoint. It is very rich in many other ways as well. One thing we talked about today was the friendship between Martin/Matz, the leader of the boys from boarding school, who is very tall and strong and self-confident, and Ulli, a very intelligent, but small and fretful boy. They are called "die ungleichen Freunde." We paused in our listening this morning to discuss different types of friendships one might have, some with people who are similar to one and because of the things in common, and some based on differences.