I'm alive again! Lots to catch up on in this thread, good conversation in here.
I've been out of town, and ill, and working, and all sorts of uninteresting things.
First things first (I'm pretending that you all might care, if you don't, well, break it to me gently, or let me live in my dream world
):
Söy: I've started Rosetta Stone this past weekend. I finally made it into the Phoenix Library and got my magic library card. That afternoon, I was logged into the Rosetta Stone online program! Very cool. I am working on Unit 2 of Level 1. I'm breezing through most of it as it is content I am already familiar with.
I'm trying to not over-analyze and worry about not exactly learning noun gender with their examples. I'm on Unit 2, for crying out loud, I'm sure they have something planned for me later. I think this is one of the times where knowing a little already is a bit of trouble. Overall, though, I like it so far.
I've also downloaded the Ebook of 575 German Verbs. There's a 40 page introduction to German grammar that is FANTASTIC. I have skimmed over it and it gets into things that I've wanted to have laid out for me. So, now, I must sit down and read through it.
Oh, and your damned Dschinghis Khan video is going to give me nightmares now, I think. :zombie:
Regarding the subject of wacky-ass American views:
I've seen a little bit of the stupidity, but not too much. We had lots of German exchange students in my high school (typical number of students there ranges between 2000 & 2500 over the years), and I don't think any of them ran into much trouble with people acting like morons towards them. This was in a relatively suburban area, for what it's worth.
However, I've run into the rare and occasional person who is concerned about why I'd want to learn German. There's enough racist inbreds in the country that strive to get their inspiration from Nazi history that it makes people think that there's some likely connection between someone learning German and some sort of racist/political motivation. That can be a bit irritating.
And Mormons:
Where I live, the Mormons run a few neighboring towns, and they're working on the one closest to me. You can trip over a Mormon church about every two miles or so. One just went up down the road from us here. There is one 2-3 miles directly north of that one, one about 6 miles west of that one, and so on. They are so prevalent that when major housing developments/communities are built, they frequently just slap a Mormon church right in there with it.
SOME of them are okay, most of them are creepy with their over-done whitebread "wholesomeness". And, what's really odd is that you can spot them a mile away. Especially the males. It's freaky. They all have this clone-like similarity. Eeeeerie.
Am I caught up yet? Nice to be back.