Use this post to learn English and German at the same time.

What is that?

It is a photograph.

Who is that?

That is my father.

How old is he?

He is sixty-five.

Where does he live?

He lives in Berlin.

Who is this?

This is my mother.

How old is she?

She is sixty-one.

Do you have a brother?

Yes, I do.

Where is he?

He is in France.

How old is he?

He is thirty-eight.

What does he do?

He is an engineer, an artist, a novelist.

Who is this?

This is my sister.

Where is she?

She is in America.

What does she do?

She is a nurse.

Is she married to an American?

No , she is not.

She is not married.

She is single.

Are you married?

No, I am not.

I am divorced.

Are you divorced?

Yes, I am.

You too?

Yes, me too.

at irp

Mark: So you are making a documentary?
French Guy: Yes.
Bjorn: Yeah right.
Mark: Yes? Where are you from?
Bjorn: The basic crew is from Germany.
Mark: M-hm.
Bjorn: I am from Switzerland. Our main re-enactor is from France. And another protagonist is also from France.
Mark: Right so you are French, Swiss and German.
Bjorn: Yes. It is basically German. It is a German crew.
Mark: Everybody is speaking English though (able to speak English).
French Guy: Yes.
Bjorn: Yes.
Mark: What part of Switzerland do you come from?
Bjorn: I am from Bern. The Swiss-German part.
Mark: So you are a German (speaker)?
Bjorn: Yeah. Swiss-German and I have been living for fifteen years in Munich.
Mark: What is the documentary about?
Bjorn: Ok. The documentary is about the character of Henri Le Saux. He is a French monk born in 1910.
Mark: Uh-huh.
Bjorn: In forty-nine he moved in a mission for the Benedictine…
Mark: Ah He is a Christian.
Bjorn: Yeah. Christian monk. Benedictine monk from Brittany in France. He moved to India in order to mission the Hindus.
Mark: Right.
Bjorn: In order to understand the deeper meaning of hinduism.
Mark: M-hm
Bjorn: He went deeper and deeper into the Vedas and eventually turned sanyasin.
Mark: Really?
Bjorn: However without leaving his Benedictine..
Mark and Bjorn: Order.
Mark: Right.
Bjorn: It would not be such an amazing case but he left a lot of writings and he wrote a lot of books about this ambiguity and this sort of being torn between two religions but eventually he did not want to serve any of the religions but he wanted to look for God.
Mark: To serve God. Right.
Bjorn: To serve God. Yeah. So he lived here from forty-nine to seventy-three. He never went back.
Mark: Right
Bjorn: Although he was invited to lots of times. He led a very simple and full life and he left a lot of writings and so we… This is the third time we have been in India. We have been here two years ago in Rishikesh. We were last year in south India in Tiranamalai ..where the ashram of Ramana Maharshi is; where he was a scholar.
he had his self realization through Ramana Mahashi. So he had a really deep religious and spiritual experience in his ashram there.
Mark: Great.
Bjorn: And later on he moved to northern India.
Mark: Uh-huh.
Bjorn: And he made a sort of pilgrimage to the source of the Ganges…to Gangotri where we just have just been re-enacting lots of things with Christian, our re-enactor of Henri le Saux.
Mark: Right.
Bjorn: So we are trying to get bits and things together on this small indie movie level.
Mark: It is just an independent movie?
Bjorn: Yeah it is an independent movie and we are trying to put together a ninety minute documentary.
Mark: When do you think you will finish?
Bjorn: I think honestly it is going to be another one and a half years.
Mark: Well. Good luck!
Bjorn: Thank you.

at Motographer

Mark: So Adrian, what part of Germany do you come from?
Adrian: I’m coming from the southwest of Germany.
Mark: What’s the name of the area?
Adrian: It’s called Palatinate.
Mark: Palatinate. And you come from a village or a city?
Adrian: Uh, I’m coming from a little village in the forest.
Mark: What’s the nearest city?
Adrian: The nearest city is Kaiserslautern.
Mark: Kaiserslautern, OK. Do you have a strong dialect in your village?
Adrian: Yes, very strong….yeah.
Mark: Alright, OK. And what are you doing now? Have you finished your study?
Adrian: Yeah, I…I did finish my civil service.
Mark: Uh-huh. What did you do for your civil service?
Adrian: I was working as a paramedic-cal…paramedical.
Mark: Uh-huh. In a hospital?
Adrian: Uh, in a hospital and as an ambulance driver.
Mark: Right, OK. And then you came…when did you come to India?
Adrian: Um, at the end of March.
Mark: Right. And now you’re traveling on a motorcycle?
Adrian: Yes.
Mark: Where did you go?
Adrian: Um, from here I’m going back to my home base in Dharamshala.
Mark: Uh-huh. And before you came here to Nagar, where were you…where did you go on the way to Dharamshala?
Adrian: Um, my first stop was in Rewalsar Lake.
Mark: Rewalsar Lake.
Adrian: Then the second stop was near Manikaran.
Mark: Um-hmm.
Adrian: And third stop was in Keylong.
Mark: Keylong, I don’t know that.
Adrian: It’s on the way to Leh.
Mark: Uh-huh, ah right, right. Is it in Kashmir or Himachal Pradesh?
Adrian: In Himachal Pradesh.
Mark: Right, OK.
Adrian: It’s just before the border to Kashmir.
Mark: And then you went up to a very high pass.
Adrian: Yeah.
Mark: What’s the name of the pass?
Adrian: It’s the Rohtang Pass.
Mark: Rohtang Pass. Was that only recently opened?
Adrian: Yeah, it was just opened ten days before.
Mark: You mean ‘opened’ because of snow or ‘opened’ because of the Indian government?
Adrian: No, opened because of snow.
Mark: Right. OK, great. Was it dangerous?
Adrian: Uh, sometimes a little bit, yeah.
Mark: I hope you have a safe trip.
Adrian: Yeah, thank you.

at *heloise*

Mark: What’s your name?
Annette: Annette.
Mark: Annette. And where are you from, Annette?
Annette: I’m from Denmark.
Mark: Oh really? What part of Denmark?
Annette: Jutland.
Mark: Jutland. That’s near…that’s on the European mainland?
Annette: Yeah, kind of.
Mark: Close to Germany?
Annette: Yeah, it is.
Mark: Can you speak German?
Annette: Yeah.
Mark: OK.
Annette: A little bit.
Mark: A little bit.
Annette: Yeah.
Mark: Ok, thanks a lot.

at emeeelea a.k.a mela

Kenni and Pedro talk with Mark and Be about South America.

Mark: So, Kenni, are you from Santiago as well?
Kenni: Yes, I am from Chile, Santiago in Chile.
Mark: Uh-huh. Have you traveled in South America very much?
Kenni: Yes I think I have been in…in Argentina, Brazil…many times…I know a lot of people…very nice country, wonderful, yeah many hours in Peru…Paraguay, Costa Rica, Central America. I have been there…
Mark: Wow, I would like to go to Central America.
Kenni: Wow! It is so nice.
Mark: I have been to Canada and the United States but I have never been south of New Orleans.
Kenni: Wow! You missed Mexico.
Mark: …I have never been to the Spanish world. I went to Spain for a short time twenty years ago but I have never been to…
Kenni: No, it is so different.
Mark: …Latin America.
Kenni: Mexico, huge big amazing Maya culture then Guatamala…nice…you can see still…I have been there like, ten years ago…village people…Indians…wow…so nice…crafts…yeah…down in Costa Rica…wow…a lot of forest and jungle…wow…amazing lots of animals…
Mark: I was looking on the internet yesterday about who speaks which language. I was researching which language is the most…,who speaks the most…
Kenni: Mmm-m
Mark: …like I think the most is Chinese…and…the most people in the world speak Chinese and then I think it is Spanish is number two and then English and then Arabic and Portuguese came about number six…
Kenni: aah…
Mark: …and I read about half the people in South America speak Portuguese so…more people in South America speak Portuguese than Spanish. Some people in South America speak many other languages: Dutch, French, Indian languages, and I was very interested to read many people speak German. Have you met German people in South America?
Kenni: Yeah, yeah, yeah, we have a lot of German people in the south of our country. German communities and…because they…When did they arrive in our country?
Pedro: I dunno. One year we are living in India…
Kenni: Ha…ha yeah but…
Pedro: Yeah…many…many, many…
Kenni: You know the story about it…our president…he wanted to increase…He wanted to develop the region that was really not used at all…and ..so they created a new law to receive families and…receive families and live in the south of our country and they got a lot of knowledge about how to…work the earth.
Pedro: …to work the earth.
Mark: …agriculture…right…ok.
Pedro: …because in Chile the president at this moment thinks aah we need to develop all this country … because it is all nature…it is all forest…the Spanish went to the south of Chile because the north was more desert…
Mark: Uh-huh.
Pedro: But more and more (there was) more and nature, no..and when the Spanish came..when the Spanish came…they connected with some group of people…the…(?)
Mark: Native, indigenous people?
Kenni: Yeah.
Pedro: …indigenous people.
Mark: Uh-huh.
Pedro: They fight (fought) for many many years…five hundred years…and the Spanish took a long time to go to the south. More and more. You know, the south is more new…developed than Santiago…and than the north of Chile and than Peru, no?
Mark: Uh-huh?
Pedro: Because in Peru (there) was the gold, no? The Spanish…the Spanish…
Kenni: …came…
Pedro: Is this good for you…this history?
Mark: The Spanish came for the gold. This is good. This is good.
Pedro: No, it is not boring…Maybe I am boring you?
Mark: I am not bored. I am not bored.
Pedro: Ok good. Ok ..when the Spanish came to South America, they liked gold. “Where is (the) gold?” (they said) You know? “If no gold, move, huh?”
Kenni: Money! Gold!
Mark: Uh-huh.
Pedro: We don’t need these things, this culture…these things.
Be: …other things, they were not interested in.
Pedro: Yes…and they moved all the time. First they went to Mexico. In Mexico (there was) a lot of gold.
Mark: Um-hmm.
Pedro:And they fight (fought) and many many many years, no?
Kenni: …and Peru as well.
Pedro: But they controlled very well the situation no? All (the rest of) South America was later, no?
Kenni: Yeah but not so much.
Pedro: And all the people all of the time said “Go to (the) south. Go to (the) south.” But go to south they don’t know…some were very clever people, no?
Mark: I have a book! I have a book! I want to show you a book!
Pedro: Wow! Freaky…Like in the stories, no? ha ha ha.
Be: What is your book about?
Mark: Spanish Peru.
Pedro: Wow!
Kenni: Spanish Peru.