Introduction

Paper GeA1 consists of two parts: Section A, which is a listening comprehension exercise and is sat separately; and Section B, which is a textual comprehension exercise and is what we are concerned with here. Section B falls into three parts: answering questions on the text in German, explaining phrases in the context of the text, and translating five sentences into German. Each of these parts is differently weighted and, for clarity's sake, they are set out on three separate web-pages.

On this page, you will find the text with annotations, and, in the ‘Questions’ section, Questions 1 (a) - (g). You can bring up the questions one by one by scrolling down. At the same time, by scrolling down the text you can bring up the section in the text which is relevant for answering the question. But make sure you have read the whole text thoroughly and with the help of the annotations before you start on this task. Hand your answers to your teacher to be marked.

This text is about the way in which different people, or groups of people, express themselves in German. It is also about the influences of other languages on German, particularly of English.

Note:

Click here and/or here for a quick overview on the German language.

Click here for the Goethe Institute, Germany's best-known cultural institute abroad which promotes German language learning.

Click here for a website with many resources for German language learning.

Chapter 51 of Blaue Blume touches on the topic of language learning.

Some Instructions

• The passage for comprehension includes footnotes: click on the footnote number to see more information about it in the right-hand column.
• In the CALL Facility and elsewhere via the PWF, you can use this dictionary or the following one
• Type up your work with a separate program alongside your web browser. Use a word processor or text editor; on a CALL Facility PC WordPad (Go to Start > Programs > Accessories > WordPad) is recommended.
• You can save your work on a floppy disk or send yourself (or your tutor) a copy of your translation by copying and pasting it into an email message. To simplify transmission, save your file as plain text rather than a word processor document: under Save As go for plain text. You may even wish to type your translation directly into an email message.