Change in Office Hour Time

This Thursday (July 20th) my office hours will be offered from 10-11 am and not 2-3 pm.

Translation: grammar resources in preparation of the exam

Note to Wed. class: All other rooms are booked; we will have the exam starting at 4 pm sharp in Room C (our usual classroom).

Here are some resources that might be useful for you in preparing for the exam:

Advanced punctuation rules: http://fouser.yuldo.net/writing/miyako/unit09/unit09.htm
Hyphenating: http://www.grammarbook.com/punctuation/hyphens.asp
Relative clauses: http://www.esl-lounge.com/student/grammar-guides/grammar-advanced-6.php
http://www.ef.com/english-resources/english-grammar/preposition-placement-relative-clauses/
Achieving parallelism: https://www.grammarly.com/blog/how-to-correct-parallelism-problems-in-sentences/
Inversion in English (the star with the top hat is giving me geocities 1994 :) ): http://www.tolearnenglish.com/exercises/exercise-english-2/exercise-english-88760.php

Please also review reported speech.

Translation: my solutions

No room for the world’s poorest in Merkel’s plan

The G20 only discusses/addresses Africa when troubles arise. Now Africa’s most successful countries are being considered for economic aid. It’s a plan that disregards those who would most need it.

There has to be a real problem for Africa to be a topic at the G20 summit.

At the beginning of this decade, there was danger of the world’s richest countries not reaching their modest UN targets for combating poverty. And so there was talk of help for Africa in Toronto in 2010.

In 2014, the world’s most powerful countries feared a global outbreak of Ebola, of which at least 11,000 people fell victim in West Africa. Subsequently an official summit statement was given in Brisbane.

And in 2017? The German G20 presidency’s announcement of the summit topic, delivered by the German Chancellery, initially sounds extremely positive: with the cooperation of African nations, a better climate for investment will be established. (It's) a new deal for Africa’s wealth and prosperity, so to speak.

But question arises: why now? Ugly images immediately call to mind: Central and Northern Europe predominantly walled themselves off to African refugees last year. And thousands drown in the Mediterranean every year when their non-seaworthy vessels sink.

Those who have perished remind us that, among the over 50 countries that make up the African continent, only South Africa belongs to the G20. And that tens of thousands – driven out by war, poverty, and a lack of opportunities – wish to emigrate. For this reason, the unspoken/unuttered motto with regard to policies about Africa has been to border people in and prevent their mobility.

Since Africa is a topic for the summit, it is also now the stage for the usually low-profile German minister for economic cooperation and development Gerd Müller, whose proposal is entitled the Marshall Plan with Africa. According to Müller, economic growth is Africa’s key to prosperity, progress that is in Germany’s interest. Investors will bring in lucrative business, causing fewer people make the precarious journey to Europe.

Data from the German Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development show how hesitant German investors have been to date: German investment and trading volume with sub-Saharan countries is negligible. Fewer than 1% of all global direct investments from Germany are made there.  

The fantastic four

Nobody expected a musical revelation, but 4:44, Jay-Z’s newest album, is a resounding success all the same. He even makes a profound apology for his infidelity towards wife Beyoncé.

Let’s talk about money. Raw quantity thereof is the reason why Jay-Z’s newest album has been greatly anticipated by media outlets that could not be more removed from the world of hip hop since the announcement of its release several weeks ago.

And now he’s released it –first exclusively on his own streaming service Tidal, of course. It’s called 4:44, which according to Jay-Z was the time when the song washed over him in his sleep. He claims it’s his career best, which began 20 years ago with the release of Reasonable Doubt.

In 4:44, the 47-year-old is coming from a decidedly mature place when he apologizes to wife Beyoncé for his affair, which she had already hinted at/alluded to on her outstanding latest album Lemonade and for which her sister Solange also famously slapped him. And while Jay-Z is now portraying himself as family man and responsible spouse, one hardly misses the second layer, perhaps the meta-level, when one types in the album’s title while pressing the shift key and three dollar signs appear.

There isn’t a rapper alive who doesn’t claim to be the richest and the best, Jay-Z included. But in his case, it just happens to be true. So many of his albums successfully defend this superlative in addition to his 21 Grammies, particularly those early ones from 2003 when he took some time off to become CEO of the storied Def Jam Records. Financially speaking, he lives up to the namesake of his company Roc-a-Fella, which, in addition to producing music, sells clothing and champagne and manages athletes.

A rapper in the billionaires’ circle

Shawn Carter, Jay-Z’s given name, will soon be rubbing shoulders with Scrooge McDuck and Donald Trump in the  billionaires’ club. But don’t expect him to warm up to the latter: the Carters are known for being friends with the Obamas and for having supported Hillary Clinton. Jay-Z comes from a disadvantaged inner-city background and places much importance on where he came from in his 13^th album.

At least topically-speaking, he’s raised the stakes this time and appears to be trying to match the critical and enraged tone of Beyoncé. But in fact his artistic shift in focusing on black inner city life to addressing his African heritage has been underway for some time now. In his last album Magna Carta, he invoked Africa in the song “Ocean” and in “Picasso, Baby”, he accused haters from the rap elite of being tone-deaf when he bragged about purchasing high art à la Leonardo, Warhol and Basquiat, all whilst proclaiming himself the new Picasso. He was in the right place when he rapped tracks from his album for six hours straight in MoMA visitors’ faces (including performance artist Marina Abramovic’s).   

Interesting Summer Teaching Opportunity

Internship at language camp in Hedersleben: http://www.meinpraktikum.de/praktikum/partnership-international-e-v/jobs/sommerjob-als-sprachlehrer?utm_source=indeed&utm_medium=externe_jobboerse&utm_campaign=externe_jobboerse

Translation, Homework for Week 12

***BASIS UPDATE 7/7/17: WS III is still not featured on my Basis log-in, so please don't be surprised if can't register for the exam yet. We will try to fix this as soon as possible.***

For homework, please translate one of the following two texts:

Politics (translate up to "China ist seit Jahren..." and pay particular attention to translating the fragments in the German ST into complete sentences in the English TT): http://www.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/g20-gipfel-in-hamburg-merkel-plan-zu-afrika-mit-hintergedanken-a-1155875.html

Culture (translate up to the paragraph that begins "Hier nun beginnt"): http://www.spiegel.de/kultur/musik/jay-z-mit-neuem-album-4-44-a-1155237.html

My solutions will be featured in a separate post on this blog Monday night. 

In addition to this, please have a look at the Maori and Theresa May texts I distributed today in class (for reasons of copyright, I can't publish this on the blog). Bring any questions/comments you have with regard to my solutions with you to our next class.

A couple of free online collocations dictionaries can be accessed here (with the sample entry for "majority"): http://www.freecollocation.com/search?word=majority
https://www.ozdic.com/collocation-dictionary/majority
The COBUILD dictionary is also a great online resource for context: https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/majority

Other good print collocations dictionaries include those published by Oxford and Macmillan.

If you would like your grade on your portfolio translation before the exam, these need to be submitted to me by this Sunday, July 9th at midnight. You will then receive your grade and my comments on your work in our class on July 12th (Wed.) or July 14th (Fri.).

Remember: our final exam will be on July 19th at 4 p.m. (sharp!) for the Wednesday group and on July 21st at 12 p.m. (sharp!) for the Friday group. (Locations TBA on the blog next week; I'm hoping to get a larger room for the Wednesday group.) I need to know IMMEDIATELY if you cannot make either one of those dates. Portfolio translations are due on these respective dates at the latest.

Debate, Homework for Week 12

For those taking the exam on Monday, make sure that you know when your 15-minute slot is. (I cannot afford for anyone to be late, considering the sheer numbers of exams to do. Take an earlier train that day!) The exam will be in my office. Please show up with your partner 10 minutes in advance of your respective time slot and already decide what topic area you would like your question from BEFORE you enter the exam room.

I will be having class on both Tuesdays and Wednesdays until the end of the "Vorlesungszeit" on July 21st. Those of you taking part in the exam on the 10th are not required to attend these last two sessions, but you are invited to.

Consider pepping up (<-- see what I did there ;)?) your speech by incorporating more phrasal verbs into your dialogue. The verb-specific quizzes at the bottom of this page is a good place to start (I personally really like the Advanced Phrasal Verbs in Use workbook published by Cambridge): http://www.esl-lounge.com/student/phrasal-verbs-exercises.php

Translation, My Solutions

Strangers in the City

The second part of Documenta 14 opens this Saturday. The world art exhibition’s presentation in Kassel is considerably better thought through than in Athens.

By Nicola Kuhn

Exhaustion was written all over them/their faces  and the preparations must have been taxing: managing two world exhibitions (first in Athens and now in Kassel) but without (having) double the personnel/staff. Nevertheless, they pull through, for these labors are necessary for each venue. The opening press conference for Documenta 14 lasted over three hours at the conference center. Each of the six curators was given the floor to speak – among them the minister of higher education, research, and the arts of Hesse (the German federal state in which Kassel is located), the Greek minister of culture and sports, Kassel’s mayor, the CEO of Documenta 14, and the director of Documenta’s greatest donor, the German Federal Cultural Foundation. And they all wanted to speak at the opening of the most important exhibition for contemporary art, which occurs every five years.

Only at the end of the press marathon did Polish artistic director Adam Szymczyk take the floor. After all that had been said, he seemed only capable of uttering a thanks to his assistants, who he stated kept him alive during the preparations. And that the most important take away for visitors was the meaning/significance of unlearning.

Given the Documenta motto “Learning from Athens”, Szymczyk’s advice is a contradiction. Learning from a Greece mired in debt, of all places? But it’s typical for Documenta that its organizers would first plunge its audience into a state of confusion. It calls to mind Szymczyk’s predecessor, Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, who in the lead-up to Documenta 13 made an appeal for dogs and strawberries to be granted voting rights and later explained that she had meant it as an appeal for a different world view.

Chancellor Merkel, allow a vote on equal marriage rights!

Will Germany pass marriage equality this week? Martin Schulz, Chairman of the Social Democratic Party, has been placing pressure on the chancellor since her recent pivot from her party’s opposing stance. Now she just needs to take the leap.

Volker Beck has something to be happy about. The politician, who is known for his green and anti-discrimination politics and who has been fighting for years for equality for homosexuals, including in marriage matters, successfully managed to thrust the debate on marriage equality to front and center of the last days of the legislative period after years of grand coalition-induced standstill. After the Green Party, per Beck’s urging, included the demands at their party’s convention for expanding marriage rights to gays and lesbians as a condition for building a coalition, the Liberal Democrats and the Social Democrats followed suit. Head/Chairwoman of the Christian Democrats and chancellor eternal Angela Merkel suddenly found herself in the defensive, both topic- and coalition-wise.

Without one of the three parties (or even two in the event of an alliance between the Christian Democrats, Liberal Democrats, and the Greens) on her side, she won’t be able to form a government after the federal election this September. Will she want put a new coalition and her possible fourth term on the line all for the sake of this question?

Merkel has not taken a clear stance either for or against expanding marriage rights just as she has never campaigned for equality for homosexuals in tax or civil service law. Instead, she’s deferred to the federal constitutional court on these matters, which has dealt with these questions in the place of politicians and has almost completely abolished legal and fiscal discrimination of gays and lesbians – except for the granting them the right to marry (as opposed to register a civil partnership) and to adopt.

After the Greens, thanks to Volker Beck, introduced the topic into the political agenda of the election, it appears that already this week, shortly before the end of the legislative period, it could come to a vote in the Bundestag – and that marriage equality might be achieved.