Over-ambition
Oct. 10th, 2006 08:30 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fivemackI've decided to try reading a well-received thriller (Franz Schätzing's Der Schwarm) in German, to improve my German.
This may be a foolish exercise, since the list of words I've had to look up so far include
and I have only just finished reading the blurb before page one. You probably get an idea of the theme of the book from this vocabulary alone, in much the same way as, trying to read the lead article in a German newspaper, I learned in succession 'Mut' (courage), 'Pflicht' (duty) and 'Mehrwertsteuer' (value-added tax).
This may be a foolish exercise, since the list of words I've had to look up so far include
| Verschwindet | disappears |
| Heerscharen | hosts (multitudes) |
| die Qualle | jellyfish |
| Unterdessen | meanwhile |
| gewaltig | immense (general adjective of amplification) |
| Zangenkiefern | not sure (fangs? Zangen are forceps, but Kiefern are pine-trees) |
| Hingezaubert | conjured forth |
| Ahnen | to suspect |
| der Vorfall | incident |
| die Bedrohung | threat |
| der Fortbestand | continuity |
| vermeintlich | alleged |
| die Werbeagentur | advertising agency |
| ausgebildeter | trained (selbstausgebildet = self-trained) |
| der Taucher | diver |
| erfüllen | to accomplish |
and I have only just finished reading the blurb before page one. You probably get an idea of the theme of the book from this vocabulary alone, in much the same way as, trying to read the lead article in a German newspaper, I learned in succession 'Mut' (courage), 'Pflicht' (duty) and 'Mehrwertsteuer' (value-added tax).
