2012/2013 German Language and Literature

Ethymology 

The focus of this course was ethymology and comparative language development of the Indo-European and more specifically the German language group. Because I am a native speaker of German and Dutch and fluent in English, I had already noticed that there are many similarities between the languages. I read about ethymology on different websites and in different books on the subject.
I read medieval literature in English, German and Dutch and discovered how different the modern languages are from their medieval forms. Just as an example: Some of the words (like forest) that I know in English, do not exist in modern Dutch. But I learned from the ancient texts, that the old word ''foreest'' in ancient Dutch literature means the same. At the same time I realized that I know a German word: ''Förster'' (which means forester) in which you can still find the parallel to the English word.
Many themes and stilistic elements can be found in the medieval literature of the members of this language family.
The development of these three distinctive languages out of proto-Germanic and out of proto-Indo-European is a fascinating story. It furthered my understanding of how languages evolve. Not only linguistically, but also sociologically: the theories on why some languages survive while others disappear (male line etc.).Klicken Sie einfach in den Text, um diesen zu bearbeiten. Überschreiben Sie den Text nach Ihren Wünschen und wählen Sie dabei Ihre individuelle Schriftart und -farbe aus.

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Goethe

We focused on Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, who is probably the most famous German writer of all times. He has influenced German and World literature. I have performed an in-depth analysis of Goethe's "Faust" and its historic background and have become acquainted with his other works, like "Die Leiden des jungen Werthers" which had a major impact in its time and "Die Wahlverwandtschaften" and various other works. The synthesis of form and content against the historical background has deepened my understanding of Goethe, but also of the time in which he lived, the historical context.

Central Examinations in the Netherlands

In the Netherlands, you can take every "end-of-school"  examination regardless of your age and your preparation. I took the pre-university education (~"AP") examination for German language and literature to evaluate my progress in interpreting and understanding formal texts and my German literature proficiency. Although I did have some trouble with some of the Dutch questions, I did rather well. The average student in the Netherlands will be 18 years old when they take the exam in the 12th grade.