When I was in Germany studying on a Deutsches Academisches Austauschdienst grant at the Goethe Institute in Mannheim, I learned a lot about the language by watching the full length feature films they screened without commercials on network TV, and often dubbed into German from English. Those were particularly helpful if I was familiar with the films, as I could fill in the gaps of my meager German. By the time I left at the end of ten weeks, I could understand the movies without much struggle (although the news kept giving me fits).
The grant, made available in 1986 by the German government for any U.S. academic who used the language in his profession, was a wonderful opportunity. They paid the Goethe Institute, got me a room in the home of a family, and a couple of hundred Marks a month spending money. I wonder if that program still exists.
"For beauty is the beginning of terror we are still able to bear, and why we love it so is because it so serenely disdains to destroy us" Rilke's First Duino Elegy
Daniel Shaw
Professor of Philosophy and Film
Lock Haven University
Managing Editor, Film and Philosophy
website: www.lhup.edu/dshaw
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