Christmas markets

    Pre-Christmas traditions in Austria                    

Part 3: Christmas markets

A Christmas market, also known as Christkindlmarkt, is a street market associated with the celebration of Christmas during the four weeks of Advent. The history of Christmas markets goes back to the Late Middle Ages in the German-speaking part of Europe. 

In many towns in Austria, Advent is usually ushered in with the opening of the Christmas market. Generally held in the town square and adjacent pedestrian zones, the market sells food, drink, and seasonal items from open-air stalls.

Popular attractions at the market include toasted almonds, traditional Christmas cookies such as Lebkuchen (gingerbread) and Bratwurst.

For many visitors one of the highlights of the market: Glühwein!!! (hot mulled wine) 

Also many handmade items like toys and  Christmas tree decorations can be found at a Christmas Market.

How to make authentic Austrian Christmas cookies

Pre-Christmas traditions in Austria                    

Part 2: How to make authentic Austrian christmas cookie

Vanillekipferl are among the most popular and best Christmas cookies and are very common in Austria. It's a nice tradition to bake these cookies during pre-Christmas time together with the whole family. Here is a great recipe to bake original Austrian Vanillekipferl:

Ingredients:
150 grams butter
210 grams flour
80 grams ground hazelnuts or almonds
80 grams powdered sugar
one whole egg
60 grams powdered sugar
3 tablespoons vanilla sugar

·         sive the flour into a heap on a pastry board or into a large bowl

·         cut the cold butter into small pieces and mix with the flour

·         add powdered sugar, ground almonds or hazelnuts and the egg

·         rinse hands with cold water and quickly knead mixture into a crisp dough

·         Chill for half an hour

·         Form thumb thick rolls from the dough

·         cut into 1 cm wide pieces, roll and form Kipferl (crescents)

·         bake at slow to medium heat (350° Fahrenheit) for 10-15 minutes, or until very light gold        in color

·         roll the Kipferl in a mixture of powdered sugar and vanilla sugar while still hot

St Nicholas or “der heilige Nikolaus”

Pre-Christmas traditions in Austria                    

Part 1: St Nicholas or “der heilige Nikolaus”

A pre-Christmas tradition in Austria is St Nicholas walking from house to house handing out small gifts to children on the 6th of December. It is said that God rewarded Nicholas' generosity by allowing him to return to earth each year to bring gifts to all the good children. He is dressed as a bishop with flowing robes and a miter. He carries a big book and a bishop's crozier. St Nicholas is accompanied by the diabolical figure of Krampus, his role is to punish children who didn´t behave well.  This devil figure, often in chains, is dressed in fur with a scary devil mask with horns and a long red tongue and carries a wooden stick. Many towns and cities have Krampus parades with young men in costumes and devil masks. After the parade the Krampus figures scatter and beat anyone who gets in their way. It is very frightening and even dangerous.

paragraph about a dictionary

The Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary

Having looked at a number of monolingual print dictionaries in class this week, I have decided to buy the "Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary". This modern and colorful dictionary was published in 2005 and contains almost all the information you need to know about the English language. Information is offered on how to find a word in the dictionary, and also useful information on the word family and syonyms of the word. As it is a new version with many pictures and interesting maps and topic pages, this brilliant dictionary is certainly no ordinary one. My new favourite book even helps me with grammatical structure explanations. On these useful pages, you can find a list with irregular verbs, for example. An amazing fact about the book I just need to add is that it even shows the differences between British and American English. All these special features have definitely convinced me to buy the "Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary" when I have a little spare money.

letter about me as a language learner

Dear Fiona,

I would like to start by stating that I studied Spanish and Russian here at the ITAT last year. Over the year I realized, that I started losing my Motivation to study Russian, because I had no personal Connection to that language. This experience thaught me that it is absolutely necessary to have a great personal interest in the language and culture of a country which you should deal with so intensively. For this reason, I have switched to English as I have native-English speaking friends and I have always liked the English language. I would also like to live in an English speaking country once in my future.

As a language learner I have always been the person that learns by talking, watching TV, reading books and articles and so on, not so much by sitting down with grammar books and vocabulary lists. I must admit that I am a little lazy, especially when it comes to learning new vocabulary, although, or perhaps because I learned the basics quickly and easily. I am well aware that studying much new vocabulary is inevitable and I will be less lazy in the future. My strength is my feeling for structure and pronunciation.

For this semester, passing the English course and improving my language skills are my first priorities and I am going to word hard to achieve this goal. Later on I want to spend a semester abroad, because I haven't been to an English speaking country for a long time up to now.

best wishes,

Nina

dictionary review transcription

Presentation about an online dictionary

During our last English class we had to check out several online dictionaries. One of them we presented in groups and filmed the whole thing.

As we didn´t have a lot of time to practice the presentation, everybody had to talk really spontaneously and due to that some grammatical and pronunciation mistakes happened. In my group, everybody presented a specific part of what the online dictionary offers. When it was my turn, I got quite nervous and just started to talk, without thinking about my grammar or pronunciation anymore. I suppose everybody feels the same about hearing himself talking in a video, so I already knew that I am going to hate my part. When we were done we watched the video and I was really pleased with our work. It is really not easy to judge yourself. I can say, that my pronunciation seems okay to me, but I really have to work on the grammatical mistakes I tend to make when I am talking, because there is not enough time to think about each sentence. So I have to automate my spoken English, so that it is no longer necessary to think about the grammar and so on during the talk.

Generally I think it was a nice idea to make a video of us while we are talking, because this is the only way to notice what it really sounds like when you are talking in English and to improve something, you have to be aware of your own mistakes. 

The city of Vigo

Vigo – the city of the sea

In this blog entry I would like to introduce you to the unique city of Vigo, where I was living from 2011 to 2012 and the Au pair of a five years old Spanish girl.

Vigo is situated in north-west Spain and although most people have never heard of it, it´s the largest city of Galicia.

The city is surrounded by incredibly beautiful beaches and the port is where the largest quantity of fresh fish is handled in Europe.

Vigo´s horizon is speckled by the Cies Islands, one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen and the beach there is even said to be the most beautiful in the world.

Porta do Sol is the name of the central point, it connects the beautiful old town with the main shopping street called Principe, where you can find all kind of stores.

Another important thing to mention is Vigo´s amazing nightlife. A typical night of partying doesn´t end before 8 o´clock in the morning.

I could endlessly talk about this city and really recommend everybody to visit Vigo, which is still a secret spot. 

the "Oktoberfest"

It´s  „Oktoberfest“ time

Every year autumn comes along with a very special and beautiful tradition: the „Oktoberfest“.

Actually a Bavarian tradition, it has been celebrated in Austria´s villages and cities for ages as well. Next to drinking lots of beer, dancing to beer tent sing-alongs and eating brezel and sausages, wearing the traditional garb has also become important to be part of the festivities. More and more people wear „Lederhosen“ and  „Dirndl“, while sharing that special feeling of togetherness and joy. Anyone, who has ever been to a real „Oktoberfest“, knows what I´m talking about. It´s just great fun and October without this tradition would not be half as nice.

Interviews

Interview with classmates

Today I interviewed two of my classmates, Sonya and Kathi. Sonya is an exchange student from Valencia and speaks many languages: Spanish, English, French and Catalan, a special type of Spanish they speak in the area where she is from. I was glad to hear that she likes Graz a lot and has already visited many interesting places of the city, like the Schlossberg.

Kathi is from Graz and studies Russian as a second language, which is quite difficult. Her passion is dancing and also reading is one of her favourite hobbies, especially she likes reading „Mangas“.