Is WordReference.com Better Than Leo.org for Translating German Words?

I like Leo.org a lot but it just failed me.

We're doing an assignment writing an autobiography using a list words given us in the past participle. Along with their infinite forms, all these German words' meanings were gone over in class.

But I'm cheating and looking them up in English, to make sure I'm getting the definitions right (class is taught entirely in German).

So as I learned in class the word gekuscht is the past participle form of kuschen. To find the meaning I went to leo.org but pulled up nothing, they just offered a link to a forum page written all in German and didn't bother with it, I just wanted a straight English answer. I moved on:

Wordreference.com's German-English dictionary wins today. The meaning of the German word kuschen is "to knuckle under".

Not bad, Wordreference.com, especially considering you're the new kid on the German/English translation scene and Leo.org's been around forever.

Starting Intensive German Class in Klagenfurt, Austria

I did okay on the German language placement exam. There are eleven classes, and I'm in number 7. I'm not positive, but I believe this is B1, what's described as Mittelstufe I, or "Threshold Level". (I'm referring back to the list of German course levels offered at the University of Klagenfurt).

"Threshold Level" isn't exactly flattering. I'd prefer if I were in B2, "Vantage Level". But it sure beats A2, "Waystage Level" *shudder*. Glad I dodged that bullet of humiliation. And not making it to Vantage Level is fine. I'm plenty challenged where I'm at.

Like all the other levels, class is taught in German. I'm often lost which is hard but I'm positive I learn more every time I come out of there.

It's off to a rocky start, I missed last class so I will have to double up on homework this week. I'll manage. On the plus side, I really enjoyed the first assignment. We had to write the first and last sentence of a story on separate pieces of paper. Teacher then collected those pieces of paper, shuffled them up and redistributed them. So I had to compose a story from the following:

First sentence: Es war ein kleines Mädchen.

Last sentence: Jetzt brauche ich eine zweiten Kugel Eis.

If you're good, I will let you know what I came up with, plus all the red ink correcting my mistakes, in a not-too-distant entry.

Stay tuned!

Fascist Austrian Politician Joerg Haider Dies

Here's a German word you might already know: Schadenfreude. It's also an English word.

Joerg Haider died today. Gawker.com highlights a few of Haider's most fascist moments as:

...the extreme right wing Austrian politician who once said the Nazis had "an orderly employment policy" and referred to the concentration camps as "the punishment camps of National Socialism,"...

One commenter reacts:

My father was born on an abortionist's table in the summer of 1938 in Vienna, my grandmother failing to gain entrance to a hospital. One of the nurses spit at her while she was in labor and said, "We don't want your kind here." All of her family was killed, except her brother, and a few cousins who were part of the Kindertransport to England.

I respect Germany and its anti-fascist laws and genuine attempt to deal with the atrocities of the Holocaust. Austria has done nothing, and continues to elect these horrid apologist. I am glad that Haider died a violent death and I hope my dead relatives are laughing.

I live in Klagenfurt, the capital city of Carinthia where Haider reigned as governor until today. My neighbor just called me about the news and openly wondered if someone had actually intended for Haider to be run off the road. NPR reports that an investigation is under way while the AP writes, "Authorities said an initial investigation showed no signs of foul play."

CNN also reports Haider's death.

Read German language news about the death of Joerg Haider

Listen to German politicians and friends react to Joerg Haider's death.

Now, I really, really want to go to the funeral procession and take pictures. I have no idea when it will be. Does anybody know? Seems like tomorrow, which promises to be a crisp, bright October Sunday, would be nice. To help me in my online search, I need to look up the word for funeral in German. FYI: it's die Beerdigung.

Austrian History & German Language Lesson by HC Strache

In reporting the rise of Austria's far right, the Telegraph features an awkward video interview with the triumphant Heinz-Christian Strache, whose anti-immigration Freedom Party garnered a whopping 18% of the vote in Austria's snap elections last month.

Watch the video, you'll get a snack-sized German lesson by hearing authentic Austrian German translated into English.

You'll also get a history lesson. When asked to address the accusations that he's a Nazi, Strache says:

My party, the Freedom Part of Austria, has a democratic history since the year 1848

He chooses words carefully here because the Freedom Party was founded in 1955.

But he's right, it does go back further. The Anti-Defamation League provides us with a brief primer on the origins of the Austrian Freedom Party:

...founded in 1956, [it] is the heir to the League of Independents. Formed in 1949, the League was the direct descendant of the faction that promoted pan-German nationalism for Austria both under the Habsburgs and in the years following World War I.

In 1848 Jacobin rabble rousers ousted Prince Klemens von Metternich, at the emergence of a New Social Order and an era of democracy. So 1848 very well could be the birth year of the faction that would, over a century later, become the Austrian Freedom Party.

While Metternich was a despot of sorts, one can't help but laud his aristocratic disdain for the stupidity of the masses. Especially their tendency toward nationalism. Today, the political appeal of Austria's far right is based almost entirely upon nationalism, fear of foreigners, and populist tricks. Strache even gives props to Hugo Chavez, his ideological opposite but good enough as an insufferable chest thumper.

Fine. If Strache's into machismo, he should try this on for size: Metternich gave Napoleon his sloppy seconds before ruling most of Europe for half a century. Strache, on the other hand, is vying for minority parliamentary votes in a Wienerschnitzel-shaped footnote to Germany. His party may have a history steeped in nationalism, but it doesn't reach far back enough to claim anything vaguely glorious.

Furthermore, belonging to a party with a "democratic history" in no way precludes Strache from having the vilest of viewpoints and xenophobic policy platforms. Mentioning the date 1848 is a cheap trick to sway weaker minds that are impressed by anything "historic", but it hardly is a defense against Nazi accusations - he'll have to come up with something better.