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Monthly Archives: September 2014

The children have a bee

Die Kinder haben eine Biene.

Ich bin ein Bär.

Das ist ein Fisch!

So, I’ve decided to try and teach myself German using Duolingo.  I learned about Duolingo awhile ago via a TED talk given by Luis von Ahn.  I really liked the idea in which you end up translating the web via crowdsourcing.  And it seemed the logical next step from using CAPTCHAs to figure out weird, mutated words when digitizing text.

But what I really like about Duolingo is that there is the somewhat arbitrary leveling up in the language you’re learning.  I am now a level 6 German.  I am also a level 6 French because I haven’t not used my French since high school.  It’s probably pretty good that I am a level 6 French.

Leveling up really amuses me because I like to think of my life within the context of a game, RPG or otherwise.  I like to think that when I reach a certain level, I just magically know more vocabulary or grammar or semantics or whatever.  Never mind that I had actually been drilling in those subjects prior to leveling up.  No, no.  It’s like magic.  It’s just downloaded to my brain when I level.

But an added bonus to using Duolingo has been the absolutely ridiculous sentences that it sometimes has you translate.  Like, “the children have a bee.”  Um…ok.  Most children I know don’t like bees.  I may be the only person I know who likes bees, and I definitely didn’t like bees as a child.

How about, “I am a bear.”  But…I am not.  Really, I should be translating things like “Ich bin ein Elch.”  That would make more sense.

And my favorite, possibly because it was the first ridiculous sentence I came across, “That is a fish!”  I have decided that I will declare this sentence, in whatever language I please at the time of speaking, when I am asked just a ridiculous stupid or obvious question.  Just that.  Nothing else.  I will probably ignore the person after I answer his/her stupid question with “that is a fish!”

DAS IST EIN FISCH!

Or maybe…

C’est un poisson!

Or even…

這是一條魚!

I need to learn more languages…

I make! Watermelon berry fish pop edition

WP_20140829_15_40_21_ProWell, in this case it’s a whale pop.  And whales are not fish.  They’re mammals.

I had to get rid of some watermelon the other day but I felt that watermelon pop in itself would be kind of weird…because the watermelon I had was definitely past its prime (starting to get sandy and gross).  So I mixed in some frozen berries I already had, this time blueberries, blackberries, and raspberries.  And the result was actually pretty good.  You could still taste the watermelony part of the watermelon and the past priminess was muted by the berries.  I’ll probably do this again even with watermelon not past its prime.

I would say that I had about 0.75c of berries and 2.5c of watermelon, cubed.  I realize that I really should have just weighed the fruit, because fruit does not conform well to volumetric measurements.  But I was lazy and didn’t want to wash a bunch of dishes.  Threw it all in the blender with maybe 0.25c of sugar, probably a bit less, and a couple tablespoons of fresh lemon juice to brighten the flavors, and puréed until smooth.  Made about 2c of fruit purée.

I have since found out that each complete fish pop mold (6 shapes in all) holds about 1c of liquid.  So this recipe filled both of my molds and I had like a tsp of extra, which I just ate on its own.  As I say, you should taste it before it freezes.