A to Z Challenge: Theme Reveal!

I first heard about the A to Z Challenge last year and though I thought it sounded really cool, it was too late for me to really take part, what with my exams beginning at the end of April. The premise is simple enough that I had my own sort of trial run in August: every day of the month, with the exception of Sundays, you post and the theme/title of each post has to begin with a letter of the alphabet, going in alphabetic order.

In my trial run, I talked about endangered languages (having just come off the back of uni and my disseration, so it felt like the right time), but I’ve had a different idea this time.

Obviously this is a language learning blog (though it may not have seemed that way recently) and my main languages are Mandarin and German. I wanted to do something with both languages but due to certain time restraints – which I’ll get to in a minute – I am, yet again, focussing on the German for a little while. I also wanted a theme that was accessible to everyone in the challenge and I gather that the main language we have in common is English, so I will primarily be blogging in English next month.

That all said, my theme is this: German-language cinema.

I’ve watched a fair number of German-language films over the years, but most of these have been for school/uni and what that ultimately means is that the films have either been a) about World War Two, b) terribly depressing, or c) all of the above. That isn’t to say I won’t include films that hit those categories in my list – but they’re not going to be the predominant factor.

My plan is to watch 26 German-language films (note: they’re not all from Germany – though I think most still are) and then post a short review, in English, of my opinion on the film. Most of these films are quite well-known, though I had to dig a little deeper into IMDB when it came to finding something for ‘Q’ or ‘X’ and their years of release range from the late 1920s to 2014.

The learning aspect is two-fold: one, if you’re learning German, like me, you can watch them in German, you can use subtitles, etc. Feel free to message me about the films, or leave comments, in English or German. I’d love any interaction about this. Second, I think films are a really important part of language learning – the same as books and music and TV. Those films I watched in school? I remember a handful of them, but I remember the handful far better than I remember any part of my textbooks. Plus, there’s a lot of talk about French cinema and Spanish cinema and I want to push German cinema a little. It’s kind of cool. 😉

Now, the time constraint issue. As we all know, Easter is a little early this year – and on Thursday, my holiday begins. I’m going to be away until the 8th April, which means I need to have six posts ready to go before I leave. On Thursday. Three guesses how prepared I am? 😉 No, but I am hoping to have them all done – and if I don’t, then I’ll catch up. I will, however, have no/very limited time to visit other blogs during this time, but that just means I’ll have to be a little extra-dedicated when I get back. I don’t mind. I’m looking forward to exploring the other themes people have chosen for this challenge! 🙂

Let me know if you’re taking part in the A to Z Challenge too – and what your theme is. I’m going to trawl through some blogs this week, but I am especially interested in anyone else who’s doing cinema/language/education. Or anything, to be honest. This is going to be fun! 😀