Concept: Stine Marie Jacobsen
Written by: Ali Reza Ansari, Mazen Aljarboua, Martha Boxley, Rocio Branduaer, Stine Marie Jacobsen, Yoonha Kim, Lirija Namani, Batoul Sedawi, Moussa Sheikh Akriem
Editor: Ida Bencke
Design: Fuchs Borst
Soft Cover
Pages 125
ISBN 978-3-943196-55-9

"Es gibt in der deutschen Sprache Wörter, die so schwierig auszusprechen sind, dass man sie lieber essen will als sagen möchte! // There are words in the German language that are so hard to pronounce, that you would rather eat them than pronounce them!

Wenn die Deutschen sehr unsicher sind oder wenn sie etwas nicht wissen, antworten sie nur mit ä, ö oder ü. // When the Germans are very insecure or they don’t know something, they answer only with ä, ö or ü.

There is a “umlaut”, because the Germans are always serious. The “umlaut” makes the language more serious."

Excerpt from the book »German for Newcomers«, 2016

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GERMAN FOR NEWCOMERS is a German language project and workshop concept by Danish artist Stine Marie Jacobsen organized in collaboration with Nastaran Tajeri-Foumani and Mirella Galbiatti from the German streetwork organisation Gangway, with participants from BBZ and supported by Aktion Mensch Berlin. Over the course of one year several workshops were taking place and a film and a publication were produced.

The role of the student and teacher is shifted in GERMAN FOR NEWCOMERS, where expats, immigrants, and refugees improve their basic German language skills by collectively writing useful teaching material for themselves and others. The teaching material is inspired by their own experiences with German culture, experiences of identifying with or translating oneself into German language, and bureaucracy. The idea for the publication (teaching book) GERMAN FOR NEWCOMERS (Broken Dimanche Press, 2016) came after writing GERMAN FOR ARTISTS, a hybrid pocket grammar book containing reflections on philosophical aspects of the German language in relation to art (hierarchy).

Working with film as a participatory tool, Stine Marie Jacobsen designs educational projects that deal with ethics, identity, control, fear and trust and aim to raise solidarity and civic engagement through community involvement.

All proceeds from the book sale go to the German Social Streetwork in Berlin Gangway e.V.