Archive for February, 2012
The English verb “to go to” and its German equivalents – part 2 Posted by Sandra Rösner on Feb 29, 2012
In my last post I began to tell about the three possible German translations of English “to go (to)”. Remember that “to go” can be translated as fahren (to drive), fliegen (to fly), and, of course, as gehen (to go). You have to use these three verbs with the German preposition “zu” when you want…
The English verb “to go to” and its German equivalents – part 1 Posted by Sandra Rösner on Feb 28, 2012
The English verb phrase “to go to” is a real all-rounder when it comes to tell someone that you are going to a particular destination. You can say that you are going to a friend, to a another city or foreign country, but your interlocutor still does not know how you will get and whether…
Compound words: Das Fugen-s im Deutschen – The linking “s” in German, part 2 Posted by Sandra Rösner on Feb 24, 2012
The German language is very productive in compounding words. It is virtually possible to great a never-ending word. Of course, Germans do not carry word compounding to extremes, that is, compound words of everyday language do never consist of more than two or three separate words. Anyway, this characteristic of the German language can…
Compound words: Das Fugen-s im Deutschen – The linking “s” in German, part 1 Posted by Sandra Rösner on Feb 22, 2012
You have probably come across German compound words that are linked with an “s”, called linking “s” in English and Fugen-s in German, for example: die Liebesgeschicht – love story der Gerechtigkeitssinn – sense of justice die Schönheitskur – beauty treatment But other words do not contain this linking “s”, for example: die Tee-kanne…
Using apostrophes in German Posted by Sandra Rösner on Feb 20, 2012
One of our Facebook followers asked to do a spell and grammar check of her German composition. She used the greeting “Wie gehts, wie stehts?”, which simply means “How are things?” Immediately, I suggested that she should use apostrophes when using the expression above, and write “Wie geht’s, wie steht’s?” instead. But is her version…
Bundespräsident Wulff – Federal President Wulff Posted by jan on Feb 20, 2012
As some of you already might have heard through the media, German Bundespräsident Christian Wulff has resigned some days ago. This is the result of a discussion in Germany that lasted for weeks! Christian Wulff was accused of several faux pas, especially by the Presse (press). It all began with a false statment that he…
Recognizing neuter nouns in German part 2 Posted by Sandra Rösner on Feb 17, 2012
In my two last posts I discussed that young living beings, continents, and most country and city names are neuter in German. Now I would like to continue with other rules that make German nouns neuter. 1. Diminutives Common German diminutives are the endings “–chen” and “–lein”. When you add these endings to nouns…