Archive for August, 2017
3 Lazy German Words Posted by Constanze on Aug 30, 2017
Guten Tag! Today I’d like to bring you not one, not two, but three ‘untranslatable German words’ for your amusement. These are words that do not have a direct translation in English, and are often rather interesting and/or quirky. It’s rainy and dull here today, and I’m sure many people just want to be at…
Office German 2: Customer Complaints Posted by Constanze on Aug 28, 2017
A few years ago I worked in an office as a German language assistant. During that time I read and wrote a lot of emails in German and learnt how to write in a more ‘business-friendly’ way. Now I’d like to share some more of that business German with you here (I began this series…
The German Schrebergarten Posted by Constanze on Aug 23, 2017
Guten Tag! Today I’d like to talk about a little piece of German culture that you may not know about yet. This post is all about die Schrebergärten. You may recognise the word Gärten as the plural of der Garten (garden), and you’d be right in thinking we’re talking about a kind of garden. So…
Swiss National Sports: Schwingen Posted by Sten on Aug 22, 2017
All countries have some sport that has some tradition, or that is extremely popular. The United States, for example, has American football, baseball and basketball. Brazil and Germany have football/soccer, the British have rugby and cricket, the Canadians ice hockey… But what about the Swiss? There are actually three national sports. And I have never…
11 German Pick Up Lines Posted by Larissa on Aug 15, 2017
This post is incase you ever find yourself in Germany (or you happen to meet a German) and want to start flirting with them. I’ve made a list of various German pick up lines – some are quite normal, and others are overly kitschig (cheesy)! I’ve started the list with “normal” Anmachsprüche (pick up lines)…
5000 New German Words Added To Dictionary Posted by Constanze on Aug 9, 2017
You may have seen articles floating around the past couple of days about how 5,000 new German words have been added to Duden. But what is Duden? And what are the words? Duden is a dictionary of the German language. It was first published by Konrad Duden (hence the name) in 1880, and has just released its…