Archive for March, 2018
Karfreitag – Good Friday in Germany Posted by Sten on Mar 30, 2018
Today is Karfreitag (Good Friday)! It is a Christian holiday commemorating the Kreuzigung (crucifixion) of Jesus. It is celebrated, or commemorated, differently all over the world, but generally is regarded as a holiday. And so it is in Germany. Let’s find out what Germans do on this day! What does Karfreitag mean? In German, the word Kar does no longer have…
Days Of The Week In German Posted by Constanze on Mar 28, 2018
Guten Tag! One of the first things you will learn in your German lessons are the names of the days of the week. One thing people are sometimes quite interested in is the differences between the names – why do they all end in ‘Tag’ apart from Mittwoch, for example, and what does that mean?…
Test your German Knowledge Quiz Posted by Larissa on Mar 27, 2018
Time for another quiz! This time I will be asking questions from my last three posts – grammar rules, going to a spa in Germany and Christmas markets. If you want to brush up on your knowledge before the quiz then you can read the posts here, here and here. Let me know how you…
German Loanwords in English Pt. 2 Posted by Sten on Mar 24, 2018
Yesterday, we looked at some German loanwords in English. These are words that keep their spelling, pronunciation, and even meaning! Is that always the case? we look int that right now. Let’s begin! Part 1 1. Poltergeist No, this is not just a famous movie from the 1980s, it is an actual word in…
German Loanwords in English Pt. 1 Posted by Sten on Mar 23, 2018
We have some untranslatable words in German, which we have covered extensively. But there are also words in English that were not translated at all – kept their meaning, spelling but not their pronunciation! Let’s look at and listen to a few of these Lehnwörter (loanwords). I first give a recording of the word in both…
German In Horse Riding: Losgelassenheit Posted by Constanze on Mar 21, 2018
Hello and welcome to another post on untranslatable German words, in which I bring you the quirkiest, most unusual words the German language has to offer – ones which there are often not a direct translation for! Today we are discussing a German word used in English: die Losgelassenheit. What is die Losgelassenheit? Die Losgelassenheit…
Funny German Animal Names Posted by Constanze on Mar 14, 2018
Guten Tag! We have talked before on the blog about how ‘literal’ German words can be. Check out this blog post, and this one, for some examples. Today I’d like to continue on that theme with a post about animals. You are probably familiar with a few German animals, such as die Katze (cat), der…