Archive for January, 2020
5 German Idioms Using Tools Posted by Constanze on Jan 29, 2020
Guten Tag! Today we’re looking at German idioms – but not just any German idioms. These are all ones that are related to tools in some way. The word for tool in German is das Werkzeug (plural: die Werkzeuge) and the German language is quite fond of idioms that involve different kinds of Werkzeuge. Here…
3 Tips For Remembering German Plurals Posted by Larissa on Jan 28, 2020
There are a lot of rules in German for forming plurals. In English it is a bit easier, as we mostly just add an “s” onto the end of the word (of course there are still some exceptions). The other day when I was teaching a fitness class, I realized I didn’t know what the…
How Germans Turned Into Almans Posted by Sten on Jan 27, 2020
Ah, the Germans. Attached to stereotypes of Pünktlichkeit (punctuality), Ordnung (order) and Gesetzestreue (law abidance) above all else, they have a distinct culture and lifestyle. But how could you encapsulate this in a term? What says “German” like nothing else? Alman, apparently. Let’s have a look. Making fun of Germans Don’t think we Germans are not aware of all these…
Austrian and Swiss-German Words of the Year 2019 Posted by Constanze on Jan 27, 2020
Guten Tag! We have previously looked at Germany’s Wort des Jahres (Word of the Year) and its Unwort des Jahres (Non-word of the Year) 2019 in this post, this one (runners up) and this one. But what about other, German-speaking countries? Do they also have ‘words of the year’ in Austria and German-speaking Switzerland? The…
German ‘Non-Word’ of 2019 Posted by Constanze on Jan 15, 2020
Linguists from the Technische Universität Darmstadt have decided on the German Unwort des Jahres (the ‘non-word of the year’) 2019. The Unwort des Jahres is ‘Klimahysterie’. At the end of every year, the GfdS (German Language Association) picks a word for its Wort des Jahres (Word of the Year). This is a word that’s been…
German Sayings + Expressions 27: Feeling Old Posted by Sten on Jan 9, 2020
It’s 2020! Finally, a new Jahrzent (decade) – but for a lot of people that second 2 in the year gives them a feeling of being… old. Perhaps rightfully so. The Mauerfall (Fall of the Berlin Wall), which sparked German reunification? Almost 31 years ago! The end of the Zweiter Weltkrieg (Second World War)? 75 years this…
German Word of the Year 2019 Runners Up Posted by Constanze on Jan 1, 2020
Guten Tag! Each year, the Gesellschaft für deutsche Sprache (GfdS) – The German Language Association – picks a word as their Wort des Jahres – ‘Word of the Year’. This is often a word related to a prominent topic in the country during the year, and is usually interesting from a linguistic perspective, too. The…