Abbreviations - Abkürzungen | German Language Blog

German Abbreviations – Abkürzungen Posted by jan on Nov 18, 2010 in Grammar, Language

Today I want show you some of the most important abbreviations in German language. Most of them are so common, that you don´t even realize that it´s an abbreviation while reading. At least when you´re living in a German spoken country.

So when you read letters, tutorials, stories etc. in German, I´m sure that you will find some of the following examples.

Abbreviation	Full meaning	Full meaning in English
Abb.	Abbildung	image/copy/illustration
Nr.	Nummer	number
S.	Seite	page
s.u.	siehe unten	see below
usw.	und so weiter	and so on
d.h.	das heißt	that means
i.A.	im Auftrag	by order of
i.d.R.	in der Regel	generally
u.a.	und andere/unter anderem	and other/among other
u.U.	unter Umständen	under (these) circumstances
s.a.	siehe auch	see also
z.T.	zum Teil	partial
z.B.	zum Beispiel	for example
z.Zt.	zur Zeit	now/these days/at … time
MwSt.	Mehrwertsteuer	sales tax/VAT
Kg	Kilogramm	kilogram
t	Tonne(n)	tonne(s)
g	Gramm	gram
m	Meter	meter
km	Kilometer	kilometer
cm	Zenitmeter	centimeter
mm	Millimeter	millimeter
MfG	Mit freundlichen Grüßen	with best regards
DDR	Deutsche Demokratische Republik	German Democratic Republic
BRD	Bundesrepublik Deutschland	Federal Republic of Germany
GmbH	Gesellschaft mit beschränkter Haftung	limited company
AG	Aktiengesellschaft	corporation
RAF	Rote Armee Fraktion	Red Armee Fraction (?)
FKK	Freikörperkultur	nudism
PLZ	Postleitzahl	Postal code
P.S.	Postskriptum	postscript
PS	Pferdestärken	horse power
Etc.	et cetera	et cetera
Evtl.	Eventuell	eventually
Stck.	Stück	pieces
Std.	Stunde (n)	hour(s)
Min.	Minuten	minutes
L	Liter	litre
Tel.	Telefon(nummer)	phone (number)

As you can imagine there are hundreds of other abbreviations so I just tried to mention the most important ones.

I´m sure that I forgot some, so feel free to complete the list by using the comment field!

If you want to read some general information about abbreviations, I recommend this Site (German): http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abk%C3%BCrzung

Tags: abbreviations, abkürzungen

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About the Author: jan

My name is Jan and I live in the south west of Germany. My profession is being a project manager at a company that creates digital media (first of all internet related things). This is my job since over a decade so I´m quite familiar with the web and its tools. Whereat today almost every school kid does. But that´s one of the main reasons why nowadays there are quasi no more limits in the internet and so it can be used for all imaginable types of things. For example learning languages! And that´s where we are at the moment. I first got in touch with Transparent Language when my family and I used to live in France a couple of years ago. I just had a break from work and by coincidence I produced some cultural videos in French. A few months later the whole blogging thing came up and I was lucky to be a part of it. So now my (second) job is to feed you with information, exercises, vocabulary, grammar and stories about Germany and German language. For being a passionate videographer I´m trying to do this more and more by videos. If you have any wishes or needs of topics that should be treated here, please don´t hesitate to contact me via a comment field. I´m open to your suggestions (as long as they are not too individual) and will try to satisfy your needs.

Comments:

Dennis:

I am studying a bit of German because of business transaction with some companies in Germany, and your blog has been great for a couple tips!
not only evtl. wrong:

the translation of “eventuell” is not “eventually” (-> letzendlich”) but something like “possibly”
jan:

thanks for the hint and sorry for the mistake!
saarara:

Bzw. seems to be a pretty common abbreviation that’s missing from the list 🙂
Ageliki:

I also study deutsch and this site has been a great help!! Keep up the good work!!Thank YouTube all…
Bosun:

I don’t really know the spelling of postalcode in Deutsch so I just use PLZ…
- Sten:
  
  @Bosun Postleitzahl. PLZ is correct as an abbreviation indeed.
Zach:

“Gesellschaft mit beschränkter Haftung” was translated as “limited company,” is that the same thing as a limited liability corporation, or llc.?
Rich:

u.A.w.g. um Antwort wird gebeten. RSVP
Kazbat:

‘eventuell’ pretty much translates as ‘possible’ or ‘potential’.

RAF is the ‘rote Armee Faktion’ – Red Army Faction. There’s no R in Faktion or Faction. The RAF in this instance was a terrorist group.

RAF, meaning Royal Air Force, doesn’t have a German abbreviation, it being an English acronym of course.
helen:

another useful abbreviation is HGW herzlichen Gluckwunsch and W.LAN which means WiFi

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