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German Word Of The Year 2018 Runners-Up (Part 1) Posted by Constanze on Apr 17, 2019
Guten Tag! As you may know from previous posts, each year the Gesellschaft für deutsche Sprache (GfdS) – The German Language Association – picks a word as their ‘Wort des Jahres’ – ‘Word of the Year’. They also publish the top 10 most voted for out of all of the words submitted. You can read…
The German Prefix ‘Ur’ Posted by Constanze on Apr 10, 2019
Guten Tag! Today we’re going to look at the German prefix ur. This is a very interesting prefix, because it is used only to talk about ‘original’, ‘primitive’, and ‘earliest’ things. Let’s get into it. The prefix ur is pronounced ooh-ah – exactly how you’d pronounce the German word for clock, die Uhr (but note…
Little German Words: Na Ja Posted by Constanze on Mar 27, 2019
Guten Tag! Today we’re going to look another, kleines Wort (little word). Sometimes these small German words are more interjections than words, so you might hear them and think ‘What do those little sounds mean?’ Today you can find out! The word we’re looking at in this post is na ja. Na ja Sometimes spelt…
Little German Words: Tja Posted by Constanze on Mar 25, 2019
Guten Tag! Today we’re going to look another, kleines Wort (little word). Sometimes these small German words are more interjections than words, so you might hear them and think ‘What do those little sounds mean?’ Today you can find out! The word we’re looking at in this post is Tja. Tja Basically, this is the…
Nazi Symbols In Thailand Posted by Constanze on Mar 20, 2019
Guten Tag! You may know that in Germany it is illegal to publicly display a Nazi symbol, be it on clothing or otherwise. Doing so can land you three years in jail (it is not illegal, however, if it is for the purposes of art). It is also illegal to do the Nazi salute, say…
German TV Series: Deutschland 86 Posted by Constanze on Mar 13, 2019
Guten Tag! If you’re not aware already, there is a new, German series on TV in the US, Australia and the UK. It is called Deutschland 86. This is the sequel to the 2015 series, Deutschland 83. The first series followed the story of a young man from the DDR (Deutsche Demokratische Republik aka. East…
The German Phrase ‘Passt Schon’ Posted by Constanze on Feb 27, 2019
German is full of tiny phrases that have a huge range of meanings. In this post, we will look in more depth at the phrase ‘Passt schon’. This literally translates to ‘Fits already’, ‘Fits yet’ or ‘Does fit’. But what this little phrase actually means is ‘it’s OK’, ‘no worries’, ‘it’s all good’, ‘never mind’…