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Christmas & New Year In Untranslatable German Words Posted by Constanze on Dec 19, 2018
Guten Tag and, since it’s almost time, Frohe Weihnachten (Merry Christmas)! Weihnachten (Christmas) and Neujahr (New Year) is the time of the year when people experience a whole range of emotions, from excitement over receiving presents to annoyance about being in the company of certain family members, from feeling nostalgic and reflective about the year…
The German Diminutive Posted by Constanze on Dec 12, 2018
Guten Tag! Today I’m going to tell you about diminutives in German. Diminutives are words that are altered to express a smaller, younger or ‘cuter’ version of themselves. An example of an English diminutive is the word droplet, from the word drop, and the word booklet, from the word book. In English, words often become…
German Companions of Saint Nicholas Posted by Constanze on Dec 5, 2018
Guten Tag! As you may know, tomorrow (December 6th) is Nikolaustag (Saint Nicholas Day) in Germany. This is a German Christmas celebration separate to that of December 24/25. If you are not yet familiar with Nikolaustag, I recommend reading this post and this post first, to get a good introduction to it. If you are…
Es Sei Denn: The German For ‘Unless’ Posted by Constanze on Nov 28, 2018
Guten Tag! Sometimes when learning a language you will come across little turns of phrase that you just can’t get your head around. Maybe they look like they should mean one thing, but they actually mean something totally different. We have looked at false friends on the blog before, which is a similar topic you might…
Germany’s Youth Word of 2018 Posted by Constanze on Nov 21, 2018
Guten Tag! Every year, the Langenscheidt dictionary selects a word it calls the Jugendwort des Jahres – the Youth Word of the Year. People have the opportunity to vote from a selection of shortlisted teen slang, and then the winner is picked by a jury. The Jugendwort des Jahres for 2018 was revealed recently, so…
November 9 in German History Posted by Constanze on Nov 14, 2018
Guten Tag! November is a big month in German history, as many significant historical events happened on or around November 9th. In fact, so many things have happened throughout history on November 9th in Germany that this date is now known as der Schicksaltag – the ‘fate day’. Today I’m writing about two events from…
Who’s Who In German Politics Posted by Constanze on Nov 7, 2018
Guten Tag! As you may have heard in the news, Angela Merkel will not be running for re-election as Bundeskanzlerin (Chancellor) of Germany in 2021 – nor will she be running to be elected as CDU party leader. She has been the German chancellor for almost 13 years, starting way back in 2005. So as…