Archive for 'Culture'
How the Germans cope with their World Cup Elimination Posted by Sten on Jun 29, 2018
On Wednesday, Germany lost the match against South Korea in the Football World Cup in Russia. The Weltmeister (world champion) had high hopes, everybody had faith that they would do a good job. But now, they ended last in their Gruppe (group), and are ausgeschieden (eliminated) already. But how do the Germans cope with this Blamage (humiliation)? Das Spiel The Spiel (game) itself was not…
The German Subjunctive – Let’s Talk Konjunktiv! Posted by Sten on Jun 28, 2018
On this blog, we have explained before how to use tenses in German. But we have not yet looked at a rather peculiar tense in German yet: the Konjunktiv (subjunctive mood)! It comes in two parts, Konjunktiv I and Konjunktiv II. Today, we look at number I! Let’s go! What is the Konjunktiv? Konjunktiv (subjunctive mood) is a word that comes from the…
Untranslatable German Words: Der Nichtskönner Posted by Sten on Jun 26, 2018
What does Nichtskönner mean? The Duden gives us a straightforward definition: “jemand, der sein Fach nicht beherrscht; Stümper” (Someone that has not mastered their discipline; bungler) So that would give us a definition straight away! Done! Well, not quite. Nichtskönner is a word you could hear here and there, whereas bungler is not really used a lot. It…
13 German Superstitions Posted by Constanze on Jun 20, 2018
Guten Tag! Today I thought it’d be fun to look at some superstitions – or Aberglauben – you may come across in Germany. Knowing what these are might help explain any ‘unusual’ behaviour you see in Germany, and help you to avoid making an embarrassing faux-pas yourself! Feel free to add any more German superstitions…
Untranslatable German Words: der Schickimicki Posted by Sten on May 3, 2018
A friend of mine told me this week: “Schickimicki is one of my favorite German words!” It made me realize, it is quite a cute word! It also made me wonder: How would you accurately translate it to English? It is harder than you might think. Let’s go! Click here for previous posts in this series of…
Eine Gute-Nacht-Geschichte Posted by Sten on Apr 30, 2018
If you have Kinder (children), you know what it is like: Ich will noch nicht ins Bett! (I don’t want to go to sleep yet!) Of course, I am talking about Kinder, die noch nicht schlafen wollen (Children that do not yet want to go to sleep). And what do you tell them? A Gute-Nacht-Geschichte (good-night story). Here’s a very short…
The Curiosity of the Word “Der Schnickschnack” Posted by Sten on Apr 26, 2018
You know when you rent a car, you can get all kinds of Versicherungen (insurances) – do you really need them? Or is it just all Schnickschnack? Schnick-what? What is this word? Let’s find out! Click here for previous entries in the series on curious words in German Where does it come from? Der Schnickschnack can easily be translated to…