Archive for 'Language'
My Experience and Scientific Results about Second Language Learning Posted by Sandra Rösner on Jan 26, 2011
In this post I would like to tell you about eine Begegnung (an encounter) I had some weeks ago because this zufällige Begegnung (chance meeting) gave rise zwei Themen in einem Zug anzureißen (to touch on two topics in one go). Additionally, you have the opportunity to enlarge your vocabulary. One of the two topics…
What do Germans eat for breakfast? Posted by Sandra Rösner on Jan 18, 2011
When I get in contact with foreign cultures I am always curious about what other peoples have for Frühstück (breakfast). So, I thought that you could be curious, too, about what we Germans have for breakfast. Germans think breakfast is the most important meal of the day because it gives you all the energy you…
Contraction of prepositions and definite articles in German Posted by Sandra Rösner on Jan 9, 2011
In German it often occurs that definite articles and prepositions are contracted. This is, however, only possible when the article is not stressed. The contracted form of the definite article is called clitic – an unstressed ‘word’ that only appears when it can lean on another word. Clitics do also, in other grammatical forms, exist…
German nouns: gender hints Posted by Sandra Rösner on Dec 20, 2010
In German, all nouns have a particular grammatical gender. They can either be masculine (männlich), feminine (weiblich), or neuter (sächlich). The gender of a noun is indicated by its preceding article: „der“ (for masculine nouns), “die” (for feminine nouns), and “das” (for neuter nouns). Please note that not the thing or person is supposed to…
Writing the letters “ä”, “ö”, and “ü” without a German keyboard Posted by Sandra Rösner on Dec 13, 2010
There are three letters in German that do not exist in English. These are the Umlaute (umlauts) “ä”, “ö”, and “ü”. Although these letters do not exist in the alphabet, they play an important role in writing. Unfortunately, Umlaute cannot be found on all keyboards but there is no need to worry about that, seeing…
Separable Verbs II: Prepositions as prefixes Posted by Sandra Rösner on Dec 9, 2010
Separable verbs can be separated because they consist of two independent words, that is, they consist of the core verb and a particular prefix. The prefix is always either: a preposition, an adverb or an adjective. In the list below, you can find one example verb for every prepositional prefix. 1. ab- : 2. an-…
Family matters Posted by jan on Dec 6, 2010
Hi everybody. Today I want to show you some words that are about family. For this, just read the following (fictional) text. In the end I got some questions that you can answer through the comment field if you want!