Archive for 'Language'
German Punctuation Posted by Constanze on Mar 2, 2022
Guten Tag! Today we’re going to look at punctuation in German. This will include the names of different punctuation marks, as well as a few punctuation rules in German and how these differ to the English rules (or not). German Punctuation Firstly, we need to know what we’re dealing with; the word punctuation in German…
What’s the difference between the German Hähnchen and Hühnchen? Posted by Sten on Feb 24, 2022
We have a confusing situation on German menus: Sometimes, you encounter die Hühnerbrust (chicken breast), other times it’s der Hähnchenbraten (chicken roast). But what is the difference between Hühnchen and Hähnchen? Are they used interchangeably, or should you be careful which one to use? Here’s all you need to know about these curious German words. Click here for more posts…
How To Express ‘I Don’t Understand’ In German Posted by Constanze on Feb 23, 2022
Guten Tag! Today I’m going to give you some vocabulary and phrases for those times when you don’t understand. Even in our native languages, we sometimes need a person to repeat what they’ve said, so it’s a useful set of vocabulary to have. Comprehension aside, we sometimes say we don’t understand because we need clarification…
The Difference Between Werden, Wurden and Würden Posted by Larissa on Feb 22, 2022
These words are spelled similar, sound similar, and yet can change a sentence dramatically. Today we will talk about what the differences are between these three verbs. There are also other ways to use these verbs that I have not mentioned in this post, in order to keep it simple, clear, and to focus on…
Germans and Games 1: The Gaming Scene Posted by Sten on Feb 18, 2022
Like in basically every country, Germans enjoy Spiele (n, games). Whether it’s Videospiele (video games), Brettspiele (board games), Kartenspiele (card games), Germans like it! In this series, I want to look at some peculiarities of the German market and some Spiele that the Germans particularly enjoy. I won’t talk about Sportarten (f, sports) here. If you want to learn about that, we’ve written about Swiss National…
German ‘Language Police’ And Gender Neutrality Posted by Constanze on Feb 9, 2022
Guten Tag! Recently I wrote about the German Unwort des Jahres (‘Non-word of the year’) 2021, which you can read about here. I mentioned in that post that the runner-up was die Sprachpolizei, which literally means ‘language police’. This word was used in 2021 to defame those who were trying to make the German language…
Anglicism of the Year 2021: Germans Made This English Word! Posted by Sten on Feb 3, 2022
We’ve already talked about the German Wort des Jahres (word of the year) of 2021 and the German Unwort des Jahres (“non”-word of the year) 2021, as well as the Jugendwort des Jahres (youth word of the year). But there’s one more that I would like to discuss – the Anglizismus des Jahres (Anglicism of the year)! Anglizismen are…