Archive for 'Language'
Yiddish: Can You Understand It? Posted by Sten on Apr 23, 2020
Perhaps you have seen the Serie (show) Unorthodox on Netflix. When the first words were spoken, I heard a strange familiarity, yet only recognized certain words. Yiddish is a mix of different languages, with unmistakable German roots. What’s the story of this interesting language? And how is it expressed in Unorthodox? Let’s find out! What is…
The German Prefix ‘Un’ Posted by Constanze on Apr 22, 2020
Guten Tag! Today we’re going to talk about German nouns that start with ‘Un’. Like in English, there are many adjectives in German that begin with ‘un’ to signify lack or negation. Some examples include the words unbequem (uncomfortable) and unverständlich (unintelligible). In both English and German, removing the prefix ‘un’ from these examples would…
Untranslatable Words: Die Hiobsbotschaft Posted by Sten on Apr 17, 2020
If you get very bad news, how would you say that in English? Germans have a word for it, and it has quite the interesting origin story. It is the Hiobsbotschaft. Let’s have a look! What does Hiobsbotschaft mean? A Hiobsbotschaft, sometimes Hiobsnachricht and historically Hiobspost, is a Botschaft (message) with very bad news for the Empfänger (recipient). In other words, an Unglücksnachricht (message of…
Change Of Routine (German Simple Past Tense) Posted by Constanze on Apr 15, 2020
Guten Tag! How is life looking for you lately? I think it’s true for the majority of people at the moment that routines have changed. Certain things that we used to do, we aren’t doing any more, and new habits and routines have formed in their place. In this post I’d like to show you…
German Sayings + Expressions 28: Things with Water Posted by Sten on Apr 2, 2020
In times like these, with the Coronavirus (coronavirus), we know we have to stay zuhause (at home). With events being cancelled and regular life coming to a halt, there are of course also Sprichwörter (sayings) and Ausdrücke (expressions) related to this. Let’s have a look at these, shall we? Today, we start with the Ausdruck (expression). For older posts, please follow this link. Ins Wasser fallen…
German Bad Luck: Pech And Unglück Posted by Constanze on Apr 1, 2020
Guten Tag! Ich hoffe, es geht euch gut (Hello! I hope you are all well)! We recently talked about Glück (luck) on the blog. In case you missed those posts, they are here and here. Now we’re going to talk about its opposite, bad luck, which is a very interesting word in itself in German!…
The German Word ‘Glück’: Happiness Or Luck? Posted by Constanze on Mar 25, 2020
Guten Tag! Recently I’ve been talking about das Glück (luck) on the blog, and I wanted to address something that could be confusing about this word. If you studied German in school, one of the first adjectives you probably learnt was the word for happy – glücklich. Ich bin glücklich – I am happy Ich…