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!
Separable Verbs I: Draw the line between prefixes and core verbs Posted by Sandra Rösner on Dec 1, 2010
With this post I would like to start a series on German separable verbs. In this introductory post I explain how you can distinguish separable verbs from inseparable verbs. The main difference between separable and inseparable verbs is that separable verbs consist of two words: a core verb and a semi-prefix, whereas inseparable verbs consist…
My home is my castle: German apartments Posted by Sandra Rösner on Nov 25, 2010
One’s own home is a kind of retreat for many people. It is a place where you can relax and spend time with your family and friends. In 2009, I spent some time in London (UK) where I did an internship in a kind of real estate agency. The company rented separated rooms in house…
German Abbreviations – Abkürzungen Posted by jan on Nov 18, 2010
Today I want show you some of the most important abbreviations in German language. Most of them are so common, that you don´t even realize that it´s an abbreviation while reading. At least when you´re living in a German spoken country. So when you read letters, tutorials, stories etc. in German, I´m sure that you…
Talking about occupations Posted by Sandra Rösner on Nov 17, 2010
People are often identified by what they do for a living. When you want to ask in German what someone’s occupation is, you have different options to ask that question: Formal language Informal language Was machen Sie beruflich? Was sind Sie von Beruf? Was ist Ihr Beruf? Was machst Du beruflich? Was bist Du von…