Colors in German – How does the grammar work? Posted by Sten on Jun 21, 2019
There is some weird stuff going on with the Grammatik (grammar) of Farben (colors) in German. Sometimes they are capitalized. Sometimes not. What are the rules? And how can you determine what to do? Let’s have a look. Substantivierung As a small reminder, Substantive (nouns) are written with a capital first letter. This is pretty…
German Placeholders: Names Posted by Constanze on Jun 19, 2019
Guten Tag! We briefly touched on German placeholders in this post, about the words Krimskrams (stuff, junk) and Dingsbums (thingy, thingymajig). Now we’re going to look at lots more placeholders in German, starting with German names. A placeholder is a generic word you use in place of a real word. This might be because you…
The Curiosity of the German Word “Koffein” Posted by Sten on Jun 13, 2019
Do you drink Kaffee (coffee)? Whether you drink it because you like the Geschmack (taste), just out of Gewohnheit (habit) or for the Koffein (caffeine), it sure is a very popular Getränk (drink). But wait a second – Kaffee contains Koffein? What’s going on here? Click here for previous entries in the series on curious words in German A Curious History So even though Kaffee is written…
German Things And Stuff Posted by Constanze on Jun 12, 2019
Guten Tag! Do you ever have moments where you can’t remember the word for something? How about when there’s a pile of what can only be described as ‘stuff’? Just like in English, German has words that you can use in these situations. Here are two of them: Krimskrams and Dingsbums. Krimskrams The first word…
Dwight Schrute’s Terrific German – Part 5: Singing in German Posted by Sten on Jun 6, 2019
You may remember Dwight Schrute, the quirky top paper salesman from NBC’s “The Office” (by the way, there is a German spin-off, called Stromberg). While the sitcom celebrated its finale back in May 2013, it is still one of the most watched shows today. And Mr Schrute is one of the audience’s favorite characters. Not…
Dwight Schrute’s Terrific German – Part 4: Dwight’s Christmas Party Posted by Sten on May 30, 2019
You may remember Dwight Schrute, the quirky top paper salesman from NBC’s “The Office” (by the way, there is a German spin-off, called Stromberg). While the sitcom celebrated its finale back in May 2013, it is still one of the most watched shows today. And Mr Schrute is one of the audience’s favorite characters. Not…
German Currency Over The Years Posted by Constanze on May 29, 2019
Guten Tag! Today we’re going to look at German Geld (money). Germany’s current currency is the Euro, but it’s only been that way since 2002. In this post we’ll look at German currency (die Währung) from over the years. We start in the period of the German Empire. Between 1873 and 1914, German currency was…