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Tag Archives: Austria

You Won’t Believe These Crazy German Place Names Posted by on Jan 25, 2022

Crazy German Place Names

Every country has some strange Ortsnamen (m, place names). Take American Fork in Utah, or Shitterton in Dorset, UK. And we have our own crazy German place names! Here’s a few that where you can visit and you can take your picture next to the Ortsschild (n, place name sign). Oh, and also how you pronounce them properly…

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Austrian Word Of The Year 2021 Posted by on Dec 15, 2021

word of the year

Guten Tag! It’s coming to that time of year when each country reveals its Wort des Jahres – its ‘Word of the Year’! What is the Word of the Year? The Wort des Jahres is voted in each year by a jury (die Jury), usually made up of linguists (der Sprachwissenschaftler: linguist) and people from…

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How Different Is Austrian German To German? Posted by on Jun 23, 2021

austrian german

When thinking about which other countries speak German, perhaps the most obvious one that springs to mind is Österreich – Austria, Germany’s neighbour, where German is also the national language. But a question learners often have is, how different is Austrian German to German? And will I be able to use my German language skills…

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Chalking The Doors: A German New Year’s Tradition Posted by on Dec 30, 2020

Guten Tag und FROHES NEUES JAHR (HAPPY NEW YEAR)! Today’s post is all about a German New Year’s tradition that takes place on January 6th. January 6th in Germany is known as das Dreikönigsfest (‘the three kings festival’), otherwise known as Epiphany, and is celebrated primarily in southern Germany, Austria, and parts of Switzerland. There…

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Austrian and Swiss-German Words of the Year 2019 Posted by on Jan 27, 2020

Guten Tag! We have previously looked at Germany’s Wort des Jahres (Word of the Year) and its Unwort des Jahres (Non-word of the Year) 2019 in this post, this one (runners up) and this one. But what about other, German-speaking countries? Do they also have ‘words of the year’ in Austria and German-speaking Switzerland? The…

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The Origin Of The Snow Globe Posted by on Dec 25, 2019

Frohe Weihnachten (Merry Christmas)! We’ve looked at a huge range of German Christmas traditions on the blog over the years, and if you want to indulge yourself simply click the tag Christmas for them all to come up! In fact, many Christmas traditions as we know them today originated in Germany or Austria. These include…

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The Austrians on The Germans Posted by on Oct 30, 2019

Guten Tag! Recently we talked about the word Kraut which, as well as being the German word for ‘herb’, is an offensive term for a German person. In this mini-series, we will look at some words the Swiss, Germans, Bavarian-Germans, and Austrians use to describe one another. Some are meant in a derogatory way, whilst…

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