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Tag Archives: Curious Words

Similar German Words: Stimme, Stimmung, stimmen Posted by on Sep 11, 2019

Guten Tag! Today we’re going to look at three words that appear extremely similar, but which have different meanings. It can be confusing to a language learner to see a word that you think you recognise, only to find out it means something else entirely. So let’s start with three words: Stimme, Stimmung, and stimmen…

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4 ‘Untranslatable’ German Summer Words! Posted by on Sep 4, 2019

Guten Tag! As the summer draws to a close I thought it would be fun to see what words and phrases are used in German to describe summer weather, as there are several that are ‘untranslatable’ – ie. unique to the German language! Of course, these words can really be used at any time of…

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3 Words About Former West Germany Posted by on Jul 24, 2019

Guten Tag! I recently read a book about the history of Germany. It contained many words I hadn’t heard of before, that gave insights into specific aspects of German history. The section on the post-war/Cold War period (1945-1991), in particular, used several German words when discussing the topic of East and West Germany. We all…

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The German Word ‘Zeug’ Posted by on Jun 26, 2019

Guten Tag! Today we’re looking at a very small, but very versatile German word: das Zeug. Simply put, Zeug (das) means thing, or stuff. It is quite common to hear people say things like ‘Was ist das für ein Zeug?’ (‘What kind of thing/stuff is this?’). Zeug can refer to one thing, or several things…

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5 More German Placeholders Posted by on Jun 24, 2019

Guten Tag! We briefly touched on German placeholders in this post, about the words Krimskrams (stuff, junk) and Dingsbums (thingy, thingymajig). Then we looked at German placeholders for names, such as John Doe. A placeholder (der Platzhalter) is a generic word you use in place of a real word. This might be because you can’t…

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The Curiosity of the German Word “Koffein” Posted by 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…

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German Things And Stuff Posted by 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…

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