Tag Archives: Current Events
German Word Of The Year 2018 Posted by Constanze on Jan 2, 2019
Guten Tag, und frohes neues Jahr! Hello, and Happy New Year! I hope you’ve all had a wonderful start to 2019. In this post we will clear up some unfinished business from 2018, and that is discovering what the German Wort des Jahres (Word of the Year) of 2018 is! Each year, the Gesellschaft für…
Who’s Who In German Politics Posted by Constanze on Nov 7, 2018
Guten Tag! As you may have heard in the news, Angela Merkel will not be running for re-election as Bundeskanzlerin (Chancellor) of Germany in 2021 – nor will she be running to be elected as CDU party leader. She has been the German chancellor for almost 13 years, starting way back in 2005. So as…
Is The German Language Sexist? Posted by Constanze on Aug 29, 2018
German has three genders for its nouns: der (masculine), die (feminine) and das (neuter). A common point of confusion amongst German language learners is why each noun has its assigned gender – especially when there is no pattern to it and/or its gender doesn’t appear to make sense. For example, a table in German is…
Munich, What’s Going On With These Bikes?! Posted by Sten on Jan 5, 2018
A few weeks ago, I had the pleasure to visit Munich. The weather was nice, the city is beautiful… Fun times. But there was one thing I just could not wrap my head around… What’s up with all these bikes? oBike Aluminum frames and yellow-black paint. A little wire basket at the front. And the…
Grand Opening of the Elbphilharmonie Posted by Sten on Jan 20, 2017
Last week on Wednesday, one of the largest, most modern and acoustically best Konzerthäuser (concert halls) in the world had its Eröffnungsfeier (inaugural ceremony) in Hamburg – the Elbphilharmonie (Elbe Philharmonic Hall). It was highly anticipated, and the opening was a great Erfolg (success). However, there were some issues with building it. And is it really that toll (nice)? Is it worth the millions of Steuergelder (tax…
Germany’s Youth Word of 2016 Posted by Constanze on Nov 30, 2016
Guten Tag! You may remember last year I wrote about the Wort des Jahres (Word of the Year) and the Unwort des Jahres (Un-word of the Year – an offensive/negative word of the year) for 2014. These are published towards the end of each year by the Gesellschaft für deutsche Sprache (GfdS) – the Association…
Erntedankfest: German Thanksgiving Posted by Constanze on Nov 9, 2016
In a recent post I mentioned some events that take place in Germany in Autumn. Today I’d like to tell you a little more about one of them, namely Erntedankfest – the “German Thanksgiving”. First, the breakdown of the word. ‘Ernte’ means harvest, while ‘Dank’ comes from ‘Danke’, meaning thank you, and ‘Fest’ is German…