Tag Archives: german and english
The German Colour Eigengrau Posted by Constanze on May 23, 2018
When you walk around in pitch dark, you only see black in front of you, right? In German, you see a colour called Eigengrau. Eigengrau, which literally means own grey or intrinsic grey, is the shade of black seen by the eye in complete darkness. On the Hex colour chart, where black is #000000, Eigengrau…
German Kofferwörter (Portmanteau Words) Posted by Constanze on May 9, 2018
Today the topic is all about German Kofferwörter. These are words that mix two or more existing words together to create a new word with a blended meaning. These are what the English call portmanteau words. Examples in English include Brexit (Britain + Exit, to describe Britain exiting the EU), smog (smoke + fog), and…
Swearing In German Posted by Constanze on Apr 11, 2018
Guten Tag! First off, I’d like to thank Bjørn from the Danish blog for providing the inspiration for this post. Bjørn has written a very informative, interesting post about Danish swear words- which I’m hoping to replicate now with German swear words. So let’s get started. Swear words are called die Schimpfwörter in German. German…
German In Horse Riding: Losgelassenheit Posted by Constanze on Mar 21, 2018
Hello and welcome to another post on untranslatable German words, in which I bring you the quirkiest, most unusual words the German language has to offer – ones which there are often not a direct translation for! Today we are discussing a German word used in English: die Losgelassenheit. What is die Losgelassenheit? Die Losgelassenheit…
Does German Use Silent Letters? Posted by Constanze on Feb 28, 2018
Guten Tag! In today’s post I’d like to discuss German silent letters with you. There are many silent letters in the English language, such as the h in hour, the c in muscle, the first d in Wednesday, and the e on the end of practically every word (name, like, love, breathe), to name but…
2 Words You Didn’t Know Were German Posted by Constanze on Jan 31, 2018
Guten Tag! When you think of English words that are German in origin, a few will spring to mind immediately: Angst, Poltergeist, and Doppelgänger, amongst others. Yet there are some English words that you need to look a little closer at to discover that they are, in fact, German! Today I’ve got two English words…
German Onomatopoeia Posted by Constanze on Jan 24, 2018
Today we’re going to look at onomatopoeia in the German language! The dictionary defines onomatopoeia as ‘the formation of a word from a sound associated with what is named (e.g. cuckoo, sizzle ).’ You might already be familiar with some of these words in English: Splash, boom, and many animal noises including miaow. Just like…