Tag Archives: german words
3 Words About Former West Germany Posted by Constanze 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…
The German Word ‘Zeug’ Posted by Constanze 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…
5 More German Placeholders Posted by Constanze 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…
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…
The German Word Eselsbrücke (Mnemonic) Posted by Constanze on May 3, 2019
Guten Tag! Today we are going to look at the German word die Eselsbrücke, and what it means. Not only is it an interesting word, but an Eselsbrücke is something that might even help you with your language learning! Die Eselsbrücke literally translates to ‘the donkey bridge’. Its actual translation in English, however, is mnemonic…
German Word Of The Year 2018 Runners-Up (Part 2) Posted by Constanze on Apr 24, 2019
Guten Tag! As you may know from previous posts, each year the Gesellschaft für deutsche Sprache (GfdS) – The German Language Association – picks a word as their Wort des Jahres – Word of the Year. They also publish the top 10 most voted for out of all of the words submitted. You can read…
German Word Of The Year 2018 Runners-Up (Part 1) Posted by Constanze on Apr 17, 2019
Guten Tag! As you may know from previous posts, each year the Gesellschaft für deutsche Sprache (GfdS) – The German Language Association – picks a word as their ‘Wort des Jahres’ – ‘Word of the Year’. They also publish the top 10 most voted for out of all of the words submitted. You can read…