Tag Archives: germanlanguage
Gender-Neutral German: Das Gendersternchen Posted by Constanze on Dec 18, 2019
Guten Tag! You may have seen words like this in German: Einwohner*innen, Mieter*innen, Lehrer*innen. What’s the little star in the middle all about? This is called the Gendersternchen, and it’s what we’re going to talk about in today’s post. As language learners soon find out, German is a very gendered language. That means, not only…
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…
10 Words That Are More Descriptive In German Posted by Constanze on Jan 16, 2019
Guten Tag! How’s your learning going? Hopefully, it’s going well! In today’s post, we’re going to look at some words that are just better in German. One of the most common stereotypes people hold about the German language is that it is angry and harsh-sounding. And one of the most common stereotypes people hold about…
Germany’s Youth Word of 2018 Posted by Constanze on Nov 21, 2018
Guten Tag! Every year, the Langenscheidt dictionary selects a word it calls the Jugendwort des Jahres – the Youth Word of the Year. People have the opportunity to vote from a selection of shortlisted teen slang, and then the winner is picked by a jury. The Jugendwort des Jahres for 2018 was revealed recently, so…
Big German Travel Phrases Resource Posted by Constanze on Jul 25, 2018
Guten Tag! It’s holiday season and, having just come back from holiday myself, I started thinking about all of the phrases I used to communicate to the locals in different situations. There are many excellent posts in the blog archives on specific areas of holidays, like booking a hotel room in German, or how to…
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…