Tag Archives: grammar
The German Phrase ‘Es Passt’ Posted by Constanze on Feb 26, 2019
Guten Tag! In my last post I talked about the phrase ‘Es steht dir (gut)’, the German way of saying ‘It (really) suits you’. A question people often have when they learn this phrase is: What is the difference between saying ‘Es steht dir’ (it suits you) and a similar phrase, ‘Es passt dir’ (it…
German: It Suits You! Posted by Constanze on Feb 13, 2019
Guten Tag! How do you tell someone in German that something ‘suits them’? Read on to find out! So you’re out shopping with a German friend and they want your opinion on the t-shirt they’ve just tried on. It looks really good. What do you tell them? You could say “Es sieht gut aus!” (“It…
The German Diminutive Posted by Constanze on Dec 12, 2018
Guten Tag! Today I’m going to tell you about diminutives in German. Diminutives are words that are altered to express a smaller, younger or ‘cuter’ version of themselves. An example of an English diminutive is the word droplet, from the word drop, and the word booklet, from the word book. In English, words often become…
Es Sei Denn: The German For ‘Unless’ Posted by Constanze on Nov 28, 2018
Guten Tag! Sometimes when learning a language you will come across little turns of phrase that you just can’t get your head around. Maybe they look like they should mean one thing, but they actually mean something totally different. We have looked at false friends on the blog before, which is a similar topic you might…
German Words You Definitely Don’t Want To Mix Up! Posted by Constanze on Jul 18, 2018
Guten Tag! Making mistakes is a big part of language learning, and often mistakes involve muddling words up – either because they sound similar, because they are the same (but have different meanings), or because they are ‘false friends’ – words that seem like they should mean one thing, but they actually mean another. This…
The German Subjunctive – Konjunktiv II Posted by Sten on Jul 5, 2018
On this blog, we have explained before how to use tenses in German. But we have not yet looked at a rather peculiar tense in German yet: the Konjunktiv (subjunctive mood)! It comes in two parts, Konjunktiv I and Konjunktiv II. Today, we look at number II! I will tell you what it is, how to use it and in which…
The German Subjunctive – Let’s Talk Konjunktiv! Posted by Sten on Jun 28, 2018
On this blog, we have explained before how to use tenses in German. But we have not yet looked at a rather peculiar tense in German yet: the Konjunktiv (subjunctive mood)! It comes in two parts, Konjunktiv I and Konjunktiv II. Today, we look at number I! Let’s go! What is the Konjunktiv? Konjunktiv (subjunctive mood) is a word that comes from the…