Tag Archives: Language History
Loaded German Words: Kraut Posted by Constanze on Oct 25, 2019
Guten Tag! Recently there was an uproar here in the UK when the official party for the pro-Brexit campaign put out a poster showing a photo of Angela Merkel, accompanied by the words ‘We did not win two world wars to be pushed around by a Kraut’. This was in reference to a phone call…
Die Stunde Null: Zero Hour Posted by Constanze on Aug 28, 2019
Guten Tag! Today we continue on the theme of words that tell us a great deal about periods of German history. Today we are looking at four words, but the main one is this: die Stunde Null. Die Stunde Null translates to ‘the zero hour’, wherein die Stunde means hour, and null is the word…
German Wiedergutmachung (Reparations) Posted by Constanze on Aug 21, 2019
Guten Tag! Today we’re looking at the word die Wiedergutmachung. In 1953, the German government agreed to pay reparations to Holocaust survivors following World War II. This included anyone who was directly victimised by the Nazis in any way (it did not, however, include relatives/descendants of those people, for example). That is what the word…
The German Dish Labskaus Posted by Constanze on Jul 29, 2019
Guten Tag! I’m coming at you today with a word you may not have realised is German in origin. We’ve talked several times on the blog about English words that are actually German, including angst, wanderlust and rucksack, to name but a few. If you’re interested, there are posts on these here, here and here…
Old German Handwriting Posted by Constanze on Oct 10, 2018
When I was young there was an old German poster in my family kitchen that used to drive me insane, because although I knew it was in German, I couldn’t read what was written on it. It looked to me like another language! “It’s because that is old German handwriting”, my mum told me. “Some…
The German Heimat Posted by Constanze on Apr 4, 2018
The concept of Heimat is often referred to as a uniquely German concept that cannot be adequately translated – even though it seems like a fairly straight-forward word. On first glance, you see the word das Heim (home) in there, and although Heimat does mean home, this word talks about quite a different concept of…
Days Of The Week In German Posted by Constanze on Mar 28, 2018
Guten Tag! One of the first things you will learn in your German lessons are the names of the days of the week. One thing people are sometimes quite interested in is the differences between the names – why do they all end in ‘Tag’ apart from Mittwoch, for example, and what does that mean?…