Tag Archives: Language
German Surnames & Their Meanings Posted by Constanze on May 16, 2018
If I were to ask you to think of a German surname, what would be the first one to come to mind? Schmidt, maybe? Stein? In this post I will show you some of the most popular German surnames, give you their meanings, and provide some general information about German surnames, too. Let’s get started…
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…
The German But Posted by Constanze on May 2, 2018
Guten Tag! If I were to ask you the German word for ‘but’ the first one to come into your mind would most likely be ‘aber’. This is indeed the German word for it, and probably the most common one. But have you ever seen the words jedoch, allerdings or nichtsdestotrotz in a sentence? These…
How To Rate Something In German Posted by Constanze on Apr 25, 2018
Guten Tag! Today I’m going to give you some words and phrases to use if you want to rate or review something in German. This may come in useful if you’re purchasing a product in Germany and want to leave a review, or if you’re buying from a German-speaking website or place and want to…
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…
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?…
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…