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Tag Archives: words

Christmas & New Year In Untranslatable German Words Posted by on Dec 19, 2018

Guten Tag and, since it’s almost time, Frohe Weihnachten (Merry Christmas)! Weihnachten (Christmas) and Neujahr (New Year) is the time of the year when people experience a whole range of emotions, from excitement over receiving presents to annoyance about being in the company of certain family members, from feeling nostalgic and reflective about the year…

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German Companions of Saint Nicholas Posted by on Dec 5, 2018

Guten Tag! As you may know, tomorrow (December 6th) is Nikolaustag (Saint Nicholas Day) in Germany. This is a German Christmas celebration separate to that of December 24/25. If you are not yet familiar with Nikolaustag, I recommend reading this post and this post first, to get a good introduction to it. If you are…

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German Words You Don’t Want To Mix Up Posted by on Jul 11, 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…

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German Similes To Make You Smile Posted by on Jun 13, 2018

Guten Tag! After what feels like a lot of grammar and vocabulary posts from me, it’s time for something a little more light-hearted. Today I’d like to bring you a quirky German phrase. The phrase is: grinsen wie ein Honigkuchenpferd. Grinsen wie ein Honigkuchenpferd This phrase translates to ‘To smile like a honey cake horse’…

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Ways To Use The German Word ‘Immer’ Posted by on Jun 6, 2018

Guten Tag! Today I’d like to bring you a seemingly simple, German word that can be used in a variety of ways to mean different things. That word is the German word immer – always.      So the basic definition of immer is always: Ja, so ist es immer – Yes, it’s always like…

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The German Colour Eigengrau Posted by on May 23, 2018

When you walk around in pitch dark, you only see black in front of you, right? In German, you see a colour called Eigengrau. Eigengrau, which literally means own grey or intrinsic grey, is the shade of black seen by the eye in complete darkness. On the Hex colour chart, where black is #000000, Eigengrau…

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German Kofferwörter (Portmanteau Words) Posted by 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…

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