Category: German

If you have been living in Switzerland for a while you will have noticed that many locals speak English or other languages well. You will also have noticed that German speakers in Switzerland speak Swiss German, not Standard German (Hochdeutsch) as their mother tongue. Learning (Standard) German can therefore seem pointless and overwhelming, particularly in…

Step 4 Hate Schlager, know every word. If you’ve ever seen the 1999 movie Idle Hands, you’ll know there’s a rare condition called Alien Hand Syndrome, in which a person’s hand develops a will of its own, actively working against the wishes of its owner. Germans suffer from a lesser known but equally debilitating condition,…

Step 3 Stick to the rules If you’re been to the cinema here, you’ll know the seats come in two types and prices – neckache and non-neckache. Neckache is the first rows from the front, and to be at the back you’ve got to pay more. I’ve not seen tiered seat pricing in other countries.…

Step 2 Say what you mean English is not about what you say, but how you say it. German is both, but more the former. So what Germans say tends to be direct and prepared with minimal ambiguity. Ruthlessly efficient, if you will. In English, for example, if you want someone to do something for…

I was talking to a colleague from university (a brilliant postdoc in literature) about a student of mine who did not know—or did not recognize among a few examples—what an article, such as the or a, was: “Oh, I have never heard of prepositions or verbs or those other things you mentioned, but I think…

As a 19-year-old who had just finished school I went to South Africa as a volunteer youth instructor for four month. It was the first time that I left Europe and the first time I used English as the every- day language of communication. Even though I was a good student and thus was able…