False friends (video)

My pop quiz on some common false friends/falsche Freunde/faux amis for people trying to learn Deutsch. I know I’ve slipped up on them, especially at 6.30am.

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Txt ok & ‘wont hrt kids’

Remember when I looked into the increasing use of SMS language recently? Well, the plot thickens. A recent University of Toronto study says that using text slang will not hinder kids’ linguistic development, but rather presents an “expansive new linguistic renaissance”.
Hmmm, I’m not so sure about that. While SMS abbreviations may not statistically [...]

Further evidence of umlaut abuse!

I found this and just couldn’t resist. As I was flicking through an English cuisine magazine (WHAT! It’s hard to find English-language magazines here!), just look at what I found.

Which LOLCAKAOPULIA will volunteer to write a firmly worded letter defending the umlaut?

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Attention World Travellers!

I thought that since the readers of the blog seem to be worldy folk, that you all might like to test your knowledge of various countries’ names auf Deutsch. Achtung: it’s not as easy as it seems!

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Johnny Cash spoke German!

Well, at least once he did, in around 1978. You see, that was the year he sang I Walk the Line in German, the lyrics of which go a little something like this: “Wer kennt den Weg, den Weg zurück?”. Which kind of misses the spirit of “Because you’re mine, I walk the [...]

Simsen Me: Miss V textualises (video)

Miss V gets textual with a look at SMS abbreviations in German and French and what this means for languages in general.

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Casting from pods!

Miss V is mobile! That’s right. If you so desire, you can watch me and my antics on the train, eating lunch or going for your morning run (warning: this may be a health hazard).
I finally got my 19th-Century brain around podcasting, so if you click here you can access Miss V in the iTunes [...]

Schon vorgeglüht?

Today, discussion of another cool and oh-so-appropriate German word: Vorglühen. Now, you Germans will surely know what I’m getting at (and it’s not the literal translation), but Englischers might be a little confused. The literal translation of ‘vorglühen’ is ‘to preheat’. But this is not what I am talking about. Oh no.
When you go [...]

Fun with Phonetic Pronunication (video)

I teach how to (badly?) pronounce a German sentence:
Ich habe mein eigenes Rad. (I have my own bike.)
The pronunciation might not be perfect, but you’ll be understood - which I think is the most important part!

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Bin sitt

Those of you who speak or are learning German may be familiar with the word satt as in ‘Ich bin satt’, meaning “I’m full as a bull/stuffed/about to pop”.
A word you may not be familiar with is sitt, which is satt’s liquid equivalent, meaning one’s thirst has been quenched. Makes sense to me! Hungrig - [...]