Duzen, Siezen, What-zen?

 
This whole business of having different forms of the personal pronoun ‘you’ is really confusing. Thanks a lot, Germany. Way to make your language even harder to learn.
I mean, if there was a hard and fast rule that said exactly when and with whom you are supposed to duzen and siezen, that would be okay. [...]

Acronymical (video)

 
 
Miss V, in a follow-up to her prefixation, muses on the lack of convenient acronyms in the German language.

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Verbification

Verbs, as the ‘doing words’ of any language, are always the more fun than boring old nouns. Englischers ‘verb’ (or, as I like to say, ‘verbify’) nouns all the time, especially in slang. For example: if the police use a taser gun on someone, that person was ‘tasered’ (or ‘tased’ – as in “Don’t [...]

Schuldi (abbrev.)

Abbreviations make life so much easier. I mean, why bicycle around when you can bike? Why go to the trouble of saying celluar phone when you can just use your cell?
My good friend Herr Versteh-a-lot (who, like myself, is Deutschily challenged) has introduced me to the “abbrev.” (of course you have to abbreviate ‘abbreviation’!) for [...]

When good Deutschlisch goes bad

Sometimes, I am glad that Deutschlisch exists. This is because I get to use the convenient and practical German phraseology (cool word, huh?), all from the comfort of speaking English. So I often ask if there is an ATM “in the near from here” (in der Nähe von), or if friends want to ‘make a [...]

Prefixated: for my YouTube homies. (video)

Aeric Winter’s original video is here.

Aeric’s Prefixes:
über - over
unter - under
ein - on
aus - out
auf - up
ab - off
mit - with
(also, zu!)
and Stems:
machen — to do/make
nehmen — to take
geben — to give
legen — to lie
springen — to jump
Viel Spaß!

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Deutschlisch!

Deutschlisch is Miss V’s Great German-English Hybrid, used by those such as myself who have the English thing down, but the German sometimes just escapes. It officially means any English into which German words or phrasings creep, but sometimes can be applied to the haphazard mish-mash of German and English that Englischers such as myself use day-to-day.

Example from my good friend Herr Versteh-a-lot (while Schwarzfahring, actually!): “Is there a Typ steiging ein?” (Translation: “Is there a guy getting on?” - meaning of course a DeutscheBahn ticket inspector). Naughty!

Vocabulary Training 101: der rote Faden (video)

Today I tied the room together with der rote Faden. Because Freitag = Wahnsinntag. Learning is fun!

C-section town?

I recently heard a Deutschie describe Aachen (lovely town) as the “Caesearian City”. Oh how I laughed (slash was grossed out). Of course he meant “Imperial City” (as in Kaiserstadt). Caesearian for us Englischers has somewhat of a different meaning…