Category Archives: German language
Being sick gives a person little motivation to change the channel, so the other day, Joe and I watched an entire television program about toast. The highlight of the show was the making of what was then the world’s largest …
Last night, I watched Schreie der Vergessenen, a German ghost story movie. (Ghost stories are ideal for language learners because they follow a predictable–nay, one might say, ritualized–pattern.) At one point, the hero was talking with the villain. He was …
When I entered Germany, the passport control agent inspected my Lucky Luke comic book. Well, all right, maybe he didn’t inspect it, but he paged through it happily, and he was very glad to know I was learning German from …
Die Kelten are the Celts. Southern Germany belonged to wealthy Celtic tribes during the centuries before the Roman invasion. The Germanic tribes drove the Celts out of this region during the Great Migration.
My friend Heidi recently introduced me to the expression: “Mein Name ist Hase.” This is a humorous way of saying, “I’m clueless” or “I have no idea” or “I’m staying out of it.” I already knew that der Hase is …
The other day, everything went wrong. Fortunately, I knew the German for this: Alles ging schief, or Alles ist schief gegangen. The word schief means crooked and can apply to anything from a cocked head or a picture on the …
The other day, a television vet was called out to examine a young Waschbär. What kind of “bear” is this? It’s the kind known for waschen–washing its food. Der Waschbär is a raccoon. Wild raccoons don’t ordinarily wash their food, …