In honor of our recent trip to Bavaria, I’m featuring a very useful word that has no real English equivalent: der Stau. Anyone who lives in Germany longer than a few weeks comes to know and use this word. German autobahns have no access roads like American highways do, so when traffic gets heavy or when two (or eight) cars smash into one another, there’s not much the drivers behind can do but wait for the mess to sort itself out. This results in a Stau–a temporary parking lot on the autobahn. You might call it a traffic jam, but the word Stau is more precise and also easier to say. German radios reporting on traffic routinely attach lengths to their Stau warnings: sechs Kilometer Stau, for example. This article tells us about a 60 Kilometer Stau in Austria.
Clare B. Dunkle
Ms. Dunkle, I am a beginning writer and have started reading MG books to learn all I can from them (how author crafts the story authors and stories. I am reading The Sky Inside and am enjoying it. I thought I’d look up your website and blog.
The photos in this post are beautiful. I can see why you like Germany. Such character!
Have a wonderful day.
Thank you so much for saying you’re enjoying The Sky Inside! I wrote that one for my husband. Martin is a lot like him. Good luck with your writing. Did you find the section on my website devoted to writing and publishing advice? Some of it is pretty elementary, but hopefully you’ll find a few pointers there.