Making Blue and Travelling Black: Colour-based Idioms in German

Just like in English, there are plenty of idioms in German that use colours. But, as is typical of language, the translations aren't easy. Often, colour idioms in German are completely different in English and their English translations don't actually include colours. That's the same the other way round, mind: in German, you can't have…

“Don’t be such a plague!”: A Selection of German False Friends for English Speakers

I wrote about false friends way back when in a post in 2016. You can read up on it here. In that post, I went over some basic words you might hear in Germany, such as Handy (mobile phone) and Gift (poison). Seen as I haven't wrote a language post in a while, I thought I'd write…

Funny Things Brits Say in German

A few years ago I wrote a blog post about some of the best and funniest things I've heard Germans say in English. You can read them here if you want: Funny Things Germans Say In English. To be fair, I make my fair share of mistakes in German too - the general ones I…

German Idioms Using Body Parts

I could write pages and pages about German idioms that I learn. There are so many wonderful words and phrases out there. Then again, that's the same for any language - English included, of course. But because of this, I always find it difficult to narrow down idioms for blog posts. Mostly I just go…

“Kokeln” and “herumgurken”: German Verbs with no English Translation

You may know German as the language with really long words. Well, that part is true, but what I have noticed over the years is that German also seems to have many words that are simply not literally translatable into English without having to use loads of words to describe exactly what's going on. A…

“Teeth meat” and “Wash street”: Some New German Words

Here are some new German words I've recently discovered, and I want to share them with you to get your linguistic taste buds tingling. If you're learning German, I hope you can learn a word or two from this post. And if not, then I hope you enjoy the post anyway and can still enjoy…

Animal Names in German: A Little Game

Fancy a little game to guess German names for animals? (Don't worry, German can actually be quite literal sometimes!)

“Wonder candle” and “Lamp fever”: Some New German Words

I haven't done one of these posts in a long time, so I thought it was time for one. It's going to be short and sweet, but nevertheless you'll hopefully leave this blog knowing a new word or seven! Here are some of the words I've written down along my German journey that are worth…

“Humid” or “gay”?: How one little ‘ü’ can completely change the meaning of a word

I still have a few problems with German. I still get genders of words wrong. I keep stumbling over weird and wonderful idioms I've never heard of before. And there are still words I struggle to say with a decent accent ("angerufen" is one of them... that bloody 'r'!). But there is one particular thing I…

“You do not have a heart”: Duolingo teaches insults

I am a huge fan of Duolingo. I use it every day to practise my Spanish and Swedish, and it's got to the point now where I panic when it gets to the end of the day and I get a notification saying I should practise (my streak is around 150 days at the moment.…