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…

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…

“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.…

Funny Things Germans Say In English: Part II

Ever since my previous blog post listing funny things the Germans I know have said in English, I've been keeping track - both secretly and also just bursting out laughing say "I need to write that down for my blog" - of more things Germans have said to me in English that they haven't got…

“To make an elephant out of a mosquito”: German Idioms Part V

It's time for another German Idioms post, after having collected quite a few good ones over the past few months. I've filtered down to some of the best ones, and will perhaps use the rest for another post some time. Enjoy these fun German idioms! etwas in petto haben Literally: "to have something in petto" Translation:…

New German Words

I've technically now being learning German for 14 years, which, sitting back and thinking about it, is a hell of a long time. It's over half my life, let's put it like that! But it's safe to say I still make my mistakes and I still learn new words. Here's a sample of new words…

8 of my favourite Spanish words

As I mentioned in my previous post, I attend a Spanish class. I started properly learning Spanish back in my last year of university in 2013 and have ever since (bar a few months when I first moved to Frankfurt) been attending weekly classes. This has led me to somehow be attending a course at…