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!)

“I think my pig’s whistling!”: Bizarre German animal words and phrases

It's been a long time since I wrote a language post, but I've been collecting words and phrases over the months and could quite a few posts at long last! I have noticed that a few of the words and phrases I have collected use animals, yet - most of the time - the words…

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…

7 Useful German Words that English doesn’t have

We all know German does nice, big, long words. Sometimes those words don't actually exist in English, in that there's no way to translate a German word into one English word - often you have to say a whole English sentence just to translate one German word. Over the years I've noticed there are words…

Genders in German: A small rant

This is definitely a post for the language lovers out there. We're very lucky in English to not have genders for words. Whenever I ask Germans what they find easy about English, 9 times out of 10 I'm told it's because you don't need to worry about remembering what gender words have. In German, you…

Funny Things Germans Say In English

I do try to speak as much German as possible here in Germany, and I'd probably say I speak German more than I do English. Sometimes, however, I either get lazy or a German wants to practise their English with me. The level of English I hear is varied - some Germans have perfect American…

I beg your pardon?: German words that sound a little bit rude in English

When I started learning German back in 2003, I came across some words that, as the 11-year-old that I was, I couldn't help laugh at. Sometimes, 13 years later, those words still get me. Let's start with a nice, calm one. The word for 'shower' is Dusche. Pronounced just like the word 'douche', but with…

German: The aggressive language

If you can't speak German, there's a chance you might think of it as an aggressive language. You may think it sounds aggressive because you make links to certain people from the past, but, funnily enough, no, it's not an aggressive language. You could easily make English sound aggressive, for example - it just depends…

“Musician bones” and “muscle hangovers”: Fun ways to say stuff about the body in German

To start off this post, I think it's worth saying a little thank you to the Facebook page "Learn useless German" for sharing one of my language-related blogs - much appreciated! Anyway, in the meantime I've been writing down funny words and phrases I've been learning (or reminded about), and I noticed a trend with certain…