German can be a surprisingly optimistic language at times. Yesterday, I picked up a pair of left-behind goggles at the swimming pool and brought them to the office, where I tried to explain that they had been lost. “Ah!” the woman there replied, “die sind Fundsache.” That is to say, in Germany left-behind items aren’t “lost” or even “lost and found” but simply “found things.”
These are intended to be grammar examples only: they reflect possible, correctly declined phrases rather thanphrases that Germans are likely to use in everyday conversation. The idea is that by changing only the key parts of a sentence, the grammatical … Continue reading
These are intended to be grammar examples only: they reflect possible, correctly declined phrases rather than phrases that Germans are likely to use in everyday conversation. The idea is that by changing only the key parts of a sentence, the … Continue reading
It helps me to understand German grammar if I have an example to work from. These are intended to be grammar examples only: they reflect possible, correctly declined phrases rather than phrases that Germans are likely to use in everyday … Continue reading
A few examples of real-life adjective declination from a recent trip to Ulm Rauchfreier Bahnhof (“Bahnhof” is masculine, nominative; there’s no article; therefore “rauchfrei” ends in “er.”) Tee mit doppeltem Rum (“Rum” is masculine, dative; there’s no article; therefore “doppelt” … Continue reading
I found the attached article in our local German newspaper. Although I wasn’t able to understand every nuance, I found it to be about the “right” reading level (for me, anyway). The full article can be found on www.mein-wochenblatt.de on … Continue reading
Since I’m living in Germany, I’m learning German. I’ve been slowing gathering useful tidbits about the language — examples of real-life use of grammatical constructs, made-up examples that help me better understand what I’m talking about, and so on. I’ve … Continue reading