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Showing posts from April, 2020

Longer sentences in German? Conjunction... Part 1

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During these very interesting times in the pandemic, maybe you would like to write to your German speaking friends about life or maybe you would like to write a comment on YouTube, Instagram, or blog in German? Now is the time! I believe in you and why not also strive to make bigger sentences? Are you ready to take your sentences to the next level? Then   we will dive into the ocean of conjunctions   and  learn how to swim in this sea. Yes, this was beautifully hand-crafted by me. *'diving' of laughter* What are conjunctions? In German they are called  Konjunktionen and you use these special words to combine 2 sentences. Have you seen the three 'and' words and one 'or' above? These are conjunctions, specifically coordinating conjunction (Konjunktionen) . The rule for combining these two sentences are simple, you keep the standard verb in second position rule for the first and second sentence as you can see below. ... verb 2nd position ... (,)

German phrases during Corona time

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What do you appreciate more during this quarantine (for those who have one)? Around this time until the end of April - for now, those of us that live in Tirol, Austria are asked to only leave the house for the following reasons below. to go to work - um zur Arbeit zu gehen to shop - zum Einkaufen zu gehen to help other people - un anderen Menschen zu helfen for individual sports and for walking - für Individualsport und zum Spazieren For those curious and interested,  Tiroler Tageszeitung Live-Blog zu Coronavirus  is where I find many updates for those that live in Tirol, including important numbers to know and the latest updates for Tirol and around the world. For example: Translated by Google Translate For today I'd like to share a few sentences that might be handy during this time. Note that most of these are informal, and some even a little more casual. Wanna talk? - Möchtest du sprechen? Do you want to Skype/WhatApp? - Möchtest du skypen/whatsappen

beschließen, entschließen, entscheiden... to decide, to decide, to decide! (Level: B1)

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Which of the three Level B1 verbs to decide on? Sometimes when we learn a language, we learn a new very cool word from class or book or friend and are excited to try it out. Then that glorious moment comes for you to use that word with a native speaker, and after you say it, you ask, "Is that how you use the word ...?" Sometimes you get back, "genau" or depending on how impressiv your feat was, maybe a look of wonder. Sometimes, however, you get that hesitant look accompanied with a pause and something like, "Weeeeeeell, I wouldn't necessarily use that word in this situation, I would rather say ... .". (And thank you out there to all those native speakers willing to help us out!) Today we will look at these three words - beschließen, entschließen, entscheiden - and unravel some of the ways we can use them in the sense of 'deciding'. Two websites that have been very helpful for German learning also helped this process. The first is  LEO (h

German Childhood Fairy Tale Quotes

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"Mirror mirror on the wall, who's the fairest one of all?" The moment I hear this phrase I am instantly transported back into a land where witches crave beauty, beautiful princesses survive dark forests in gowns, and 7 little men are whistling while they are working. Many of us have been introduced to fairy tales (Märchen in German) either by Disney or through bed times stories. They were an important part of our language education and sometimes other ethical lessons. So while you were listening to fairy tales in English, Austrians had the same experience of course in German! In fact, many of the classics came from two German brothers, the Brothers Grimm (die Brüder Grimm or die Gebrüder Grimm), in the 1800s. Below are a list of a few stories with their English and German titles: Little Red Riding Hood- Rotkäppchen (Little Red Hood) Snow White - Schneewittchen Cinderella - Aschenputtel Sleeping Beauty - Dornröschen (Little Rose Thorn) The Frog Prince - Der Frosc