Tage in Tirol mit Tah

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 ... (,) ...

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/whats...

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...

"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...

Welcome back or welcome for the first time! Glad you’re here and hoping that everyone’s families are safe and healthy during this Corona world crisis. So let’s all make good use of our time and get right into these German adjectives! Last post Adorably Arduous Adjectives (Level: A2)  introduced the idea of German adjectives. Again, this is a level 2 topic because in order to be able to do these adjectives properly, you’ll need to understand a few A1 ideas. Idea #1: Every noun has a gender and it is very important (when you want to build great sentences) to know the gender for each noun’s article.  Articles are the and a/an in the English language, but not in German. The genders for the are masculine (der), feminine (die), and neutral (das). But keep in mind that der , die and das changes depending on idea #2. der Mann – masculine, die Frau – feminine, das Kind – neutral Idea #2: There are 4 cases in German and it affects the articles you use. Let’s take ...

Alliterations have the effect of playfulness, while also giving some hard truths. Adjectives are wonderful and bring bland writing and confusing thoughts to clarity. They can be adorable, but in German, a bit arduous, or rather strenuous, when you are learning to use them correctly. Let’s take a look at a sentence. That is the red ball . In English, you would say “the red ball” but in German it depends. It can be “der rote Ball”, “den roten Ball”, “dem roten Ball”, etc. Why? Because of rules! There are 2 things changing, the article “the” and the adjective “red”. Let’s break this down. First, I like to look at the object, in this situation, the ball. “Ball” is masculine, “der Ball”.  Second, you can look which case (e.g. Nominativ, Akkusativ, Dativ, Genativ) the ball is in the sentence.   In this sentence, what is the subject? Who or what is this sentence about? The ball is the subject, and so we are in the Nominativ case, and therefore, we use "der". Das...

It’s possible for you to learn German!  I’m speaking as someone who’s failed 3 other languages and I wasn’t going to let German be number 4. So far, with lots of determination, friends, classes and Austria itself, I’m finally breaking the curse, and I want to help others learn the language. This blog is hopefully going to give you: useful information about integration into Austria (particularly Innsbruck, Tirol),  great finds from other great German language resources, exercises to help build up those German-Speaking muscles, some encouragement when it feels impossible, and some laughs along the way. With every post there will be an accompanied German exercise! Posts will come every Tuesday.  And so, if this sounds like a fun and helpful place, then I invite you to add this blog into your German learning arsenal and subscribe. Feel free to share with your friends using the share icon to the right of the title!😊 German Exercise for the Week: Übung für Verben u...