German Plug of the Day

Hello everyone,

and welcome to our show. Our topic today is:

written in bold (pron.: written in bold)

We will talk about meaning of things and how stuff works in language.
Seriously though… what’s going on, why no post today. Thing is, I am working on the article on the German prefix be-, which will be quite long, and I have had a pretty long and intense work weekend. And also, just as everybody else around me, I am a little sick. If you came to Berlin right now, you would be welcomed at the airport by hordes of snot-zombies… anyway… I think I’ll finish that post on be tomorrow or Wednesday, the latest. But just in case it takes till Thursday (which it will not)…. to bridge the gap till Friday, I would like to tell you about 2  really great books… one is called: 

“How get an amount of money by doing something in some time.”
(by the bestselling author of “How to maybe lose some weight in an amount of time by taking some measures with an intensity”

This is a great book and you should buy it…on Amazon… it’s like an online book store or something like that. Here is the link to Google so you can search for it.

Sooooo… uh… seriously, there are 2 books which I got from the really really really really awesome public library here (if you are in Berlin you MUST check it out… it is 10 Euro a YEAR for books in like 10 languages).
Both books are of course about German and they are small, recent, really short and “bon marshay”. The first book is called :

• Geschichte der Deutschen Sprache. (by: Thorsten Roelcke)

Now the title sounds like heavy reading and the authors name sounds like a cold but the book is great. Admittedly I read only one chapter. But this chapter is awesome. The book is an introduction about the history and the present of German. The language is easy to understand, there is little jargon in there and the info you get REALLY makes you want to read more. The chapter I read was about the evolution of German grammar rules and there are definitely some surprises in there. So… you won’t learn any rules or anything but if your German is good enough, you have some interest in language in general and if you want a refreshing look at the way German has come… check out this book, if you can. It is really great.
My god, that really feel like a plug, does it :).
The second book is called:

• Deutsche Sprache – Die 101 wichtigsten Fragen (by Hans Ulrich Schmid)

This is a compilation of 101 random questions about the German language… stuff like “How many words does German have?”, “Why are there 3 umlauts?”, “Why is the verb at the end?” etc…
Not every question is all interesting but overall it is a fun read, again … in easy to understand language and without jargon. So… if you have spare money and you can get one or both of them for cheap, I really recommend them. Especially the parts about German Verb Grammar and how and why it is the way it is was tremendously fascinat… okay I’ll stop now :). Post on the prefix be is coming up but now I’m off to bed. Good night.