Advent Calendar 2018

Advent Calendar 24 – “The best present”

“The best present“

Advend Calendar 23 – “Raven’s End”

“Raven’s End“

Advent Calendar 22 – “My new App”

  “My new app“

Advent Calendar 21 – “Nailing it at Christmas dinner”

“Nailing it at Christmas dinner“

Advent Calendar 20 – “Recycling”

  Hello everyone, Advent Calendar day ___ , and behind this door is one of the most favorite activities of Germans… recycling. Yes, we love it. We separate our trash into categories and subcategories and put it into color coded containers. Yellow for plastic, green for glass, blue for paper, orange for good mood (this one is always empty), purple for unicorn-related stuff… it’s a complete trash can rainbow in our yards. So today, we’ll do some recycling here and take old content to make a post entirely of old content…. by making a … drumroll please… cartoon slide show. Seriously, most of you know that I usually make a little cartoon for each article. And a while ago I was thinking that it would be kind of cool if you could just flick through them. Either as a little call back or as a sort of thumbnail to the article. I still have to decide how exactly to use them and then I’ll have to do some coding to really integrate it into the archives… haha the archives… sounds like this big stone walled room in the basement of a castle with dusty books… anyways, I eventually decided I’m … <a href="https://yourdailygerman.com/maria-is-angry/">Dive in <span class="meta-nav">→</span></a>

Advent Calendar 19 – Prefix To Hold

    Hallo Leute, welcome back to our Advent Calendar, door number ___ . And today it’s once again your turn. Yup, we’ll do another exercise. And this time, it is again about vocabulary, specifically … prefix verbs. Yeah, I know your chest wants to burst with excitement. Go ahead, do it! Whether you’re in your car, in the office or in an elevator. Scream it like you’re on an open field. HOORAY!!!! We’ll do the same type of work out that we did a few days ago with gehen, but this time we’ll use the base verb halten. If you haven’t done the first one, here’s the idea: I’ll give you ten sentences in English and you have to find which prefix version of halten is needed for each of them. Of course, if you feel like it, you can also try and translate them, but the main point is finding the right verb in German. Some of them are pretty easy, but there are a few in there that you probably never heard of. So to make it a little bit less frustrati ..    even more more fun, I’ll give you a list of the verbs that … <a href="https://yourdailygerman.com/maria-is-angry/">Dive in <span class="meta-nav">→</span></a>

Advent Calendar 18 – “Piggy Idioms”

Hello everyone, day ___ of our Advent Calendar and today, we’ll get a little boost for our idiomaticness… wait, idiomaticness… is that even a word? Anyway, today we’ll learn two really really cool and useful idiomatic expressions. And not just any idiomatic expressions but idiomatic expressions involving an animal. And not just any animal, but the pig. And not just any pig but the cute little… okay, actually it’s any pig :). The pig is probably one of the most common animals for expressions all over the world. And the thing they’re most known for, and hence the most common topic for pig-idioms  is their ability to do calculus. Wow, du hast die Stammfunktion wie ein Schwein errechnet. Wow, you calculated that primitive integral like a pig. ▶ Okay…. of course I’m kidding. This is NOT what you’d say in German. I mean, they ARE really good at calculus (I had one do my homework back in the day), but the thing they’re usually associated with is that they’re dirty. And German has a bunch of variations over that theme. Thomas isst wie ein Schwein. Thomas eats like a pig. ▶ Räum mal auf, Alter. Dein Zimmer ist voll der … <a href="https://yourdailygerman.com/maria-is-angry/">Dive in <span class="meta-nav">→</span></a>

Advent Calendar 17 – Searching for Words

    Hallo ihr lieben, welcome back to our Advent Calendar, and behind door number ____ there is a little Rätsel. A Suchrätsel, to be precise. Some of you probably know the format but for those of you who don’t, let me explain it real quick. Below, you see a box full of letters. Looks pretty random but if you look closer, there are actually words hidden in the box. And not just a few but 18 words, either going left to right or top to bottom (no diagonals, for those who are pros with these puzzles). The goal is to find them all. And not only that… if you find them all and put them in the right order, we’ll actually find out  why Maria couldn’t stop laughing at the Christmas market. You can either print the picture, or you can just take a pen and a piece of paper and write down the words you’ve seen. So… viel Spaß :) Pretty tough, right :). If you want to see the solved version of the puzzle, click here: the solved puzzle. Now all you have to do is make a sentence out of those words. Let me know your solutions … <a href="https://yourdailygerman.com/maria-is-angry/">Dive in <span class="meta-nav">→</span></a>

Advent Calendar 16 – “Make a wish”

“Make a wish“

Advent Calendar 15 – Together or Not

The German word "zusammen" can be used as a prefix as well as a separate word. And for some verbs, both versions exist and the meanings are slightly different.

Advent Calendar 14 – “The almost family”

Hello everyone, and welcome to day 14 of our Advent Calendar. And those of you who love etymology will love today’s topic as we’ll take a quick look at the family of to fast. Because that’s actually pretty crazy. Here’s an overview: fast – capable of  high speed. fast asleep – NOT about falling asleep fast but about  sleeping firmly. to fast  – not eating. to fasten – making tight, your seatbelt on an airplane for instance fast (German) –  almost. That’s quite an epic scope of meanings, right? Hard to believe that they’re all connected but they actually are. The origin of all of them is the super mega hyper ancient Indo-European root *past-, which carried the idea of “firm, solid”. That is pretty much still the core of the verb to fasten. You make your seatbelt firm, if you will. It also helps with the phrase fast asleep. You’re firmly sleeping. And it can even help with to fast in the sense of not eating. You see, back many centuries, the verb to fast was much more general and meant something like “holding, guarding”, which does tie in with the original core idea of solid, tight, firm. People would use this verb also in a context of self control, “fastening … <a href="https://yourdailygerman.com/maria-is-angry/">Dive in <span class="meta-nav">→</span></a>

Advent Calendar 13 – “But Belief”

“But Belief“

Advent Calendar 12 – “Idio_s”

“Idio_s“

Advent Calendar 11 – Having a guest

    Ey yo guys, wie geht’s euch :).  Welcome back to our Advent Calendar. And today I’ll actually do something really really really out of character: walking around naked while cooking. No… wait, that’s out of clothes, not out of character. What I’ll really do today is … brace yourselves… !!! publish a guest post!!!  GEEEEEEZZZZ!!! A while back, I got an email from him asking me if I was interested in a guest post. And as always, my first initial thought was “No, I’m not.” Usually, when people offer guest posts it’s because they want to place some links to their product or site in there. Not that there’s something wrong with that. I mean, we all gotta eat, right? But I never felt this would be a good fit for this site. David, however, somehow didn’t seem like the usual freelance guest blog post author and he was really eager to do it. So I was like “Hmm, okay, what do you have in mind?”. He suggested a few topics and one in particular sounded like it could be interesting for you guys… “How to learn German by Yourself”. And so I decided to include it in this advent calendar. … <a href="https://yourdailygerman.com/maria-is-angry/">Dive in <span class="meta-nav">→</span></a>

Advent Calendar 10 – “To not Confuse to Confuse”

“To not confuse to confuse“

Advent Calendar 9 – In it to win it

“In it to win it“

Advent Calendar 8 – Struckli

“Struckli“

Advent Calendar 7- Goethe’s Wet Dream

“Goethe’s Wet Dream“

Advent Calendar 6 – Of Cones and Taps

  “Of Cones and Taps“

Advent Calendar 5 – The Switch Witch

“The Switch Witch“

Advent Calendar 4 – Who are you?

“Who are you?”

Advent Calendar 3 – “Prefix To Go”

“Prefix to Go“

Which case to use after “wegen”

What's the correct case after the German preposition "wegen"? Books, courses and smartypants teachers say it's Genitive, but reality has a different opinion.

Advent Calender 1 – The Beginning

“Here we go again”