German Advent Calendar – 8

German Advent Calendar - Day 8

 

“The sum of its parts”

Hello everyone,

and welcome to door number 8 – the second week of the Advent Calendar is starting.
And what better way to kick off the week than with a little bit of activity.

A Vocabulary Quiz

Today, I want to try out a new type of quiz that might be useful for building vocabulary. I’m curious what you’ll think.
Here’s how it works:

Get My Newsletter

I'll send an email whenever I post a new lesson (once per week usually).

I’ll give you four words that together kind of “encode” an thing or idea.

  • mouse
  • keyboard
  • typing
  • screen

The word here would be computer.

You task is basically to find out what word I am looking for and to type the answer.
And of course the four words are in German.

The idea is to kind of explore words belonging to a thing or idea. Maybe you can already guess the target word just based on two of the options and then you can maybe infer what the other options mean based on that guess.

Anyways, all this sounds super theoretical and boring, so I think it’s best to just give it a try.

Viel Spaß :)

Oh… just one thing for the typing: do keep capitalization in mind.

So, how’d you do?
Let me know in the comments how you liked it and if it was too hard or too easy or just right.

Also, let me know what you think of this mode in general and if it’s a good way to explore vocabulary maybe. I’m not sure how “scalable” this is, in a sense that I’m not sure if it’s possible to create lots of questions that are unambiguous enough. With these types of exercises there’s always a chance that another answer also makes sense, which should then of course also be valid but isn’t and that can be super frustrating.

Anyway, let me know your thoughts in the comments.
I hope you enjoyed it and learned a word or two, have a great day und wir sehen uns morgen.

4.6 14 votes
Article Rating
Emanuel

Emanuel Creator & Author

World's best teacher of German words and grammar. Full Bio →

German GrammarVocabulary • Etymology

Get My Newsletter

I'll send an email whenever I post a new lesson (once per week usually).

Your Comments and Questions

guest

47 Comments
Newest
Oldest

Spieleratte
Spieleratte

My vocabulary is abysmal. However, the one with the verb was brilliant, a real light-bulb-over-my-head moment when I got it. A concept worth using again. Good work.

JenGLWM
JenGLWM

These connection exercises are helpful for me and provide useful descriptor words which are useful for everyday conversations.

PWARTHUR
PWARTHUR

I like the idea of finding a common thread in a group of words. Also, it was fun!

MaryB
MaryB

100%, wrong that is.  Good quiz but I’ve been away from German for too long.

annagoebel
annagoebel

I got 2–4 right, once I realized that the answers were much easier than the questions, if that makes sense. On question 1 I didn’t know any of the clue words, so I figured the answer might be a harder word, one I might not know. So I tried to think of specific ways those 4 words were related, so I came up with a complicated scenario where someone put their blinker on and steered off the road because the tire was flat (because of “die Felge”), but I couldn’t think of a word for that whole narrative! Once I realized the answer was broader and simpler, I got the rest right.
Ich liebe die Quizfragen. Die Herausforderung macht Spaß und ist hilfriech.

Last edited 8 months ago by annagoebel
jgsheppard
jgsheppard

Great exercise! Also good to know that spelling errors are my bane in two languages now.

christopherhsaia02
christopherhsaia02

Das Fahrzeug! nur das Auto! Ya vielleicht Fahrzeug ist zu algemein, aber. . .

Bissell
Bissell

Meine Antwort Blumen war nicht akzeptiert. Aber do hast deine Description in plural geschrieben.

Bissell
Bissell
Reply to  Emanuel

Frage Drei: meine Antwort “Blumen” – falsch markiert. But your description is all about ‘they and them’ (no gender pronoun jokes I am assuming).
“The word is die Blume. They comes from buds, we can pick them, and make a bouquet with them and they smell good typically.”

Fusun Oguz
Fusun Oguz

İt was confusing

kurtkoegler
kurtkoegler

Das hat viel Spaß gemacht!

larisax71
larisax71

I really liked the quiz! Hope to see more vocab or grammar quizzes. They’re really helpful

berlingrabers
berlingrabers

Not sure what it says about me that I guessed tätowieren for the last one XD (didn’t know what Kraul was)

Carofo
Carofo

Great quiz format. I only got the last two right. I don’t understand what a rim has got to do with a car however!

srianeedias@gmail.com
srianeedias@gmail.com

Ich mag die Quiz

atullis
atullis

I really liked this quiz! I needed the hints and still got 2 wrong but I do think it’s a great way to help learn vocab :)

Juanita
Juanita

I got them all, probably because I love word games like this. I can most easily recall the vocab from the hardest question, the last one, I think because I had to spend more time thinking about a possible relationship. So, even though Kraul was the only new word for me, what I learned was that these words are all used to describe swimming strokes in German. New information that I will definitely retain.

Of the four questions, I couldn’t recall one of them at all after completing the quiz. I went back to check which one it was (#3). This was the question I spent the least amount of time on. So, it seems when the association is a bit difficult, and one spends more time figuring it out, the vocab sticks more than the easier questions. So, I say: The harder the better :)

kgeatright
kgeatright

I needed the hints, but I really liked the quiz! And I’m a swimmer- had no idea the stroke words translated from German, so that was fun to learn! Vielen Dank!

fairyhedgehog
fairyhedgehog

I got the first one wrong because I included the article. I was confused when I read the answer and you said “it was [article][noun]” because that was exactly what I’d typed!

pkpalombo
pkpalombo

This was fun. I just think it needs to be made very direct that you are not looking for the definite article in addition to the word. I missed the first one cause I had the wrong noun completely, but when I did the check, it came back and told me the word it was looking for was das Auto – so I figured it wanted the article. Then I missed all the other ones because I used the definite article, but it didn’t really want it. Lol. I did get schwimmen however!

Rextyler
Rextyler

That was fun. I got them all right but the last one. I knew it had to do with swimming but I guessed Stil because I thought that was the word for swim stroke.