Using “gehen” – A quick guide

In this episode:

We'll learn and practice all important aspects of using "gehen" in everyday German - present tense, past tense, questions, negations and the various meanings. - Part 2

92 comments

Hello everyone,

and welcome to a new episode of the epic series

A quick practical guide to important German verbs

Or AQPGTIGV for short.
Yo yo yo, what’s up peeps, AQPGTIGV-time. Ya’ll ain’t ready for this!!!
Coffee is a hell of drink.
And you know what’s also a hell of a thing?
My new flexible height desk from FlexiSpot.
Yes, I may not have a TikTok, but I’m still an influencer :).
So, the folks over at FlexiSpot asked me if I was interested in trying out one of their standing desks, and I absolutely love it. I have some back problems, so it’s really great to be able to switch between sitting and standing. And the desk looks great and it feels like quality work, not just some random cheap garbage you can get on Amazon.
I have the EW8-BB if you’re wondering.
FlexiSpot is running a winter sale at the moment till the end of February so if you’re looking for flexible height desk or a chair, this might be interesting for you. Here are the links:

I think they also have stores in the US and Canada, so just check if you’re living across the pont.

But now let’s get to the article.
Many of you probably already know this series. In each episode,  we take one of the most important German verbs and go over all the common structures and phrasings that you’ll need in daily life.
And the crucial part is, it’s not just in theory, but in actual real practice, because you… yes you, right there in front of the screen… you will have to SPEAK.

I am using an speech grading AI developed by EF languages which will give you feedback on your pronunciation, and while it’s not perfect and can NOT replace a native speaker, it’s still a really great way to learn because learning in theory is one thing, but actually speaking is another. And especially with these basic structures and sentences it’s great to get some actual mileage in, and not just theory.

Today, we’ll take a look at

gehen 

And what we’ll learn is of course the conjugation and how to use it in past and present, thereby reviewing these concepts.
And we’ll also see how Germans use that weird little hin and we’ll learn a side meaning of gehen, that’s really really important in daily life.

So if you’re ready to jump in then let’s go.

Continue reading →

92 Comments

Posted on February 14, 2023 by

Duolingo, Anja and Your Opinion

In this episode:

A couple site updates, hacked emails, Anja's great German course and your thoughts on Duolingo. Read the comments, it's really interesting! - Part 2

164 comments

Hey everyone,

I’m almost done with a new article so that’ll come out in a few days, but there are a couple of other things that I wanted to mention and I wanted to post a bit more frequently this year anyway, so I decided to do a quick little

News Update

And it’s not just news but I actually also need your thoughts on a few things.
So let’s start right away with a few small things about this site itself.

Continue reading →

164 Comments

Posted on February 8, 2023 by

Word of the Day – “aufraffen”

In this episode:

"aufraffen" is one of the words that you only notice once you know them. It's quite common in daily life and very useful for getting your butt of the couch :) - Part 2

Vocab:   

raffen, aufraffen, raffgierig, die Raffsucht, der Raffzahn, verraffen,...

82 comments

Hello everyone,

and welcome to our German Word of the Day, this time with a nice little colloquial gem

aufraffen

And this is totally one of those “below the radar” words. So if you’ve spent time in Germany, chances are that you have heard or seen it multiple times, but chances are also that you never really noticed it.
But you will after reading this article, because it’s actually quite a nice word to have, because…  it helps us get off of the couch and do these things that we always wanted to.
Like going for a run.
Or taking a shower.
Or at least get a coffee. Baby steps.

Anyway, aufraffen is of course a prefix version of raffen, so let’s start with the look at that.

Continue reading →

82 Comments

Posted on February 1, 2023 by

Word of the Day – “verzeihen”

In this episode:

"verzeihen" is about forgiving. But what's the difference to "entschuldigen" and "vergeben"? And what does it have to do with saying no to chocolate. Find out. - Part 2

41 comments

Hello everyone,

quick tag-on update from last time – I have realized that there is no realistic way for me to add my own audio to all my dictionary entries any time soon. I have audio for like 3500 but there’s more than double that missing and it would take me weeks to add those.

So I have decided to include speech synthesis for now.
It’s absolutely not ideal, but I hope it’s better than nothing :)

But now, welcome to our German Word of the Day!!
And this time with a look at the meaning of

verzeihen

And verzeihen one of those below-the-radar words, as I call them.
So it’s one of those words that you kind of never really consciously notice, but once you learn about it you’ll start seeing it regularly.
And it’s good to do some verzeihen regularly. It’s healthy for our soul.
Continue reading →

41 Comments

Posted on January 20, 2023 by

Nice Update and a Question

Hi everyone,

I hope you’re having a great week so far and that your German is coming along nicely.
I’m doing pretty good because I am in Oulu. That’s a town in Finland about 100 miles South of the arctic circle on the northern end of the Baltic sea and I came here because I absolutely needed some actual winter. Like… with snow and really cold temperatures. I love that. I really love seasons, actually and I want them to be extreme. -20 degrees Celsius in winter, +40 in summer. That’s my ideal :).

Unfortunately, it is not as cold as I had hoped but it’s still great, because Oulu is a beautiful city with lots of nature and water, Finns are really great people and there’s like the perfect gym with a view of the sea really close to my home.
Oh and actually, it’s the city where I realized that I’m actually good with languages (I used to think that it’s not my thing), and learning Finnish also helped a great deal to get an open mind for how different things can actually be.
So yeah… I’m really happy to be here.

But of course I also came to get some really focused work done, and I’ll have a real article  ready in a few days, but I wanted to share a small site update real quick.

Because I have a really cool new feature for my dictionary.

Continue reading →

53 Comments

Posted on January 16, 2023 by