Word of the Day – “die Schwelle”

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Hello everyone,

and welcome to our German Word of the Day, this time with a look at

die Schwelle

 

And I’m sure that based on the looks of it, many of you immediately thought of to swell.
But are things really as they seem?
I mean… looks can be deceiving, right?
But then again, if it looks like a duck, swims like a duck and quacks like a duck, then it probably is one.
In fact, I’m curious as to just how suspicious you really are of German, so let’s do a little poll.

Is "schwellen" related to "to swell"? Or are looks deceiving?

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And now, let’s jump right in.

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Posted on July 25, 2020 by

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A really cool way to study :)

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Hi everyone,

So some of you might know that I am currently getting my driver’s license. Because, you know, this fall I will turn 18, so it’s about time.
Nah… okay, I’m not turning 18, of course. But I really am taking driving lessons. In Germany, it is quite expensive to get the license… about 2000 Euro or so, if everything goes well. I never had the money for it and also, owning a car is expensive too, and in Berlin you simply don’t need it.
But being able to drive makes a BIG difference when you want to travel somewhere, so that’s mainly why I am doing the license now.
Anyway, so I’m actually taking the theory test this week and I REALLY need to prepare so I’m not gonna manage to finish a new article.

However, I still have something to share with you

A really great method for learning

and, funnily enough, I actually found it while learning theory…

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Posted on July 15, 2020 by

Word of the Day – “der Ton”

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Hello everyone,

and welcome to our German Word of the Day. Do you know what music and your coffee cup have in common?
No? Well, you’ll find out today, because we’ll take a quick look at the meaning of

der Ton

 

I think the musical side isn’t a surprise to most of you, because English, too, has the word tone.
They both come from the Latin word tonus, which itself comes from Ancient Greek tonos and already back then it was used to express the meaning of pitch, voice or musical key. The very origin however was the even more ancient Indo-European root *ten- and that was about… drumroll… stretching.

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Posted on July 8, 2020 by

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Word of the Day – “sparen”

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Hello everyone,

and welcome to our German Word of the Day. This time, we’ll take a look at something that Germans really love.
Which one of these three do you think it is:

a) Bier
b) making smartass comments and remarks noone asked for
c) sparen

The answer is of course,  that Germans love all these three things equally.
But today, we’ll look at the meaning of

sparen

 

Sparen is the German brother of English to spare and the two do share a core idea, which is pretty well captured by the phrase to not touch.
But the two verbs have different takes on it, and as a result, they’re not really translations. I mean, sometimes they are, but just as often they’re not.
So let’s take a look.

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Posted on June 29, 2020 by

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