Language blog

How do you learn German?

Thu, 17 May 2012 22:26:00 GMT

If you are looking to learn German, then you might consider a self learning course, contact a language school or engage a private tutor.

Autodidactic learning is probably the most cost effective way of picking up a new language and you don't have to schlepp half way across London to attend classes. Some get quite far in using that method. However, this method proves difficult in seeing how much progress you have made, it requires a lot of self discipline and does not give you the opportunity to put your new language skills to much use straight away.

Then there are language schools where you can learn in a class room environment with six to ten, or sometimes up to twenty aspiring German speakers. That number usually drops and as you are persevering, you will benefit from the smaller class that usually transpires after a few weeks into the course. The downside is, that the class moves forward in line with the progress of the slowest learner. Individual strength and weaknesses of students often have to be ignored as the syllabus of the course will be kept generic to accommodate everyone's learning objectives and aptitude.

You might also consider engaging a private German tutor. The obvious advantage is that the syllabus of your course is tailored towards your needs and aptitude; progress will be fast and the timid learner does not have to feel embarrassed in front of a larger group when making mistakes. Maybe your tutor is even willing to come to your office or home to conduct lessons, which would safe you the journey to and from class.

If you are looking to learn German, have any questions about what would work best for you, then please get in touch.

British Expatriates in Germany - Powerhouse of Europe

Wed, 02 May 2012 13:54:00 GMT

Over the years, Germany has had a large British expatriate community, mainly through military personnel stationed there since 1945.

Then, there was an influx of British builders & workers in the seventies and eighties who came to work in Germany – immortalised in the television series Auf Wiedersehen Pet! However, they did not settle permanently, but went back to the British Isles as the economy improved.

Since the early nineties, there has been once more a steady influx of British professionals & today approximately 96,000 Brits are working & living in Germany. Most of them are young professionals: age group is between the years 25 to 40.

British expatriates in Germany enjoy the relatively high standard of living & safety of the country. In comparison to the UK & other EU countries, Germany has in certain cities low levels of crime & higher standards of living.

What about the German language you may wonder? Most Germans speak English & are more than happy to practise their English instead of speaking German. Hence, it is possible to get-by in every day life just by speaking English.

But, in order to work & fully integrate in Germany, it is vital to speak the native language. Maybe you are thinking of relocating to Germany & are thinking of attending German classes, or hiring a German tutor? Then, get in touch!

German Expatriates in London – Financial Capital of Europe

Wed, 02 May 2012 13:54:00 GMT

Almost 40,000 Germans are living in London. More than Winston Churchill would ever have envisaged...

In contrast to other nationalities, Germans living in London keep a low profile; they do not dominate the high street with schnitzel restaurants or sausage shops. Instead, finances permitting, many of the young professionals opt to live in Wimbledon, Chelsea, Kensington, Highgate and Richmond.

What is the reason for the influx from Germany? If you want to make it big in the financial markets, you will most likely end up in London, the financial capital of Europe. In fact, an estimated 600,000 people work in the City's banking sector. Frankfurt’s financial centre has only 500,000 inhabitants. For people working in finance, myriad career prospects are better in London than anywhere else in Europe.

Western Europeans make up half of all foreign workers in the UK, and as a result, many want to feel surrounded by their compatriots in London. Although nationalities tend to stick together when abroad, Germans in London do not form a tight-knit community.

However, you can see Germans socialise across London. There is, for example, the pub Zeitgeist in Lambeth, which not only serves the largest variety of Germany’s most famous drink, but also excellent German food and you can watch Bundesliga football.

To satisfy a basic appetite of the expatriate community, there is even a mobile German baker in London who stops over at the German Embassy, the German British Chamber of Commerce and other German ‘hubs’ in London.

With February approaching, you might even see more Germans out celebrating Karneval in London, as it is a big day in the Festive Calendar for all Germans. German Carnival you may ask? More about that in our next blog.

Communicating with Germans

Wed, 02 May 2012 13:55:00 GMT

What do Germans really understand when the English talk to them?

The English language has many subtleties that do not exist in German. The German language is very literal and & as a result, Germans may come across as rude or off-hand to the English speaker. Of course, Germans are not rude at all.

When attending meetings with Germans, managing German staff or dealing with German management, it is worth considering these differences in language use, to ensure effective communication.

For example, ‘I hear what you say’ means the English speaker disagrees and & does not want to discuss the matter further. However, the German listener would think the speaker is accepting his point of view.

The phrase ‘I was a bit disappointed that‘ means the speaker is annoyed. The German listener, however, may think the disappointment is only slight.

The term ‘quite good’ will be understood literally as ‘quite good’, although it means ‘disappointing’.

‘Very interesting’ means it ‘is clearly nonsense’ and & may be understood as ‘they are very impressed’.

Consider the Following Examples:

What the English say	What the English mean	What Germans understand
I’ll bear it in mind	I’ve forgotten it already	They will probably do it
I’m sure it’s my fault	It’s your fault	Why do they think it was their fault?
You must come for dinner	It’s not an invitation, I’m just being polite	I will get an invitation soon
I almost agree	I don’t agree at all	He’s not far from agreement
I only have a few minor comments	Please re-write completely	He has found a few typing errors
Could we consider some other options	I don’t like your idea	They have not decided yet
With the greatest respect ...	I think you are an idiot	He is listening to me
That is a very brave proposal	You are insane...	He thinks I have courage

To avoid such communication problems in the future, why not start German Lessons in 2012, with one of our native speaker tutors?

The Genders of nouns in German

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 14:47:00 GMT

Those of you, who have already started learning German, will most certainly have come across the definite articles der, die, das and may have wondered how to know which article goes with which noun. Grammatical gender is in most instances not based on natural gender.

The safest approach is always to learn each noun with the appropriate definite article: der for masculine nouns, die for feminine nouns and das for neuter nouns.

Here are some guidelines that will help you determine the gender of certain nouns:

The following nouns are always masculine (der): days of the week, months and seasons, points of the compass and vocabulary relating to the weather, apart from die Sonne. Makes of car are always masculine, as are alcoholic drinks, apart from das Bier which is neuter.

Most trees and flowers are feminine. Der Ahorn (the maple) is masculine though. All numerals used as nouns are feminine as are motorcycles, ships and airplanes.

All collective nouns with the prefix Ge- are neuter: das Gebäck (biscuits), das Gepäck (luggage), das Gemüse (vegetables).

Hotels and restaurants are neuter, hence it is das Savoy and das Hilton. The names of almost all towns and countries are neuter: das neblige London, das alte Nürnberg, das neue Europa.

Adjectives, pronouns, conjunctions prepositions and infinitives used as nouns are also neuter.

Have you ever wondered what gender a noun has that originates in a foreign language? Those nouns are assigned the gender of the originating German noun. For example: der Computer is masculine as it replaces der Rechner (the calculator), der Spieler (the player) becomes der Ipod.

If you want to know more, then maybe you should consider taking private German lessons.

Languages of the world

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 14:47:00 GMT

There are about 7,000 languages worldwide. Many languages are threatened by extinction, especially languages spoken by natives in Asia and America.

Some languages are spoken by only a couple of people. More that 50% of languages have less than 10,000 speakers; more than 25% of languages have less than 1,000 speakers. 4% of the world population speak 96% of all languages. From a different angle: 96% of the world population speak 4% of all languages. People should easily be able to communicate, but they cannot because 4% represents 270 languages.

Eight languages are so called world languages with more than 150 million speakers each. They are Chinese, English, Spanish, Hindi, Arabic, Portuguese, Bangla and Russian.

German, Latin, Slavic and Greek are all Indo-European languages and it is thought that all languages originate from one language over 100,000 years ago.

Approximately 150 languages are spoken in Europe, of which 40 are spoken in the Caucasus region alone.

Most languages are spoken in Africa and Asia. Top of the chart is Papua New Guinea with 820 languages.

Only ⅓ of all languages have writing. Most languages are solely spoken.

There were 9000 languages in 1000 B.C. Today we are left with 7,000 languages. The number of languages is in decline. Dominating countries are the cause as is the wish to communicate in a globalised world.

If I have done my homework correctly, then I can say with certainty that 1.571% of the world population speaks German. You may wonder if there is any need to learn German. Yes, there is because that percentage represents over 110 million people, most of which live in Europe.

English in the German Language

Thu, 17 May 2012 22:44:00 GMT

In our previous blog we have been looking at German words used in English and now we would like to introduce you to English words used in the German language.

The German language uses English words because it isn’t always easy to find a suitable German equivalent. The loaning of words eases communication and makes it easier to introduce new products and services with the same name across several countries.

Consider the following German sentence: Ein Bundle von Incentives und ein separater Team-Building-Event an geeigneter Location sollen das Motivationslevel erhöhen und gleichzeitig helfen, eine einheitliche Corporate Culture samt Identity zu entwickeln. Almost every third word is loaned from the English language: Corporate Culture versus Unternehmenskultur, Incentive versus Anreiz, Motivationslevel versus Leistungswille - it sounds better when English loan words are used and is much easier understood. But note that nouns loaned from English are being capitalised in German.

Germans like to go shopping (shoppen), both on-line (on-line) and in shopping centres (Shopping-Center). They search the Internet and use the verb ‘to google’ (googeln), if they download something they use downloaden. If the on-line order hasn’t arrived they make a call and are connected to a call centre (Call Center). Other verbs that have been taken from English are interviewen, surfen, leasen, daten, relaxen, switchen, piercen, managen, bloggen, joggen, outsourcen. All verbs loaned from English are classed as regular verbs in the German language. Want to know how to conjugate a German verb? Get with one of our German tutors!

German expressions in English

Thu, 17 May 2012 22:46:00 GMT

English has been steadily adopting words from German for several centuries. I will describe a few here; the tip of the iceberg so to speak. And there we have the first word that has been loaned from German: the iceberg.

We have all heard of the über-cool word doppelganger which is also a German term. Doppel meaning double, der Gänger derives from the word gehen (to go) – hence der Doppelgänger.

Most of us have been to the kinder garden, mused over the meaning of zeitgeist, seen the movie Poltergeist and heard of leitmotiv and angst – all loaned from the German language.

Anyone living in Middlesex, Essex or Sussex may wonder were these place names originate. Middlesex derives from Middle Saxony, Essex from East Saxony, Sussex from South Saxony. Saxons settled in England during the fifth and sixth century and liked to give places familiar names.

Arriving late for work because the railways are kaput? Today, broken railways are of course not the fault of Germany’s Blitzkrieg. The word kaput is German though, as is der Blitz (lightning) + der Krieg (war) = der Blitzkrieg.

Are you wallowing in Schadenfreude when your colleague draws flak from the boss because he is late for work again? There we have two more words loaned from German: flak and Schadenfreude. Flak is an abbreviation of the word Flugwabwehrkanone (air defence canon). Schadenfreude is made up of Schaden (the harm or damage) and Freude (joy). Therefore, Schadenfreude is the pleasure one takes in the misfortune of others.

We’ve all eaten Apfelstrudel (apple strudel), we measure the temperature in Fahrenheit, drive around in cars with Diesel engines, eat Frankfurters and Hamburgers – all German.

Tokio Hotel, Kraftwerk, Einstürzende Neubauten are German bands. However, Motörhead is not German – it is an English band that has loaned, or shall I say stolen, the Umlaut from German. Confused and want to start taking German lessons? You better get in touch with us!

German in the office

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 14:49:00 GMT

Planning to relocate to Germany for professional reasons? Or maybe working with Germans on a regular basis? The following words are taken from every day office language. Have you come across some of them yet?

Der Anhang: If you send an email from a German version of outlook and you would like to also send a report along with the email you would send the report as an attachment, als Anhang.

Die Datei: The attachment/der Anhang could also be more generally refered to as a file, als Datei.

Hochladen/ herunterladen: Depending on whether you are sending or receiving the email with a file attached (mit einer Datei im Anhang) you may need to upload the file first – die Datei hochladen – and at the other end you will need to download the attachment – den Anhang herunterladen. You may have guessed from the look of the verb that it is separable. So it is “er lädt die Datei herunter”

Die Besprechung: Always a welcome excuse not to be able to take a phone call. This notion is the same across all countries, I believe: "Oh, I am afraid, he can’t speak to you right now; he is in a meeting – in einer Besprechung.”

Generally though English native speakers are on the lucky side when learning German, at least when it comes to computer related language. Unlike other languages, German has not bothered to find its own translation for words like, computer, desktop, email, internet, browser, scanner. The only thing you might want to be aware of is whether it is “der”, “die” or “das” and the fact that since they are nouns they are being written in capital:

der Computer

das Desktop

die Email – the has been slightly adopted to German verb grammar, emailen.

das Internet

der Browser

der Scanner – again the verb has the German verbal ending –en, scannen.

These are only a few examples. All in all German language has borrowed many English terms not only for computer related terms but also when it comes to technology, marketing and PR.

Are you looking for German courses in London? Why not consider classes with your own private German tutor.

False friends in German

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 14:49:00 GMT

Germans are loyal and trustworthy folks. However, there are some false friends in the German language that may confuse the English speaker or his mind.

If the German finance minister says that 2 Billionen Euros are sufficient to bails out Greece, then he’s got his figures right because he actually means two trillion. A billion in German is a trillion in English.

Being told in German that taking Gift is to be avoided shouldn’t be surprising, not because Germans have ulterior motives, but because Gift in German means poison in English.

The word Star in German means starling or cataract; the German equivalent for star is Stern.

Winken is to blink and not to wink, der Akt is not the deed but nude artwork. After is not after, but is located behind and means rectum. Bald is not bald, but means soon.

False friends work both ways. Consider the following:

der Roman	the novel	the roman	der Römer
der Qualm	the smoke	the qualm	das Bedenken
die Provision	the fee	the provision	die Vorsorge
der Mist	the dung	the mist	der Dunst
das Kraut	the herb	the kraut	der Deutsche
der Lack	the lacquer	the lack	der Mangel

Confused? Refresh your German with one of our German courses!

Business etiquette in Germany

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 14:49:00 GMT

Meeting German business partners for the first time

When meeting with business partners for the first time in person, make sure you are on time, dressed appropriately and armed with ample business cards. Your business partner will probably introduce him or herself as Mr. or Ms. XYZ (Herr or Frau XYZ), which implies that you should wait to address him or her on a first name basis until invited to do so. In general, the corporate dress code is formal. Casual wear is acceptable on some occasions and in some industries (creative/media). Be sure to use a firm grip while shaking hands and maintain appropriate eye contact with the other parties when they are speaking to you. Be aware that it is impolite to put your hands in your pockets while someone is conversing with you. Please note that Germans will both greet and say goodbye to their business partners and friends with a handshake each time.

Business Relationships

Many Germans strictly divide their work and private lives. For example, some people may hesitate to speak about their marital status, political and religious opinions, their personal income or other matters they consider to be private at work. You may, however, be able to get a conversation going by appealing to your business partners' loyalty to his/her home region and its foods/beverages or sports teams. On the whole, however, Germans tend to be more interested in business-related issues, tasks and problems than getting to know customers, colleagues and vendors - it may thus take time for German business partners to get to know each other on a personal level. On the other hand, as Germans tend to be rather reliable, a well-established business relationship cannot be disrupted too easily. Business partners usually reward another year of good business relations with a Christmas or New Year's card or a small token of appreciation (a local wine, beer, sausage, or baked goods, for example).

Business Negotiations

Germans are proud of ''made in Germany'' as a synonym for quality and reliability. In business meetings, Germans are rather formal, detail-oriented and direct. They tend to say exactly what they want and mean. They are decision making and problem solving oriented, although these processes can take quite some time to complete, especially considering the generally very highly hierarchical structures in some German companies. Be aware that the negotiation process can sometimes be very lengthy, since Germans prefer to discuss many details in advance in order to prevent future misunderstandings. It is generally seen as very impolite to make or accept telephone calls during a business meeting, conference or on any occasion where the call would serve as a distraction or imply disinterest to your business partners.

As Germans prefer to act on the basis of clearly communicated guidelines and fair rules, your German business partners will most likely view signed contracts as the non-negotiable end result of such discussions. Therefore, they will be quite disappointed if you surprise them with changes to business agreements after contracts have been signed. To sum it up, German business people value high quality, yet affordable, goods and services, which are provided (as agreed) on time and are accompanied by timely and transparent correspondence.

For more details about conducting business meetings in German please get in touch to book a German course.

German sausage feasts in London

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 14:50:00 GMT

So you have been taking private German lessons for a while? Or even an intensive German course? And now you would like to go a little further and experience German outside your lessons? Because sometimes it is not just all about grammar or vocabulary, sometimes it just helps to get a taste of Germany to achieve fluency and proficiency in the German language…or….well… any excuse is good to try out one of the most clichéd, yet most authentic German experiences: a sausage feast. And you don’t have to go all the way to Frankfurt for it.

1.) Kurz und Lang. Small deli-like sausage shop in Farringdon. Serves all sorts of varieties of German sausage, starting with the classic Bratwurst (grilled pork sausage), but also serving regional specialities such as the Berliner Currywurst (pork sausage with ketch-up and curry powder – looks odd but tastes yummy) but also selling Frankfurter and Krakauer (more spicy). Plus a selection of beers from various regions in Germany (Kölisch, Paulaner, Tannenzäpfle, Becks).

2.) Herman ze German. Ironic name for unironically tasty German grub. A small deli just off the Strand serving sausages of all kinds such as the previously mentioned Bratwurst, Currywurst and Frankfurter plus also home baked bread and Bretzel variations. Eat in or take away.

3.) Kipferl. Technically speaking not a German but an Austrian deli, with already 3 branches in Angel, Coram’s Field and Gordon Square. The mouth-watering menu offers besides such precious rarities like Käsekrainer (a cheese filled sausage), also the classic Wiener and of course Sauerkraut. Kipferl also caters for the sweet tooth and offers an authentic coffee and cake experience with various home baked Austrian delicacies. The Linzer Torte is a must!

Three good reasons to learn German

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 14:50:00 GMT

German is widely spoken in Europe: Count the 80 Million inhabitants of Germany, add Austria, the German speaking part of Switzerland plus Luxemburg, and German speaking minorities in Northern Italy, Southern Denmark and the Alsace in France and you get the picture. Of course, there is more than just the holiday aspect, since Germany is not exactly renowned for its glorious holiday resorts by the sea. It is more the practical aspect of course: think of all the business opportunities. You needn't be fluent but a few basics could open doors and make business in Germany a little easier.

Thinking of studying in Germany? This may sound like a distant dream to any UK student but there are still universities in Germany that charge no or very low tuition fees (Berlin is only one of them). Typically the cost of living is comparatively low in Germany, unless you live in Munich, Hamburg or Baden Baden. Therefore you may find yourself NOT being burdened with huge debts to pay off after graduation.

German and English go back to the same West Germanic dialect. Can you believe that at some point in history a person from let’s say Hamburg probably would have had only minor trouble understanding a person from let’s say Winchester? “Funny accent”, they would have thought about each other…Unfortunately this is a very long time ago and not the case anymore. But a few centuries, a great vowel shift plus a few French and Scandinavian invaders later we can still find prove in the vocabulary: House – Haus, beer – Bier, wine – Wein being the most obvious ones. The list could be extended with verbs like make – machen, say – sagen or adjectives like small – schmal, round – rund.

Does learning German sound like a good idea? Check out our services for private German lessons and courses in London.

Is our list missing a reason? We look forward to hearing your comments!