Wortschatz is a "word treasure"! Recently I happened to stumble across my copy of the book »Das schönste deutsche Wort«, first published back in 2005. That book was the result of a 2004 contest that encouraged people all across the German-speaking world – and...
The GW Expat Blog
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learning German
It’s Never Too Late to Learn German
I was a little embarrassed to tell people I was taking German courses. Not because I think language courses are embarrassing. Quite the opposite. I think they are incredibly valuable. I was embarrassed because it has taken me so long to get there. After over a decade...
How many lives does a cat have? What is Trick 17?
Number Idioms in German Cats have been around for thousands of years. They are said to have more than one life. Just how many lives depends on where you are. Arabian and Turkish cats have six lives. For some reason German or Spanish cats have seven lives. In the...
My Favorite German Words and Expressions
Meine Lieblingswörter und Redewendungen Thanks to Hitler's ranting speeches and Hollywood WWII movies, the German language has a less than ideal reputation as a foreign language. Among most people who do not speak it (and even among some who do), German is regarded as...
Expaticus germanicus: An Expat Species Catalog
Which Type of Expat Are You? A few years ago former German Way blogger Geoff wrote about two types of expats: integrated and non-integrated. Those who adapt and blend in, and those who don't. And for the point he was making that was quite adequate. But in the meantime...
Best Apps for Germany
I got a new cell phone (or Handy in colloquial German) shortly before our trip to the States, but didn't get around to putting on my favorite apps until our return. And many of those have to do with life in Germany. Some of these have to do with the language, a...
Questions I Get About Raising Kids in Germany
Even though I am American, I've never raised children in America. I was about 5 years into our German adventure when I had our first Berliner. Now we have two and I am often split between the two countries on my parenting-style; not quite American, not nearly German....
Learning German, in the classroom and beyond
Learning German whilst living in Germany must be easy. Well, no. Not necessarily. Many foreigners working in Germany are here because of their native language; they speak it at home, at work and with friends, sometimes going days without speaking German at all. As...
More German Everyday Expressions You’ll Never Learn in School but Will Help You Blend in
Trying not to sound excessively formal in a foreign language requires practice and attention. It can happen that in your aim to sound colloquial you will pick up words and phrases that you think are everyday material you can use with your colleagues at work, in a...
German Everyday Expressions You’ll Never Learn in School But Will Help You Blend in
As every other responsible expat that moves to Germany with the intention of making of Goethe’s land their new home I briefly attended formal German lessons at my arrival. The teacher was nice, some of the people I met there were overly nice (if you know what I mean)...
An Expat U-turn
What happens when you decide the expat life is not working out? You've changed your mind. Fallen out of love with Germany. Mentally checked out, bags are packed and you're on that plane home. This was the reality for me towards the end of the year. Mic drop. Bear with...
Is It True That German Men Can’t Flirt? (Asking for a Friend…)
Not so long ago I had the chance to spend a year surrounded by a large group of twenty-somethings coming from all corners of the world, we were scattered all over Germany and every three months we had to meet up in different cities each time for week-long seminars....
The One Exception to the German Punctuality Rule
Have you ever heard about German punctuality? You surely have. Swiss people may have the best watches, but it´s the Germans who are recognized worldwide for always being extremely on time. As a newcomer, one of the first things you’ll get told by anyone who tries...
Guten Tag, Frau Schmidt
In the office the other day my colleague was in a quandary. “But I don’t know whether to write ‘Du’ or ‘Sie’”, she said, brow furrowed, “I’ll have to text my friend and find out what she says to her.” The "Du" / "Sie" under discussion was a cleaner, recommended by a...
How to tell when Germans are really being rude versus just being German
If you want to confirm the fact that the internet is not improving people's IQs, just type "rude Germans" into your favorite search engine. Boom! You'll get over 1.9 million results, most of which were written by morons. (But "rude French" pulls an amazing 39.1...
Bilingual Nagging
I continue to navigate my way as a parent of bilingual children. We extol the joys and merits of having children grow up speaking two languages -- the cognitive agility, the tendency towards more open-mindedness, and the acquisition of the language itself. The nuts...
How I Became Fluent in German Fast
NOTE: Updated for 2022. I've been meeting many more expats now that I am living in the heavily populated Rhineland/Ruhr region of Germany. These expats range from old timers/lifers to newbie/temporary assignees. As any expat can relate to, the newbies are grappling...
Keine Gelegenheit versäumen – don’t miss your chance …
I remember that when I lived in Berlin for a year as a student ten years’ ago, I approached every conversation as a language-learning opportunity. Like a hungry caterpillar, I would gobble up more and more words whether talking to taxi driver or a philosophy...
Expat Tip: Buy an E-Reader
I am a self-confessed bookworm. Books are a significant part of my life, and no day is complete unless I have spent part of it reading. Moving to Germany in 2000, I spent years on the hunt for books I could read. At first, devoted as I was to achieving fluency in the...
Expat Life and Loneliness
One of the most poignant feelings I have experienced as an expat is loneliness. It was an emotion that I knew very little of before I moved abroad. In some sense, I was probably naive in my adventurousness; I wanted to experience things that were new and different, I...
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