When I still lived in Germany there was no Halloween. The only time we heard about it was when we watched American horror films or any other American films which happened around Halloween.

I didn't really know anything about Halloween until I moved to England and the first children came knocking on my door calling "trick or treat!"

But things are changing, actually, I should say, have changed. During the late 1990s more and more newspaper article about Halloween appeared in Germany and since th...
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When Germans like a songs so much that they can't get it out of their head they call it 'Ohrwurm' which means 'earworm'.
So when I was followed by sombody called @earwormsmtb on twitter a while ago, I was intrigued and checked out their website and quite liked what I saw. Two German beginners CDs (they do other languages, too), each with "200+ essential words and phrases anchored into your long-term memory with great music". At the Language Show I saw their CDs and bought them. As I teach a be...
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Surely not, you may think!

I'm not so sure, so let me explain:

I love walking. For the last ten or so years I have been walking as much as possible. I try to do 10,000 steps a day (don't always achieve that) and at weekends we go for long walks. Twice I have managed to walk a marathon, the whole 26miles!

But I cannot run! I tried a few months ago and I couldn't even run 1 minute :-(
I tried several times and then gave up - I'm no good at running!

But it annoyed me. Surely, if I can walk I can run...
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I read an interesting article on the Deutsche Welle website this morning (if you want to read it - it is in English)
Soon you will be able to see internet addresses with the letter 'ß' in it. Until now the only choice was 'ss'.

This reminded me of a question I get asked a lot in my German lessons: "How can I write those extra German letters if I don't have a German keyboard?"

The good news is - you don't need a German keyboard! All you need is the number pad on the right hand side of your keyb...
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Yesterday, while listening to the radio, I heard about a recipe for a refrigerator cake. It reminded me about a German recipe called "Kalte Hundeschnauze".
This is what you need:

• 300g coconut fat (which you can get in a solid block, not sure though, where, sorry)
• 125g icing sugar
• 50g cocoa
• 3 eggs
• a little bit of rum
• 2 packets of biscuits, ideally the butter biscuits from Bahlsen Leibniz

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It had to happen sometime - Paul, the psychic octupus has died of old age.

So, who was he?
Paul was born in January 2008 at the Sea Life Centre in Weymouth, England. His loving parents were very proud of him until they noticed a weird streak in him: he could see into the future. They tried to talk him out of it but he wouldn't stop. Eventually they told him to leave and he moved to the Sea Life Centre in Oberhausen, Germany. He spent every spare moment learning German until he thought he was fl...
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While I was teaching somebody today we were talking about the German and English words for jobs  and it made me realise again how literal lots of German words are.
Have a look at some of them:

• dentist - Zahnarzt (tooth doctor)
• gynaecologist - Frauenarzt (women's doctor)
• paediatrician - Kinderarzt (children's doctor)
• vet - Tierarzt (animal doctor)
• ophthalmologist - Augenarzt (eye doctor)
• watching TV - fernsehen (to see far)
• vest - Unterhemd (under shirt)
• pants - Unterhose (under trous...

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People frequently tell me that Germans don't have a sense of humour and the term German comedian is apparently an oxymoron.
Well, there are loads of good and very funny German comedians. The problem is, it's not always easy to translate jokes and something that is extremely funny in German doesn't sound funny in English (or the other way round).

Henning Wehn is a German stand-up comedian who lives in England and tries to teach some German the fun way. You can watch some of his videos on the BBC...

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This question cam to my mind this morning while I cleaned out the chicken house ( Don't ask why THIS question, no idea!). So I decided to compare those two -

Losing weight:
Imagine, you decide to lose some weight because you either just feel you'd like to lose a few pounds or because your doctor told you that you must lose some weight because of health reasons.
The first thing you may do is go on a strict diet plan. You lose a lot of weight but then you get back to eating all that unhealthy food...
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I came across this article the other day, where German bestseller writer Bastian Sick was asked to give 10 reasons for learning German. I liked his reasons so much that I reprint them here on my blog, but if you want to red the whole article you can find it here

These are his ten reasons:

1// So you can understand the lyrics of Tokio Hotel songs and sing along with the right pronunciation.

/2// So you can write a love letter to Bill Kaulitz (Tokio Hotel singer).

/3// So you don’t have to...

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They are actually quite the same!

If you watch the video below of my daughter skydiving, you'll see her very scared but also excited at the start. Then you'll see her worried about jumping into the unknown and then the sheer excitement about the view and her knowledge about what she can do. And all that knowing that the teacher is there to guide her. Finally you'll hear her say:" This is amazing ... the best thing I've ever done!"

Learning German is no different: Once you've decided you want t...
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So, Tokio Hotel appeals to the teens, the Wise Guys are good for adult education, which leaves primary school children. Is there any good music to use with them?
There are a lot of good traditional songs which are still great to sing nowadays. My favourites are 'Mein Hut, der hat 3 Ecken' or 'Laurentia, liebe Laurentia' (brilliant action song if you need to get fit and don't have time for the gym ;-))

And then there's Detlef Cordes and his 'Spiellieder' - lovely, easy German songs, some of them...
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Although yesterday I mentioned Tokio Hotel as a German band whose music results in lots of fans wanting to learn German, The Wise Guys are a band who I like to use for teaching.

The Wise Guys are a German a cappella band and not only do I like listening to them, I also find their lyrics useful in adult education. My favourite song is "Meine Deutschlehrerin". It deliberately contains 21 grammar mistakes.

Can you find them all?


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Today was the first day I ever heard some songs from Tokio Hotel! I always thought their music was just for teens but, from what I heard, the lyrics and the melodies were actually quite good.

But what does this have to do with learning or teaching German?

Tokio Hotel is a German band and I get the feeling, they do more for the German language than any other band. One of my students is an avid fan of Tokio Hotel and this has instilled a desire in her to learn German - and her German is good, so ...

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I went to London today to attend the annual Language Show and it was a great success again. It's good to see what new resources are available and what the new trends are. It's also lovely to pick up some freebies and meet people I otherwise only 'meet' online.
One other reason for my visit is the variety of workshops/seminars.
My favourite this time was Russel Stannard's seminar about 10 great Web 2.0 tools for language teachers, and amongst others he spoke about this useful vocabulary website ...
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If you have read one of my earlier posts you know that I am not very keen on translating websites.
Online dictionaries are different, though, and leo is my favourite. Leo started 1995 and was very basic then. After a while they were looking for volunteers and I was one of them. Several times I got a list of 250 basic German - English translations. I would then add the German gender plus any phrases I knew. I really enjoyed working with those lists but I am glad the dictionary has improved imm...
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Sometimes I get asked about German lessons by people who live too far away for me to travel. If I then suggest online lessons via  Skype, they shy away. They want the personal touch, they say, and in a way, I agree. I rather teach with the student in the same room.

But what if that's not possible? What if you`ve looked for a tutor and cannot find one in your area?
This is what happened to one of my students.
You can read his blog here

Fast forward one year and the lessons are still going strong. ...
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1972 a new TV programme started in Germany. It was Sesame Street.

Although I was way too old for children's TV (no comments, please ;-)) I loved watching Sesame Street because it was shown in its original language and allowed me improve my English.

A German version of Sesame Street - Sesamstraße - followed soon, which means you can do the same as I did.
If you are interested in the German language and have a few minutes spare every so often, check out the many clips on Youtube (just search for...
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My adult students sometimes lend each other German DVDs or books and sometimes they bring gifts. Today one of my students brought a bag of surplus goods from his allotment and he handed out carrots and flowers. For me, he said, he had a special surprise. With that he handed me this:

Aptly labelled Die gedrehten Karotten
  

They are just too nice to eat, aren't they?


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That's not a quote from somebody famous, it's what my English teacher said to my mum 1975 when I changed schools. Up until then I had no interest in English or any other foreign language. 'I live in Germany, why do I need to speak another language' was my attitude. At that time I would have never imagined that one day I would live in England!

Now that I teach in England, I hear the same from youngsters here: 'I live in England, why should I learn to speak another language', but do they know wh...
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The above quote is from Willy Brandt, a former German Chancellor and I think about it every time I see a website which has been translated by a translating website!
Translating websites aren't a bad idea if you want to know something from a foreign website. Sometimes they translate well, sometimes they don't but hopefully they give you enough information to understand the gist of the text.

If, on the other hand, you want to sell abroad, then a translating website's help isn't good enough. A few...
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Last week I received a tweet on twitter with an invitation to answer some questions about my work. I thought they were interesting questions. What do you think? Read my interview on Whohub
Ask my opinion about something:

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How often have you had those thoughts? Especially if you are learning a foreign language?

Does the following sound familiar? You are learning a foreign language and are beginning to get a bit confident, when after a few weeks or months you come across a text, maybe a newspaper article, in that language ......... and you feel you don't understand a single word you're reading!

I was in London today for a seminar at the Austrian Cultural Forum and amongst other things we did an exercise in a forei...
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As I said in my last blog, there are 3 ways of saying 'the' (actually, there are lots more, but we ignore that for the time being!). Whether you need to say der, die or das depends on whether the word is masculine, feminine or neuter. 'How can a thing be masculine, feminine or neuter?' I can hear you ask.
Well, it's not the item, it's the word, for example, the table = der Tisch, that doesn't mean the table is masculine, it means the word for table is masculine.

So how do we know?
Are there rul...
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This is a question I hear a lot from children when I teach at schools. But often adults don't know either.
They know how to spell words and how to pronouce things but when asked what these words are they don't know.
When I teach German grammar it is important to know what nouns, verbs, adjectives are ......... or is it?

Well, you could learn German without grammar, but it will be a lot more difficult, as grammar will give you the necessary shortcuts.
It's a bit like driving a car. You can drive ...
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1982, at the age of 23 I moved away from home and left Germany for a new life in England. My mum cried when I went and I also felt very sad. On the other hand I was far too excited to feel sad.
Fast forward to 30 June 2009; that was the day I took my daughter to Heathrow airport because she too went abroad at the age of 23. Since then she worked a few months in Thailand and is currently working in New Zealand and so far there is no talk about coming home.
Further fast forward to today; the day ...
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I have been teaching a new beginners German class tonight and at the end of the lesson one student came and told me a funny story.
It was about a Battle of Britain celebration he went to a few years ago. The RAF base invited a few German and Italian pilots to the celebration but then got quite worried how the Germans would feel about the anniversary.
It seemed the Germans had the same thoughts because they arrived wearing T-shirts, printed with the following:


"Battle of Britain 1940 runners up"...

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I came across this picture today and I was wondering if birds shout louder if they can't be understood. This little fellow seems to be shouting  at the top of his voice just like it is said about English people when they are abroad.
 
As tourists we can't learn every foreign language but if you are stuck abroad, then please don't shout. Try to learn a few phrases,or try to get your message across with hands and feet if necessary - and above all, keep smiling -;) 

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Thinking back to shortly after I moved to England, this was the time before satellite TV, although England just got Channel 4 and therefore had  one more TV channel than Germany. Still, Saturday afternoons were awful. All you could watch was either Wrestling or Snooker or black & white war films (at least that's what it felt like). Those black & white films weren't just black & white instead of colour, the topics were also very black & white. All American or English soldiers were good and all...
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The other day I read and commented on Cathy Dobson's blog Working on a different planet about her first few (acually 20) years of living in Germany after having moved there from England. It brought back many memories of when I moved from Germany to England.
I was lucky because I already spoke (if badly) English, and I married a Brit who was able to help me with lots of things. But he was at work and I did have to go out on my own and brave the English world!
I remember having to get a national ...
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I have started a blog on a different webpage but The fun of being a German Teacher is supposed to be just that: a recount of funny incidents.
I have since found that I'd like to write about other things, too, but still German related.
So, welcome to my ramblings about things in Germany or England, about being German in England, about teaching German or just anything else that I can think of.
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