EDIT 2016: Sadly, the idea was more difficult to keep going than they thought and Emmas Enkel has been sold to a large supermarket chain. I still like the idea, so will leave my post. The Germans call a corner shop ‘Tante-Emma-Laden’ as children used to address the shop assistants as auntie, like Auntie Emma. … Read more
Reutlingen is a town about 22 miles south of Stuttgart and it is famous for one street, the Spreuerhofstraße, because it’s the narrowest street in the world. In order to be called a street, a lane has to be wide enough for somebody to walk through and you can just about do that as the … Read more
Today is a public holiday in Germany (I do think it should also be a public holiday for Germans abroad, but somehow I doubt it will happen ☺), because it’s the German Unity Day, or Tag der deutschen Einheit. When I grew up in Germany, that day was celebrated on the 17th June because of the … Read more
While on holidays in Germany this summer, we went on a long walk one day through a forest until we got to a spa in Bad Bentheim. There we saw this bench, which looked really weird to us. There was something not right but from the distance we couldn’t quite work it out. Then, as … Read more
On my last trip to Germany I noticed a few things which I thought I would share with you – three things I miss in England, one thing I don’t miss and one surprise ❗ ➡ In place 5: I sometimes miss Woolworth, so I’m really pleased to see there are still some shops … Read more
While going for a long walk the other day I suddenly had the idea of introducing German idioms with photos. As I had already taking quite a few pictures that day, the first idiom was an easy choice. Have a look: I thought this is a good example for idioms. Although this time the … Read more
Once my students have acquired a basic knowledge of German they often ask me what other text (rather than just their textbooks) they could read. One answer is: German newspapers or magazines! Most newspapers nowadays have a website with lots of news and other topical information. Some have newsletters you can subscribe to and some … Read more
Once upon a time there was a speech, held by the then minister president for Bavaria, Edmund Stoiber. His speech made not a lot of sense to the Germans, which made it famous – sort of. There are many videos on Youtube about it but I found one where somebody made a pretty good … Read more
Pseudo Anglicism – A word in a language other than English that appears to be English, but in fact is not. (Quoted from Wiktionary) You have probably heard/ experienced that there are a lot of English words in the German language. But did you know that there are English words in German which do not have the … Read more
Could you imagine that somebody would patent the word ‘hello’ and you couldn’t sell T-Shirts with it? This is currently happening in Austria with the words ‘griaß di’. Griaß di is a greeting similar to hello or hi. It is used in parts of Bavaria are and also in Austria. Now there were two … Read more
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