Tipps zum Deutschlernen

One of the American exchange students I taught recently asked if I could share some tips for learning German so he could improve his language skills as quickly as possible. I started writing a handout on the topic and then decided to do it as a blog post I could share.

Although I'm focusing on German, most or all of these tips would work for any language.

Building Vocabulary

• Learn 15 new words every day. Choose a topic and learn words in logical groups. Learning leads to remembering the words - just writing them down once isn't enough.


• Always learn the article/gender (der/die/das) together with all nouns.
  It is also a good idea to learn the plural form right away.


• Never say any word or phrase in your native language that you can say in German.


• Keep a small notebook with you for writing down new words and phrases you come across.

• Make flashcards to practice. Keep them with you and practice on the bus or train.
  It is better to draw a picture on the other side rather than translate it into your native language. For "der Hund," for instance, draw a quick picture of a dog rather than writing "the dog."
  Color-coordinate the nouns on your flashcards according to gender. (der/die/das)


• Stick Post-it notes on things around the house or apartment (with the article!). Remove them only when you're sure you have learned the words.


• Search online for flashcard drills like these shared on Quia.


• Go to Osiander's bookstore in Esslingen and buy a vocabulary dictionary. Most are organized in topics. Picture dictionaries are most effective (less or no English).

• Wherever you find yourself, look around you. Can you say in German everything you see that you can say in English? If not, ask someone "Wie heißt das auf Deutsch?" or jot down the English word and check in a dictionary later.

Can you name in German everything you see here?

Deutsch on your own

• Learn some common prayers in German (das Vaterunser, Ave Maria, table prayers)
• If prayer is not your thing, memorize some poems or Zungenbrecher (tongue-twisters)!
• Set your social media platforms to German! You already know where everything is...
• Learn and sing along with Kinderlieder - children's songs!
• Learn German pop songs popular now.
• Listen to the radio and watch German TV.
• Write your shopping lists auf Deutsch!  

Deutsch in Deutschland

These are opportunities not to be missed while you're in Germany because they're probably not possible back in your home country.

• Just talk! When you are unterwegs (out and about), don't fuss about grammar and don't worry if you make mistakes. We all do! Don't panic if someone doesn't understand you right away; take a deep breath and try again.


• Find a Sprachpartner/in! This could be your exchange partner, but chances are you've already established your friendship in English, and it's hard to switch. I recommend you find someone at school or in your neighborhood. A Sprachpartner is a native speaker of German who wants to practice his/her English with a native speaker. It's not about grammar, but rather about getting together for a chat. Speak for the first half of your time together in German and the second half in English. Meet at a café! Meet during a break at school. Go to each other's houses. Go on an outing! But make sure you speak half the time in German.


• Find and read children's books - at the bookstore, library, or on your family's bookshelves.

The Kasimir books are my favorites! They teach how to do simple projects
along with helpful vocabulary words with pictures!

• Buy a young reader's magazine - comic books are great! Read them until you understand them.


• Do you have a favorite young adult book? Find the German translation!

• Watch movies in German! Start with ones you are familiar with (Disney movies are great!) When you know the story, you can focus on the language. Avoid English subtitles (it's ok if you don't understand every word!), but German subtitles are fine.

• Even strangers can be friendly and helpful. If you're in the bus/train and have a question, say, "Entschuldigen Sie bitte. Ich lerne Deutsch und habe eine Frage. Könnten Sie mir helfen?" Avoid this in a line (die Schlange) at a store, though. That's not generally a time when Germans are feeling patient. :-)


• When someone responds to you in English, answer in German. They will eventually take the hint if you are consistent.

This is just a start of my recommendations for learning a language, and I have used every one of them myself. There's no doubt and no getting around it - learning a language (really learning it) is hard work. No one ever became fluent in a second, third, or fourth language by sitting around and waiting for it to happen.

The rewards of your hard work, though, are endless.

Viel Spaß und lern(t) schön!!

Life is not a Wish Concert

This morning I was introduced to another fabulous German saying! While I was getting my coffee, M came into the kitchen and asked me, "If someone said to you 'Life is not a wish concert,' would you know what he means?" Well, no - I've never heard that before, but it's not too hard to figure out.

Das Leben ist kein Wunschkonzert.

This means that you don't always get to decide things for yourself in life; sometimes you have to take what comes.

This is apparently a well-known Sprichwort in German, though I'd never heard it until now. The thing that made M laugh is that it was said in a press conference by football/soccer trainer Jürgen Klopp, who was born in Stuttgart and is now coaching in Liverpool, and of course he was speaking English. He translated the saying literally into English, which almost always ends up sounding funny when the phrase isn't also known in the language into which it was translated!

Klopp is a very emotional coach, and his face hides nothing.  I find him fun to watch.
source

In English there are sayings vaguely similar to this, but I still like the "wish concert" the best.

    Life isn't always a bed of roses.
    Life isn't all beer and Skittles.
    Life is no picnic.

Those all basically mean that life can be difficult. I can't think of an English saying that means the same as "das Leben ist kein Wunschkonzert."  We do say "beggars can't be choosers," but the German saying has nothing to do with begging.

The German phrase also - of course - lacks the cheery optimism of "When life throws you lemons, make lemonade!"

Perhaps "Sometimes you just have to take what comes" is the best we can do, but that's simply a truthful statement and not cleverly phrased.

Anyway, I am quite certain I'll be adopting this phrase into my day-to-day language, just as I use other German words and phrases when speaking with those who know both languages - such as "Donkey-Bridge" (Eselsbrücke) for a mnemonic device I create to help me remember something.

So just remember, the next time you don't get what you want, life throws you a curveball, or something happens that you weren't prepared for:

Life is not a wish concert!!

source

Avoiding Messy Marketing

Yesterday when I took the photo for Wordless Wednesday, I realized I had another topic for a blog post, courtesy of Procter & Gamble, makers of Vicks® products for colds - VapoRub, Nyquil, etc.

If you'll notice in the picture below, the little green symbol identifying Vicks® is the same on the two products, one purchased in the U.S., and the other purchased in Germany.

But if you zoom in (click on the photo) you'll notice the product name in the little green symbol is different on the box of pills sold in Germany. It says "Wick" instead of Vicks®. Why is that?

First of all, the V in German is pronounced like the English F. So Vicks would be pronounced "Ficks." Not a big deal, right?  Well, "ficken" is a vulgar German word for "to fornicate," and I'm guessing the Procter & Gamble Powers that Be decided a product thus labeled would not market well here.

So they went with the change from V to W (Vicks to Wicks), but here we have another problem. The W in German is pronounced like the English V, so we should be back to the English name for the brand, "Vicks". True, but this also presents a problem because "Vicks" is too close to the German word "Wichser," which is equivalent to the British "wanker," or the verb "wichsen," which is "to masturbate." So they dropped the -s, changing the brand name to Wick - pronounced "Vick" over here. Close enough, and far less potentially controversial than the other options.

I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall during the meeting of the marketing team of Procter & Gamble the day they discussed what to call Vicks® VapoRub on their product packaging in Germany...

"This is critical, folks. We can't screw this one up! If our customers rub this stuff on the wrong body part(s), there will be hell to pay."

**Disclaimer: I'm just makin' this shit up - I don't really know the story behind the changing of Vicks to Wick. But what other explanation could they have, right?  :-)

Update: That IS the reason! M looked it up, and sure enough, in Germany the name Vicks was changed to Wick "to avoid sexual connotations." I just explained the issue with a little more detail.

Word Sex

Well, if that's not a title that will raise eyebrows...

a brilliant book, by the way,
if a titch blasphemous

Language learners probably figured out that this is another post about the genders of nouns. Almost every Western language besides English (and, as I recently learned, Hungarian) assigns genders to nouns. In German a noun is either masculine, feminine, or neuter/neutral. The English language has this concept as well, as we refer to ships and many other machines as "she" and we have "Father Time" and "Mother Nature," but for the most part, a male is "he," a female is "she," and a thing is "it." In German, however, a girl is "it," a tree is "he," and the keyboard I'm typing on is "she."

More on that in a minute.

There are lots of articles, essays, and blog posts written by English speakers about how silly this all is, and many of those are deliciously funny. I recommend especially the master Mark Twain's essay The Awful German Language, and especially the section called "The Tale of the Fishwife and its Sad Fate." I also recently read David Sedaris's book Me Talk Pretty One Day, and the chapters in which he is struggling to learn French are particularly good. He explains his brilliant but expensive solution to not being able to remember the genders of French nouns in the chapter called "Make Mine a Double."

I have not, however, read many articles or blog posts which explains why the genders seem so screwed up and ridiculous. I thought I'd throw that out there for those who want to know.

Leave it to a teacher to suck the fun right out of even a Mark Twain essay...

First of all, these are the genders we're dealing with, the definite article in German (and its English translation):

      masculine = der (the)     feminine = die (the)       neuter = das (the)        plural = die (the)

I'm not going to claim that the genders of German nouns are logical. But I will tell you that the gender is based on the word, not the thing it is. This why the thing in your living room that you lie on while reading or watching TV is both das Sofa and die Couch. Most foreign words are neuter, and Sofa is a foreign word (Turkish/Arabic, based on dictionary.com). Couch is....shit. Not German. There is no German word that begins with C.* It's an Anglo-French word. Couch is feminine. Just learn & accept it. Let me try again.

A sea is feminine - die See. A lake is masculine, though the German word is the same. In this case, I guess, size matters. A sea is normally larger than a lake.

                                 die See = sea                                           der See = lake


Wait. The gender is determined by the word, not the thing it is. So the above example is a crappy one as well.

Last try: I'm going to use the example of that thing you put your money, driver's license, and insurance card into:

                                    American English: wallet                Proper English: purse

In German, this little bugger can be any gender you wish, as long as you choose the proper noun:

  die Brieftasche - most German nouns ending in -e are feminine
  der Geldbeutel - most German nouns ending in -el are masculine
  das Portemonnaie - most borrowed foreign words (that one is French) are neuter


Ok, haha, the funning is over (though nothing I wrote above is untrue). Following is a list of actual rules that apply to the genders of German nouns and have proven to be very useful for me. My source is, in addition to what you see there, 13 years of teaching German in an American high school and trying to make the tips, clues, and rules as simple as possible. And if we were together in my classroom I would now have to pause to define "noun" to half the class.


Please note: The last rule in each category or gender trumps all the other rules.
   Example: Names of trains are masculine (der). However, it's die S-Bahn, because Bahn is feminine.

Always Masculine:

• days, months, & seasons (der Dienstag, der Juli, der Winter - Tuesday, July, winter)
• points of the compass, sky, & heavenly bodies (der Norden, der Himmel, der Mond - north, sky/heaven, moon)  Exception: die Sonne
• precipitation (der Regen, der Nebel, der Schnee - rain, fog, snow)
• names of cars or trains (der Porsche, der Mercedes)
• nouns ending in -ismus and -ner  (der Rassismus, der Rentner - racism, pensioner)
• male beings and professions & occupations carried out by males** (der Bruder, der Sportler - brother, male athlete)
• all compound nouns that end with a word that is masculine by itself (der Schneemann - snowman)

**No, this does not mean that in Germany there are "boy jobs" and "girl jobs". This means that when the occupation is held by a male, his title is masculine. Der Pilot is a male pilot. Die Pilotin is a female pilot - the word (and often enough the salary) changes to indicate the person is a female.

Always Feminine:

• names of aircraft, ships, & motorbikes (die Boeing 747, die Titanic)
• cardinal numbers (die/eine Eins, die/eine Vier - the/a one, the/a four - important for school grades, which are numbers rather than letters)
• nouns ending with the suffixes -heit, -keit, -tät, -ung, & -schaft (die Weisheit, die Einsamkeit, die Realität, die Bescherung, die Mannschaft - wisdom, loneliness, reality, gift exchange, team)
• nouns ending with the suffixes -ie & -ik (die Philosophie, die Grammatik - philosophy, grammar)
• borrowed foreign nouns ending in -ade, -age, -anz, -ette, -ine, -tion, & -tur (die Toilette, die Aktion)
• female beings and professions & occupations carried out by females (die Schwester, die Sportlerin - sister, female athlete)
• all compound nouns that end with a word that is feminine by itself (die Handtasche - handbag)

Always Neuter:

• nouns ending in the diminutives -chen, -lein, and the Swabian -le (das Mädchen, das Männlein, das Häusle - girl, little man, little house)
• infinitives used as nouns [gerunds] (das Essen, das Lesen - eating or food, reading)
• names of colors (das Blau, das Weiß - blue, white)
• names of most hotels, cafes, and theaters
• cities (except der Haag - the Hague, in the Netherlands)
• (this one always cracked up my students) almost all of the 112 known chemical elements
• all compound nouns that end with a word that is neuter by itself (das Stinktier - stink animal [skunk])

There are also helpful lists of word groups that are usually masculine, or feminine, or neuter.

Now, does all this really matter? Who cares about the sex of words?!? No German teacher would ever publicly admit that it doesn't matter, but frankly, in casual conversation it doesn't. Yes, screwing up the gender of a word can lead to an embarrassing mistake and giggles from your German friends, but in pretty much all cases whoever is listening to you will understand your meaning even if you say you need to step into the bench (der Bank) to get some cash.

When does word sex matter?

• on your German Lebenslauf (résumé or curriculum vitae)
• on a written German grammar test
• on a written assignment for a German class
• in an oral exam or job interview if you want to demonstrate mastery of German
• when you write emails or letters in German (since if you're in doubt while you're writing, you really should take the time to look it up), especially cover letters
• when you are writing something in German that you intend to publish (in print or online)
• if you're the kind of person who wants to avoid language mistakes

Another great thing about living in the Schwabenland (which is neuter, by the way, because it is a compound noun ending in Land, which is neuter) is that most everyone swallows 50% of the gender-specific article anyway. You can get by very well using "d'" for every gender: "d' Wurst", "d' Hund", and "d' Spiel" are just three examples (sausage, dog, game).

So if you're embarking on the impossibly frustrating but exceedingly rewarding journey of learning German, do yourself a favor and learn the gender with each new noun. Don't learn "Schornsteinfegermeisterin = female master chimney sweep." Learn "DIE Schornsteinfegermeisterin = THE female master chimney sweep"! Don't learn "Auslandskrankenschein = health insurance document for foreign travel." Learn "DER Auslandskrankenschein =  THE health insurance document for foreign travel." It will make your German-learning and -speaking life a lot easier in the long run.

And if you have to guess at a noun's gender because it doesn't follow any of the "rules" you've memorized, guess masculine (der), because the majority of German nouns are masculine.

*There are words that begin with C which are used in German, but they are borrowed words, and not German.

Fantastic German Words II

One of the greatest parts of second-language study is getting to know new clever words that one never thought of before but make a lot of sense. If you stay with a language long enough, you'll get beyond the basic vocabulary (days of the week, animals, food...) and begin to explore longer, more complicated words that sometimes don't have a translation in your native language. It's especially fun to discover single words that, when translated or explained in your first language, require a string of words rather than just one.

Back in July I posted my first list of fabulous German words that I think should be brought over into English. Today I offer nine more useful, efficient words that deserve mention.

1. Zebrastreifen  (Zebra stripes)
This translates easily into English as "crosswalk". In Germany the signs I've seen in the U.S. (in New Hampshire, for instance) instructing drivers that "pedestrians in the crosswalk have the right of way" are unnecessary. Drivers automatically stop on the approach to the zebra stripes the moment someone steps one foot onto the stripes. Often, at least in our town, they slow down because someone is near the zebra stripes. This piece of road is sacred to pedestrians and respected by drivers, even if they grumble to themselves for having to stop again.

As you can see in the above picture, there are three clear signs screaming at the drivers that they are approaching zebra stripes. In some places, there are also flashing lights.

"Can't we just cross here?"
"No, it's safer at the zebra stripes, and you should be a good example for children."




2. -Muffel   (Grouch)
A -Muffel is someone who doesn't like or willingly participate in the thing attached to the word. A Morgenmuffel is a morning grouch - English speakers would say "She's not a morning person." A Gesundheitsmuffel doesn't care much about healthy living. There's no clever word for that in English, and again we would have to describe a person like that: "He doesn't take care of himself." The only English term that comes close is party pooper (Partymuffel), but that would be awkward for Morgenmuffel - "Morning pooper??" I don't think so.

the mug Martin bought me for my birthday this year

3. Besserwisser  (Better-knower)
The English term, "know-it-all", wouldn't work for Germans because it's inaccurate. No one knows it all, but a coworker might act like he knows more about something than I do. Naturally, it's entirely possible that he does know more than I do.  Still, the better-knower is about as popular here as the know-it-all is in the U.S.. Unless the better-knower has a higher academic degree or title. Then it's easier for a German to accept that the better-knower does know better.
     "My cousin is coming over for dinner next week."
     "Fine, but keep that better-knower out of my kitchen. I can't cook with her staring over my shoulder."

4. Übermorgen  (over-tomorrow or tomorrow extreme)
Americans have started to use the German prefix "über-" to indicate an extreme degree, usually of an adjective. I saw an ad for some brand of toilet paper in a magazine a few years ago, calling the product "über-absorbant". The Germans have one word for "the day after tomorrow". "Morgen" means tomorrow, so "übermorgen" is way tomorrow, or tomorrow extreme. What can be more than tomorrow? The day after!
     "When are you leaving for Hamburg?"
     "Over-tomorrow, if all goes well."

5. Vorgestern  (pre-yesterday)
This is the same concept as "übermorgen", in the other direction. Vorgestern is the day before yesterday in one simple word. We need to appreciate the rare occasions when the German language is actually simpler than English...
     "How long has your wife been in Hamburg?"
     "She left pre-yesterday, and she comes back over-tomorrow."

If you think about it, übermorgen wird heute vorgestern:  Over-tomorrow, today will be pre-yesterday. Wow. That's deep.

6. Fremdschämen  (stranger shame)
If you read part I of "Fantastic German Words," you might remember that there are quite a few interesting German terms connected to shame. This word describes what we feel when we watch someone else make an utter ass of himself. I think the feeling is amplified when the stranger belongs to your Landsleute (countrymen). I'm surprised the term "Landsleuteschämen" hasn't made it into common usage. I felt this during the last election campaign when a program aired on German TV about the Tea Party Express.
     "Each time the chairwoman opened her mouth on camera, I buried my face in stranger-shame."

7. Mitbringsel & Kleinigkeit  (little bring-along & smallness)
When you're invited to someone's home in Germany, you always bring a small gift, flowers, a cake, etc. You can go to a gift or flower shop and ask the salesperson for help by simply saying "I'm looking for a Mitbringsel." That tells her all she needs to know to offer suggestions: perhaps some decorative tea candles, seasonal napkins, or a small bouquet. It doesn't have to be expensive, but it should be thoughtful.
When you arrive at your friend or aquaintance's home, you hand her your Mitbringsel, which by now has become a Kleinigkeit. (If you have brought flowers, take off the paper wrapping before you hand the bouquet to her.) Even if you have brought the most expensive bottle of wine from your cellar, you still call it a Kleinigkeit, since Germans are more prone to understatement than bragging.
     "Hi, Katherine, so good to see you again. Please come in."
     "Thanks, Petra. Here's a smallness I brought for you."

8. Lumpensammler  (tattered rag collector)
A Lumpensammler is an important person-vehicle combination at marathons, bike races, and fundraising walks. It is the van and the driver who follow the route at the very end and pick up and transport to the finish line stragglers, persons with minor injuries or fatigue, and parents with over-tired children who thought they could handle the distance but can't. According to dict.cc a Lumpensammler is also the "last bus of the night," which in our area drives through shortly after 21:00 (9:00 p.m.). I imagine it's later in the big cities.
     "Ugh...I just can't walk anymore. I'm exhausted!"
     "No worries. The tattered rag collector will be along shortly."

9. doch  (this one word is a positive response to a negative statement, as in "Yes, he is.")
This might well be my favorite German word, and I have long wished there were an English equivalent. Since there isn't, it's best explained through examples.
     "It's not raining yet."
     "Doch." ["You're wrong. It IS raining."]

     "Her brother isn't coming to the party."
     "Doch."  ["You're wrong. He IS coming."]

     "You almost got hit by a car? Then you didn't use the zebra stripes!"
     "Doch!"  ["You're wrong. I DID cross at the zebra stripes!"]

This won't be my last post about the beautiful German language, which gets such a bad wrap for sounding harsh and angry. Yes, the grammar presents a great challenge at times and there are as many dialects as there are counties, but German really is (or at least can be) a lovely language.

Fantastic German Words I, or Eight German Words that are the Hammer!

If you have spent any amount of time getting up close and personal with the German language, you will have met - and sometimes been bowled over by - some truly brilliant expressions and words that you awkwardly try to drag into your own language, dropping them on occasion to find your people looking at you askance and questioning your apparent loss of communication skills. There are just some words that are too good to be cached and squirreled away by German speakers, only to be used and understood among them.

Yes, yes, we've all heard of Schadenfreude, Wanderlust, Doppelgänger, and Gesundheit, and it's good those words have burrowed into and taken up residence in the English language. But why stop there? Following are words I would offer up as candidates for regular use around the world. The direct translations are funny enough to try out in casual conversation, so go ahead!

By the way, things in Germany that are REALLY COOL are described as "the Hammer":

  "Have you seen the new James Bond movie?  It's the Hammer!"

  "I met the new English teacher yesterday. She's the Hammer!"

1. Strohwitwer   (Straw widower)

A Strohwitwer is a man whose wife is gone for a few days - visiting family, on a tour with friends, or staying with her mother-in-law because she lives in a bigger and more interesting town with lots of shopping possibilities (ähm...Esslingen).

     Martin: "Dirk's wife will be in Hungary, and you'll be in Wisconsin. We'll both be straw widowers."

2. Drachenfutter   (Dragon fodder)

When a German husband stays out too late, comes home drunk, and/or invites his boss, his wife, and their children over for dinner before talking to his wife about it, he better head to town to find some Drachenfutter. This is a gift (or several) which is a usually humble and often poor attempt at making peace and winning back his wife's affections. Just its name would be enough to make me seethe. So you screwed up, and I am the dragon?? But since Martin knows that the only thing that works with me is a sincere apology and I think he's only screwed up twice in his blameless life anyway, I find the word cute - and probably appropriate for some women.

     Hans:  "Have a nice evening. Heading home?"

     Franz:  "No, if I want to have a nice evening, I first need to go to Breuninger's for some dragon fodder."

     Hans:  "Well, good luck to you, then."

3. Feierabend   (Celebration evening)

This is quittin' time in Germany. At the end of the work day, colleagues say "[Schönen] Feierabend!" ("[Have a nice] celebration evening!") You might only be going home to re-heat last night's leftover frozen pizza, pop open a beer, and watch reruns of Tatort, but what's not to celebrate? At least you're not working.

     Gudrun:  "Celebration evening!"

     Joachim:  "Same to you!"

4. Eselsbrücke   (Donkey bridge)

Now isn't that more clever than "mnemonic device", which I just had to look up and check three times to spell correctly?  An Eselsbrücke is any little trick or hint we use to remember something we don't want to forget. I use donkey bridges a lot to remember genders in German: 

  der Tisch: a table is masculine because it's hard and unemotional, like a man.

  die Milch: milk is feminine because milk comes from female mammals.

  das Radler: I don't have a donkey bridge for that, which is why I keep thinking it's der (masculine).

I actually did use this term - in English - with my American students, and it started catching on with some of them.

5. schlaftrunken    (sleep drunk)

This does not mean what you think it means. It has nothing to do with alcohol or its regretable side effects. This is an adjective to describe how I feel in the morning before I've had two cups of coffee and a chance to sit somewhere in silence, waking up slowly without the encouragement of other humans. My brain isn't working quite right yet, my eyes feel fuzzy, I'm trying in vain to remember the disturbing details of that crazy dream I was having yet wondering why I'm bothering, and emails from friends and family back in the States that arrived while I was sleeping don't make any sense. The effect becomes amplified if I was jolted out of a dead sleep by the doorbell or the telephone.

     "I went to the door at 8:00 Saturday morning totally sleep drunk and expecting an emergency, and I opened it to find a pair of Jehovah's Witnesses who wanted to talk about the afterlife. I was tempted to send them to it."

6. Unverschämtheit  (Unshamedness)

This, as you can see, is a noun. There are clearer English words to use here (such as "impudence"), but I wanted you to get the full effect of the emphasis of utter lack of shame or good sense. Shame seems to be important in Germany, and there are many German words with "Scham" as their root. Calling someone's action an Unverschämtheit is saying that the person committing the deed clearly has no regard for protocol or the Moral Code whatsoever.

     Martin (while driving past a busy, open, and operating semi-automatic carwash facility on a Sunday afternoon):

     "Washing their cars on the Lord's all-holy Sunday?? What a godforsaken unshamedness!"

7. Zweisamkeit  (Twogetherness)

Yes, that's right - not "TOgetherness," but "TWOgetherness." This only works to label the comradery of two people, not three or ten. It's a gorgeous word, don't you think? It carries a bit of a sad tone with me, since Einsamkeit means loneliness or solitude! But if there are two of you, at least you're not totally alone, and there's also something cozy about the idea of two lonely people finding a connection with each other.

8. Kummerspeck  (Sorrow bacon)

The Americans have the term "comfort food" for the junk we eat when we are feeling down, lonely, or out of sorts.  The Germans have a word for what our bodies accumulate as a result of eating comfort food. Sorrow bacon is the extra fat we (especially women) put on, mainly on our waists and thighs, from eating unhealthy crap because we're dissatisfied with something in our lives. I think "Kummerspeckkummer" might be the distress we feel when we look at ourselves after we have accumulated the Kummerspeck from eating the comfort food.

There are just too many fantastic German words for one blog post.  To be continued...