The German Professor

The adverbs hin and her cause much confusion for German learners. There are no direct equivalents of either of these in English and to English speakers they often seem superfluous in a sentence. German in fact signifies directional movement (vs. position) in several ways that English does not. The adverbs hin and her are examples [...]

Idiomatic expressions often create confusion for learners of German. Take, for example, the expressions zu Hause and nach Hause. Even though nach and zu are both dative prepositions that can mean to, in this instance zu means at. The phrase zu Hause therefore means at home, while nach Hause means moving in a direction toward [...]