
When English speakers want to say “when” in German, it’s hard to know which word to choose. In this week’s Wort der Woche post on the word als, I touched upon the distinction between the words als, wenn, wann. I’d like to explore…
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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.…
In English, “to study” means to learn, read, memorize, practice, and reflect on a subject. In German, the verb lernen is used to talk about these learning activities. Wir lernen Deutsch. We are learning German. (i.e. as a general activity:…
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…