"Let's Get Specific:" 6 German Compound Words Borrowed by English

Dictionary.com recently had a slideshow on its front page entitled Let's Get Specific: 6 German words you won't believe.

The slideshow comprises six German compound words that arose to describe "very specific ideas," which English subsequently borrowed.

Click on the slideshow above to see the meanings of Weltschmerz, Schadenfreude and more.

Einen Clown frühstücken?

Haben Sie heute einen Clown gefrühstückt?

Yes, the question above translates into English as "Did you have a clown today for breakfast?"

Of course, the phrase "einen Clown frühstücken" is an idiom and has a figurative meaning.

But the phrase can have several different meanings. It can refer to someone who isn't known to be funny but just made a joke. It can mean someone who is being inappropriately or unusually funny or silly.

More information can be found here:

• Linguee.de: einen clown zum frühstück haben
• MundMische.de: Clownflakes gefrühstückt 
• MundMische.de: einen Clown frühstücken
• Redensarten-Index.de: einen Clown zum Frühstück gegessen / verspeist / gehabt haben
• Sprachnudel.de: einen clown frühstücken
• Wiktionary.org: einen Clown gefrühstückt haben

Also, Axel Hüpfer, a company who makes other funny products, made Clown zum Frühstück honey, so that you can eat a clown for breakfast every morning. See Axel-huepfer.de: Clown zum Frühstück Honig and Youtube.com: Hier wird ein Clown zum Frühstück verspeist.

Are you going to use this phrase today? Post your comments below!

Alles Gute zum Geburtstag! German Birthdays

With GLO turning two, I thought I'd do a post on birthdays - I've created a list of sites so you can know what to say, learn German birthday customs, and even send free birthday e-cards in German!

Birthday Greetings / Vocabulary:

• Birthday Words in German (For Kids), LittleExplorers.com
• Congratulations in German, About.com
• Geburtstagssprüche, Geburtstagswünsche und Sprüche zum Geburtstag, Sprueche-zum-Geburtstag.de (In German)
• Happy Birthday in German, About.com
• How to Say "Happy Birthday" in German, Youtube.com
• How to Wish Happy Birthday in German, Suite101.com

Birthday Songs & Customs:

• Birthday Celebrations from Germany, BirthdayCelebrations.net
• Birthday Customs in Germany, About.com
• Happy Birthday (German Version), Youtube.com
• Happy Birthday Songs in German, About.com
• Childen's Birthday Parties in Germany, About.com
• German Birthdays, About.com
• Wie schön, dass du geboren bist, Youtube.com (Get the lyrics here.)

More:

• E-card: Alles Gute zum Geburtstag!, About.com
• Alles zum Thema Geburtstag, Geburtstag-ABC.de (In German)
• Geburtstag: Gedichte, Texte, Spiele, Lieder, Spaß, Festpark.de (in German)
• Hallmark.de: Geburtstag ecards (Free e-cards, some in German)
• Kisseo.de: Grußkarten kostenlos verschicken Kisseo.de (Free e-cards, in German)

Olympics Vocabulary

The London 2012 Summer Olympics will start on July 27, 2012.

To  celebrate the Olympics and learn a little German, see my Olympic-themed German vocabulary list:

Click here to download the list as a Google document: Document: Vocabulary - Olympics

2012 Summer Olympics	Olympische Sommerspiele 2012
Closing ceremony	die Abschlusszeremonie
Mascot	das Maskottchen
Medal	die Medaille
Olympic Park	der Olympiapark
Opening ceremony	die Eröffnungszeremonie
Stadium	das Stadion
Summer Paralympics	die Paralympischen Sommerspiele
Torch	die Fackel
Torch relay	der Fackellauf
Types of Sports	Sportarten
Aquatics	Wassersport
Diving	Wasserspringen
Swimming	Schwimmen
Synchronized swimming	Synchronschwimmen
Water polo	Wasserball
Archery	Bogenschießen
Athletics	Leichtathletik
Decathlon	Zehnkampf
Discus throw	Diskuswurf
Hammer throw	Hammerwurf
Heptathlon	Siebenkampf
High jump	Hochsprung
Hurdles	Hürden
Javelin throw	Speerwurf
Long jump	Weitsprung
Marathon	Marathonlauf
Pole vault	Stabhochsprung
Race Walk	Gehen
Relay	Staffel
Shot put	Kugelstoßen
Sprint	Lauf
Steeplechase	Hindernis
Triple jump	Dreisprung
Badminton	Badminton
Basketball	Basketball
Boxing	Boxen
Canoeing	Kanu
Sprint	Kanurennsport
Slalom	Kanuslalom
Cycling	Radsport
BMX	BMX
Mountain biking	Mountainbike
Road	Straßenrennen
Track	Bahnradsport
Equestrian	Reiten
Dressage	Dressurreiten
Eventing	Vielseitigkeitsreiten
Jumping	Springreiten
Fencing	Fechten
Field hockey	Feldhockey
Football (Soccer)	Fußball
Gymnastics	Turnen
Artistic Gymnastics	Gerätturnen (or Kunstturnen)
Rhythmic Gymnastics	Rhythmischen Sportgymnastik
Trampoline Gymnastics	Trampolinturnen
Handball	Handball
Judo	Judo
Modern pentathlon	Moderner Fünfkampf
Rowing	Rudern
Sailing	Segeln
Shooting	Schießen
Table tennis	Tischtennis
Taekwondo	Taekwondo
Tennis	Tennis
Triathlon	Triathlon
Volleyball	Volleyball
Volleyball	Hallen-Volleyball
Beach volleyball	Beachvolleyball
Weightlifting	Gewichtheben
Wrestling	Ringen
Freestyle	Freistilringen
Greco-Roman	griechisch-römischen Stil

Website: German Language Articles on Wikihow.com

The site wikiHow.com has several articles on learning the German language. WikiHow is a site composed of "how-to" articles. The site works much like Wikipedia: anyone can add and edit pages on the site. In addition, the site is freely sharable for any non-commercial purpose.

The site's German page currently list 16 articles, as well as 5 articles that require further editing. The current articles cover basic German phrases and vocabulary, such as How to Talk About Yourself in German and How to Count to 10 in German. The articles usually describe how to pronounce the terms and gives learning tips.

The World Languages and Multiple Language Guides pages have articles for language learning in general. The site also has a Travel to Germany page.

The number of German language articles is currently pretty sparse and just covers basic vocabulary, but there is potential for users of the site to add more German language articles. (Writing a new article could be a great way to practice your German!) The standard setting is to have ads in the middle of the text of the article, but you can hide the ads by clicking on "Hide all ads" in the right column.

If you want practice reading German - or, for advanced learners of German, writing in German - check out the German version of wikiHow.com here.

Post your own review of the site below!

Play Games in German with Free Trial

Learn some new vocabulary while playing a game! Youda Games on MSN Games have an option to let you play the game in German.

After you've downloaded the game, go to "Options" in the game's main menu or click on the flag on the start screen, and then click on the German flag icon to set the language to German.

These games have a one-hour free trial (I didn't buy any of the games - I've just been playing the free trial).

Hidden Object

• Youda Legend: The Curse of the Amsterdam Diamond: Delve into the dark mysteries of Amsterdam on this haunting hidden object adventure!
• Youda Legend: The Golden Bird of Paradise: A tropical getaway turns into an all new mysterious adventure!

Time Management

• Youda Farmer 2: Save the Village: Stop the Big Boss' evil plans and save the village!
• Youda Safari: Give all the tourists a once in a lifetime holiday experience!
• Youda Sushi Chef: Sushi, Sashimi, Sake - build a restaurant empire and become the sushi master!
• Youda Survivor: Battle pirates, protect your tribe, and escape an isolated island!

Wikibooks on German Part II: German for Non-English Speakers

Here are some more Wikibooks on the German language based on your native language (in alphabetical order). Some are very complete, some still need a lot of work.

Also: I'm compiling lists for German-language learning websites in languages other than English for future blog posts. If you know of some good websites, post them in the comments below or email them to me (click on the "About" tab near the top of the page). Thanks!

• German for Afrikaans Speakers
• German for Arabic Speakers
• German for Catalan Speakers
• German for Chinese Speakers
• German for Czech Speakers
• German for Dutch Speakers
• German for Esperanto Speakers
• German for Finnish Speakers
• German for French Speakers
• German for Georgian Speakers
• German for Hebrew Speakers
• German for Icelandic Speakers
• German for Italian Speakers
• German for Japanese Speakers
• German for Malaysian Speakers
• German for Polish Speakers
• German for Portuguese Speakers
• German for Spanish Speakers
• German for Turkish Speakers
• German for Ukrainian Speakers

BBC - Languages - German

You already know the "What's so funny about German?"  videos from previous posts, but the BBC website's language-learning section has a ton of other resources for learning German, especially for beginners!

The homepage is here: BBC - Languages - German. (Click here to get a BBC Languages newsletter.) A lot of the material is based on BBC TV shows, but you don't need to have watched the show to use or understand the materials!

Wikibooks on German

WikiBooks describes itself as "the open-content textbooks collection that anyone can edit." Wikibooks is hosted by the Wikimedia Foundation, the same organization behind Wikipedia. The idea is similar to Wikipedia: anyone can create or contribute to a Wikibook.

Wikibooks has several "textbooks" on the German language, although they are in various stages of completion.

1) "German"
"German" is a textbook for beginners on the German language. It is currently listed as "half-finished." The earlier lessons are more complete, with audio and practice questions, but there are a lot of lessons that still need work. The book also has a PDF version and a Print version; these have the entire book on one webpage.

2) "BLL German"
"BLL German" is a course of "Bite-sized Language Lessons" for German. They are meant to be shorter lessons that are more focused. So far, there are only lessons for the "A1 - Breakthrough" level (for absolute beginners).

3) "Freistil"
"Freistil" is a collection of "actual annotated German texts." The texts have "in-text annotations" that give you a translation of a word when you hover over it with your mouse. A "What's worth learning?" box points you to commonly-used vocabulary, and an "In detail" box provides background and cultural information. So far there are only texts under the "Nachrichten (News)" category.

4) "Deutsche Grammatik"
"Deutsche Grammatik" is a basic German grammar guide. However, it's written in German, so this might be more helpful for advanced German learners.

5) "Fruchtbringendes Wörterbuch"
The "Fruchtbringendes Wörterbuch" seems to be part dictionary, part language experiment: it suggests German words that German-speakers can use instead of using words that have been adopted from other languages (especially English). One example: instead of using "Hypertext," the dictionary suggests "Sprungmarkentext, Hüpftext, Übertext."

6) "Das Schreiblernbuch"
"Das Schreiblernbuch" is a book in German designed especially for German parents in other countries to teach their children about the alphabet and phonetics. It also includes exercises for children to do. There is a continuation of this book for more advanced learners - Das Schreiblernbuch für Fortgeschrittene - but it's not as complete yet.

7) "Wikijunior Tieralphabet"
Also for teaching children is the "Wikijunior Tieralphabet:" for each letter of the alphabet, it shows an animal whose name in German also begins with that letter.

8) "Rechtschreibung"
"Rechtschreibung" is a book in German about the spelling reforms of 1996. It says on the book's main page that the book has been abandoned, so it may not be updated.

9) For Wikibooks on learning German for speakers of other languages, check out the links under "Deutsch für Nicht-Muttersprachler".

What did you think of these Wikibooks? Add your comments below!

Website: Vokabel.com

Vokabel.com describes itself as a website for "vocabulary training exercises." The website has vocabulary quizzes for words from various categories (like "Animals" or "Future Tense). The user can also create their own vocabulary quiz using the words they want to practice with.

When you select a category, you are given a word and then must type the translation into the box. You can choose either to be given either a German or an English word, for which you enter the translation (you  can also choose to be tested on French or Spanish words). The program provides the correct answer, and keeps track of how many you got correct, and how many you got wrong. You can choose to be retested on words you got correct. The author, Rene Kondratzky, states (in the Author's Welcome page) that this technique is meant to emulate the flash-card technique.

Note that the answers use only the "standard" characters, meaning that ü would be written as ue. 

You can also create your own test using your own words with Create Your Own Test. You can add up to 100 words to the test. You can also save your test for use later.

Also check out the site's Favourite Links page for language and travel links, and the Reference Materials for a bibliography (books used to create the quizzes, which may be of interest to you).

What did you think of the website? Post it in the comments below!

Website: LanguageGuide.org

A review of German resources on the "Language Guide" website.
The homepage is at: http://languageguide.org/; the German page is at: http://languageguide.org/deutsch/.

This site is basically a pictorial dictionary for vocabulary. You are shown a collection of clip-art like pictures on a page. When you hover over the picture with your cursor, the German word appears in a floating box and you have audio of a native speaker saying the word.