Up the creek without a paddle

 

Translate the Text: Übersetzen:

Susann, Faten, Rico, Heike, Simone and Frank.

PLANS:

German Unity Day

From 1949 to 1990, Germany was two countries: East and West Germany. On October 3, 1990, the two reunited, and an important holiday was born:

Tag der Deutschen Einheit!

Whither thou goest

You use wo to ask where something or someone is located, and

Wohin to ask where someone is going.

Wo ist der Biergarten?

Where is the beer garden?

Wohin gehst du morgen?

Where are you going tomorrow?

Which is this?

Keep an eye out for words that change based on gender and case! We’ll talk about these ones more in-depth later.

Ich treffe meine Freunde jede Woche.

I meet my friends every week.

Ich treffe meine Freunde jedes Wochenende

I meet my friends every weekend.

Welchen Film möchtest du sehen?

Which film would you like to watch?

Welche Sprachen sprichst du?

Which languages do you speak?

Wir möchten dieses Jahr in Mexiko bleiben.

We would like to stay in Mexico this year.

Wir möchten diesen Film in Mexiko sehen.

We would like to watch this film in Mexico.

The ims and outs

In German, um is used with telling time, am with days, and im with months.

Um acht Uhr

At eight o’clock

am Wochenende

At (on = A.E.) the weekend

Im Dezember, in December

Ich treffe meine partner im Biergarten.

Können wir jeden Freitag ins Kino gehen?

Ich treffe meine Freunde im Biergarten.

Ich treffe meine Kollegen jeden Freitag im Biergarten.

Die Bäckerei schließt Nachmittag um Zwei.

Das ist cool, du triffst deine Oma jedes Wochenende.

Das Kino schließt um elf Uhr.

Triffst du deinen Freund jedes Wochenende im Kino?

Wohin gehen deine Freunde heute?

Das Café schließt in vierzig Minuten um neun Uhr.

**************************************************************************

The first picture, top left, must be a Horse Fly

Word of the day: Wort des Tages:

Predicament means difficulty, quandary, dilemma, corner, mess, fix, or jam.

A ‘creek is a stream (Bach in German), brook, rivulet, or streamlet.

 

Phrase of the day: Satz des Tages:

The phrase Uncle Tom Cobley and all is used in British English as a humorous or whimsical way of saying et al., often expressing exasperation at a large number of people in a list. The phrase comes from a Devon folk song “Widecombe Fair“. Below is a picture of the song of the same name.

 

Idiom of the day: Redewendung des Tages:

Up the creek without a paddle: slang In a challenging or troublesome situation, especially one that cannot be easily resolved. I have no savings, so if I get fired from my job, I’ll be up the creek without a paddle. This conjures up the image of a stranded canoeist with no way of moving (paddling) the canoe.

 

British (B.E.) / American (A.E.) Vocabulary:

Britisches Englisch / Amerikanisches Englisch Wortschatz:

MONEY: a ‘Note (B.E.) / a ‘Bill (A.E.). A five-pound note, a five-dollar bill (Fünf-Euro-Schein). The word note has more than one meaning:

Note: = a letter, memo, memorandum, annotation etc.

The word bill has more than one meaning:

A bill = a bird’s beak (ein Vogelschnabel), flyer, notice, restaurant bill, the electric bill, (Rechnung in German) also it is a male first name, ‘Bill‘ (often short for Robert or better still William).

 

Special Grammar tip of the week:

Spezieller Grammatik-Tipp der Woche:

Remember the HE/SHE grammar tips, well here is the last part…..Yeah, you got it, there’s more… People who love/hate their aeroplanes, locomotives, ships/sailing boats/ motorboats etc.  Ships are very often called She or her. This is a very common idea, even by the passengers and not just the owner/captain/crew of the ship.

The owner/captain/crew of an aeroplane will also refer to IT as She or Her. Most passengers will say IT. The same applies to a locomotive, the train driver will also call his train She/Her. The maintenance people and perhaps the other work colleagues on a train may do this too. Again, this all depends if there is a love/hate relationship between people and a machine.

 

Pronunciation tip: Aussprachetipp:

Salmon (my favourite word of all time which is almost always pronounced incorrectly.) ‘Lachs‘ in German. The letter ‘L’ is silent and so you say, “Sam-on“.

 

Wit, wit, wit

Witz, Witz, Witz

“To the accountants, a true work of art is an investment that hangs on the wall.” Quote by Hilary Alexander.

 

Slang word of the day: Slangwort des Tages:

Tipsy / Squiffy = a little drunk. (Beschwipst, Angesäuselt).

 

 Cockney rhyming slang:  Cockney Reimender Slang:

Frog and toad” = road.

 

Story of my English teaching over the past 20 years:

Once, when I was teaching at the VHS, one of the students came to me to ask a question. He was reading a book in English, but could not find in any English dictionary or an online dictionary two words that were in his book. I asked him to show me the words. He had the book with him and had already turned to the page where the two words were. He pointed. “These two“, he said.

I read the words which were “Double Entendre” (do͞obl änˈtändrə). I’d learned French at school (not German ) and I immediately recognized them. This means double meaning in English (Zweideutigkeit /doppeldeutig) and it’s French, no wonder you could not find it in an English dictionary!

There are many French words in the English language and also many can be found in German too! Often the German pronunciation is slightly different from the English. Here is a short list of examples:

Chauffer, Cul-de-sac, Facade, Ménage et Trios, Restaurant, Cafe, Aubergine, Escargot, Champignon, Champagne, Budget, Ballet, Soufflé and Sorbet.

 

Quote of the week: Zitat der Woche:

Catherine Booth (wife of William Booth) said in her defence…

to better the future we must disturb the present.

 

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