Hi everyone! It’s Holly here with another blog post from Germany and after having been back in Scotland for a couple of weeks for the Christmas holidays, I am looking forward to getting back into the German way of life.
As most of you will already know, I now live with a German family and it is going very well. It is great to see how people of different ages use different types of language. There are four teenagers in the family and I have started to pick up things that they say that an adult just simply wouldn’t. One example that I hear every night at the dinner table is “Alter!” which would be best translated as something along the lines of “guys!” when someone has been annoyed by another person.
Another thing that I quite often hear when the dog comes to the dinner table is “hau ab!” which means “scram” or “get lost”. As well as this, I have learned that “Hör auf!” means “stop it!” or “knock it off!”. As you can see, meal times in my Germany host family can be quite lively!
It’s not only words I’ve been noticing: it appears that German people wave their hand in front of their face when they think something is crazy or daft. This interesting gesture can be combined with a “Bekloppt” or “bescheuert” which both mean “cuckoo” or “daft” – these are two favourite words in this household.
I’ve not spent all my time at the dinner table though! Since being back I have also seen “Schwanensee” (Swan Lake) in a theatre in Dortmund which was wonderful, and I have also being doing a fair bit of travelling, taking a trip over the border to Enschede in Holland and visiting Bonn and Cologne. This weekend I’m off to Berlin with my boyfriend so I’ll update you on the interesting sights we visit – and any language points that I pick up!
Bis bald, Holly 🙂
