Some of my Aussie and British coworkers are learning German too, on Duolingo and Busuu. At lunch, one of them said “Ich habe meine Brillen vergessen”, and when I said “meine Brille”, singular, he refused. “There are two lenses, mate.”

“Die Hose” made it worse, since in German he’s wearing one trouser. He didn’t take it well either.

“Brille” comes from “Beryll”, the stone early lenses were made of. Dutch keeps bril and broek singular, while Polish makes okulary and spodnie plural like English, so my head runs both systems at once. Praktika doesn’t always catch me saying “meine Hosen”.

Are there other German words like this that trip up English speakers, or are these the main ones?

I’m interested in taking a 3-week intensive German language course at the Goethe Institut in Göttingen and wondering if I’ll feel out of place at age 70?

Forty-five years ago I lived and worked in Osnabrück for 18 months without hearing a word of English.  When I left, I was completely fluent.   Germans would ask if I were Dutch when I spoke.

I hate to lose such hard-earned facility in German, but after 45 years of not using the language I test out now at a B1/B2 range.

Now that I’m retired I have the time and money to go back to Germany and try to recapture my youth and German language skills.  When you get to my age, you always view yourself a lot younger than do others.

Just wondering how I’d fit in at an intensive Goethe course where I’m looking to just immerse myself in German and study for the 3 weeks . . . ?

Right now I am doing mbbs in my country and also learning german slowly.After I complete my degree I plan to shift to germany so my question is do I need to switch german layout? I mean If it will be beneficial I'll do it.

Hello everyone, I’m at an A2 level in German, but I really struggle with my pronunciation. Do you have any tips on how to improve it?

Die Waise

Dunkel die Wälder, trüb die traurigen Felder

In denen mein Blick sich stets verirrt.

Wie ein Hauch, der ziehend mich verwirrt

Und reißt mir das Herz aus dem Körper.

Zerrissen, höre ich sie mir sanft rufen.

Die blanken, verwaisten Wiesen sind es,

Die mir ins Ohr leise, schwach, über alles

Verlorene erinnern – Ich werde auch dort ruhen.

Gedanken fließen, überlaufen zwischen Bäumen

Wie ein Geist, der seine Heimat nie erkennen dürfte,

Wie ein Kind, das seine Eltern verlieren müsste,

Und ewig kämpft, sie zu erfinden – in den Träumen.

Mein trostloses Herz möchte ihm nachgehen,

Er, der Erlöser aller, die keine Wurzeln halten,

Er ist der Wind, dessen harte gnadenlose Gewalten

In mir den Mut erwecken, trotzdem aufrechtzustehen!

Naja. Ich lerne Deutsch seit ungefähr einem Jahr, und wollte meinem Schreiben ein bisschen üben (abgesehen davon, dass ich auch sehr gerne Gedichten, Prosa usw schreibe). Ich habe niemanden mit wem es zu teilen, deswegen teile ich es mit euch :).

Sagt mir was ihr davon haltet, was ihr beim Lesen gefühlt habt, oder was ihr verstanden oder nicht verstanden habt. Alle Bemerkungen, Kommentaren usw sind willkommen, auch (und eigentlich vor allem) kritische Bemerkungen.

Vielen Dank!

Hi All,

I have moved to Germany 1 and half years back. My son is in 3rd grade and is in German state schools. He has advanced in German well in the past year. But still would like to enroll with some german tutor now. Are private tutoring schools like Schulerhilfe good ? Or should i put him with some online tutor ?

I basically wanted to put him into some offline classes so was looking into Schulerhilfe.

It would be also great if you can let me know average per hour charges for German learning ?

I used to study german in smartergerman plateform if anyone knows about it. It had a scholarship offer so I only paid around 1€/month and I really enjoyed it. I'm at around A2 and B1. The plateform just announced that the scholarship program was gonna end soon, so I won't be able to afford it anymore. I tried the free options on youtube and Nicos weg and all the free german learning things but it didn't feel structured enough to me.

Does anyone know an affordable program online to learn german?

I'm struggling though German grammar rules and I keep getting this wrong.

Can someone help me understand why the word order changes here;

1. Ich brauche eine stift.
2. brauche ich beide briefmarken.

I can't seem to make sense of it.

Its seems to me that both "eine" and "beide" hold a similar grammatical placement but seemingly one changes the order of the first two words?