I use iTunes to organize my podcasts,
then I put them on my iPod.
Good afternoon! Today I wanted to mention a great podcast that I recently discovered. It's called ESL Pod and even though I recently discovered it, it's been around for a long time.
There are different types of listening programs on the site, but all of them are designed for people learning English. There are dialogues that are very good, clear, and slow, for example. In these dialogues, the speakers talk very slowly, then identify important vocabulary, and then repeat the vocabulary at "natural" speed.
They also have what they call "English Café," which are longer programs featuring special topics. For example, English Café recently talked about Star Wars, my favorite movie, so you know it must be good!
You can go to the site (ESLPod.com) to see what kinds of things they offer, or you can also download the podcast through iTunes or any other program you use to download and listen to podcasts. I personally use iTunes to organize podcasts, since it downloads them automatically for me when there are new episodes.
So, that's it for now. I hope you have a great weekend, full of relaxation and enjoyable podcasts!
Yes, Chinese! As you may know, I recently started a Mandarin Chinese course. It's enjoyable but also pretty difficult! My teacher is nice and patient, and the materials she's given us are good, but I've also been searching around for some additional resources to help me learn. I found a few sites on the internet and I thought I'd mention them here, in case any of you are interested. Best of all, they're all FREE! Additionally, if you know Chinese or someone who speaks it, and you have any tips or resource suggestions for me, I'd love to hear them!
This is a series of videos done by a Chinese teacher named Mike. The style is a bit goofy at times (it's shot in his garage and he tends to wear strange shirts, hats, and/or sunglasses), but he seems to genuinely know what he's talking about when he teaches. He's able to make the 10-minute video lessons interesting and entertaining, and he does a good job explaining details about the language. The best part is each video also has a transcript you can download, and together the transcripts form chapters of a book. Especially considering that it's a free site, Chinese With Mike is a pretty great resource for people wanting to start learning Chinese on their own.
I'm a big promoter of the BBC's offerings for English learning, but they also have good sites for other languages. The Chinese learning site isn't very extensive but it does have a good variety of activities and articles, including games for tones and characters, sample dialogues, cultural information, and language guides. It would be interesting even for people who are just curious about the language, but don't necessarily want or need to learn it.
Angela recommended this site after using it to practice some of her new German vocabulary. I think it's good, but it may a bit difficult for Mandarin language beginners to use. All the language courses on the site start off the same way, introducing basic phrases like "Good Morning" or "I don't feel well." That's OK for a non-tonal language that uses the Roman alphabet (like English, German, French, etc.), but for Chinese it's a bit difficult to just jump into it, without even mentioning tones or the writing system at the beginning. It can be good to listen to and identify vocabulary, but it's a bit lacking in terms of additional information.
I also downloaded a few programs and Chinese learning games to my iPod touch. If any of them turn out to be useful, I'll be sure to mention them here.
Thanks for reading, and if you have any comments, suggestions, or language tips, please leave a comment below. Have a great day!
Well, no, German words don't have sex, but the nouns do have gender. What does that mean, exactly?
In English, our nouns don't have gender, so this isn't really a problem. But it is a problem for people learning languages like Spanish or German, and it's something that I personally still have problems with in both of those languages.
Spanish is easier than German in this respect. For example, if a noun ends in the letter "o" in Spanish, like muchacho, libro, or carro, the word is usually masculine. Similarly, if it ends in the letter "a," as in casa, puerta, or chica, it's usually feminine. There are a few exceptions (like la mano, el idioma, or el planeta), and there are also nouns that don't end in -o or -a, which can cause problems. For some reason, I always forget if words like corazón (heart) and amor (love) are masculine or feminine, but generally it's not too difficult to just look in a dictionary or ask someone.
German is a lot more difficult, though.
German has three genders, which a lot of people joke about. There is masculine, feminine, and what's usually called "neuter" or "neutral" in English. For some words, it's easy to determine if a word is masculine or feminine. For example, der Mann (the man) is masculine, and die Frau (the woman) is feminine. These make sense, since the noun gender matches the gender in real life. But there are definitely some weird ones, like das Mädchen (the girl); why is a girl neutral, while a boy (der Junge) isn't? And why do the words seem to end in all sorts of different letters? Isn't there a system?
In the 1990s the musician Prince changed his name to this symbol.
Maybe he was just trying to tell us that he's German. (Image Credit)
Not especially. There are some common patterns to German noun gender, and I'll include links to a site that's been highlighting those recently. But the sad truth is that if you are learning German, you simply have to learn the gender of every new noun when you learn vocabulary. This gender also affects adjectives; to compare with Spanish, you'd say "la casa blanca," not "la casa blanco," since blanca (white) needs to be feminine, since casa (house) is feminine. German is the same way, but it's more complicated, since the adjective endings change not only based on gender, but also depending on whether the noun is the subject, object, indirect object, or possessive actor in a sentence.
I won't go into much more detail here today, since other blogs focus a lot more on this (and most of my readers are here for English tips, not to learn about why German nouns are so depressing). If you are learning German, though, you should check out the Transparent Language German Blog. It's generally got good language and cultural information, and they've recently been doing a series on tips and patterns for determining German noun gender. At the moment they're on part 1 of the feminine nouns, but they've already posted a four-part series on German masculine nouns (click here for parts 1, 2, 3, and 4). It's got some really good information, so check it out!
Hello! A few days ago we talked about the use of the First Conditional in English, and today we'll talk about the use of the Second Conditional. I'll keep the format of these posts similar so it's easy to compare them. The last post had a video to help illustrate how to use the tense, and so will this one. Listen to this song by Beyoncé and see what you can understand (if you want, you can also follow the lyrics here):
This is a very popular song to illustrate the second conditional, and my students have used it in different classes. So, the big question: In the song, is there a real possibility that Beyoncé can become a man? No, definitely not. So in this case, we're talking about an unreal possibility. That's what the Second Conditional is all about:
The Second Conditional (Unreal, Improbable Possibility)
Second conditional phrases are used in situations that are not likely to happen. Similar to the first conditional, they have two parts:
1. The "if" part (also called the "if phrase," "if clause," or "condition")
2. The "fantasy" part (also called the "would clause" or "result")
For example, I can say:
If a day had 25 hours, everyone would sleep more.
Obviously, this is an impossible, unreal situation because a day always has 24 hours. But it's nice to imagine alternate realities sometimes, isn't it?
Like in the first conditional, second conditional phrases can usually be inverted:
Everyone would sleep more if a day had 25 hours.
In both sentences, the "if" part expresses the improbable condition (a day with 25 hours), and the result expresses the outcome (everyone would sleep more).
In the second conditional, the condition is written in a past tense (past simple or past continuous), and the result is written using would/could/should/might + a base verb. Also notice that it's acceptable or at least common to use was or were with the "if" phrase:
If I found a million dollars, I would travel around the world.
If Jane had more friends, she might not be so strange at parties.
Tom would be a better basketball player if he were taller.
If Costa Rica won the World Cup, the entire world would be amazed.
In other words,
If (past tense), then (would + base verb) .
Can you complete the following phrases?
If I had a Lamborghini, ___________ .
Mary would feel happy if ___________ .
If Jake never had to work again, ___________ .
I might be better at English if ___________ .
As a side note, it's important to mention that there are some situations where both the first and second conditional are possible. It often depends on the speaker's attitude or perspective.
For example, let's talk about an iPhone:
If I buy an iPhone, I will sell my old phone.
In this case I'm using the First Conditional, which indicates that there's a real possibility I will buy an iPhone. But what if I don't want to buy a phone, and I only want to speak theoretically? In that case, I would use the Second Conditional:
If I bought an iPhone, I would sell my old phone.
Notice that the sentences are very similar, so the conditional tense can often indicate the speaker's attitude about the possibility. If you want more examples and summaries of the second conditional, check out this page or this page.
For more practice, listen to the song again and try to find some phrases that use the second conditional (there are a lot--remember that I would can be contracted to I'd). Here are the lyrics (I'll put the second conditional phrases at the end of this post so you can check your answers):
Beyoncé - "If I Were A Boy"
If I were a boy even just for a day
I'd roll out of bed in the morning
And throw on what I wanted and go
Drink beer with the guys
And chase after girls
I'd kick it with who I wanted
And I'd never get confronted for it
'Cause they'd stick up for me
If I were a boy
I think I could understand
How it feels to love a girl
I swear I'd be a better man
I'd listen to her
'Cause I know how it hurts
When you lose the one you wanted
'Cause he's taking you for granted
And everything you had got destroyed
If I were a boy
I would turn off my phone
Tell everyone it's broken
So they'd think that I was sleeping alone
I'd put myself first
And make the rules as I go
'Cause I know that she'd be faithful
Waiting for me to come home, to come home
If I were a boy
I think I could understand
How it feels to love a girl
I swear I'd be a better man
I'd listen to her
'Cause I know how it hurts
When you lose the one you wanted
'Cause he's taking you for granted
And everything you had got destroyed
It's a little too late for you to come back
Say it's just a mistake
Think I'd forgive you like that
If you thought I would wait for you
You thought wrong
But you're just a boy
You don't understand
And you don't understand, oh
How it feels to love a girl
Someday you'll wish you were a better man
You don't listen to her
You don't care how it hurts
Until you lose the one you wanted
'Cause you're taking her for granted
And everything you had got destroyed
But you're just a boy
How many second conditional phrases did you find? Many start with the phrase "If I were a boy," although she doesn't repeat the "if" clause or even the "I'd" for every result:
"If I were a boy... -I'd roll out of bed in the morning -(I'd) throw on what I wanted -(I'd) go drink beer with the guys"
"If I were a boy, I think I could understand how it feels to love a girl..."
For some of the instances, the people involved change:
"If I were a boy, I would turn off my phone, (and) tell everyone it's broken so they would think that I was sleeping alone."
"If you thoughtI would wait for you, you thought wrong."
And in some of the instances, the "if clause" is actually not even included; that's common with second conditional phrases, especially in songs:
"...you'll wish you were a better man"
Many other songs use second conditional phrases-- do you know of any others? I like Barenaked Ladies' "If I Had $1,000,000" and "If" by Red Hot Chili Peppers (but neither have videos).
So, that's it for now! As usual, if you have any questions or problems, please leave a comment below or contact me.
Thanks for reading, and check back soon for information about the thirdconditional-- yes, there's a third one, too! Have a great day!
Let me just say this now: EXTRA CREDIT to anyone who comes to class next week
wearing a Dirndl or Lederhosen!
Hi to everyone, but especially to my German students! I enjoyed our class this evening, and I'm excited that we'll be learning more together in the weeks to come. To help you study outside of class, I wanted to pass on a few links for you today:
Basic German
-One good place to go is this site on about.com. It really is a free, basic German course, but there are a lot of text ads along the way. There's not many pictures, either. One good thing about the site is that you can listen to any of the highlighted phrases just by clicking on them.
-A second option is actually the BBC's German learning site. It's got quite a lot in English, but it's a good way to move into German bit by bit.
-Finally, Deutsche Welle (which means "German Wave") is a famous international broadcaster based out of Germany. It has some basic German courses you can use online. Here's an "audio trainer" course with the instructions in Spanish (you can also find instructions in English or German).
About German and German-Speaking Countries
-There are many, many internet sites about Germany, the German language, and the German people, but two that seem pretty good are Germany.info and Young Germany. The first page is from the German embassy in the U.S. so it's in English. If you prefer Spanish you can go to the German Embassy in Costa Rica's page.
-If you want more information about tourism in Germany, check out this site.
-If you want to know more about "Die Schweiz," then try Swiss World or about.ch.
-If you prefer to learn about "Österreich," head to this page for general information or this page for tourist info.
-If you want to learn about Liechtenstein, that small country we mentioned in class, check here.
A lot of the information on those pages is available in English, German, and sometimes also Spanish.
Dictionaries, Verbs, the Alphabet, and Changing Between Keyboard Languages
-The dictionary I mentioned in class is LEO. They also have apps for smartphones, but it's probably easiest to get them by searching through your phone's store (like the Apple App Store or the Android Market).
-If you want a quick site for verb conjugations, this one is pretty good. It's a little weird about German letters, though. For example, if you want to find "heißen," you need to use the ß... it doesn't seem to recognize "heissen."
-If you want to add the possibility to easily type German letters on your keyboard, there are directions here. Just so you know, your keyboard will obviously look the same, but if you normally have an American English keyboard layout, the Ä key is the apostrophe (') key, the Ö key is the semi-colon (;) key, the Ü key is the left bracket ([) key, and the ß is the dash (-) key. If you have a Spanish keyboard layout, Ä is the accent key, Ö is the Ñ key, Ü is the weird downward accent key (`), and ß is the apostrophe (') key.
That sounds pretty confusing, but if you set up Windows to change between languages, it's really fast and easy once you get used to it (just click "Left Alt + Shift" to change languages in almost any program, including Word and web browsers like Firefox or Chrome).
-If you want to practice the alphabet, check out this site for pronunciation and this site for pronunciation plus a few songs. Here are the numbers if you want to practice them.
German Magazines and News
-Two of the most popular news magazines in Germany are Spiegel and Stern. Both are obviously in German, so they may be difficult if you're just beginning, but at least they have nice pictures and you can see how some world news is reported in Germany (it's also a good chance to notice many German-English cognates when reading headlines).
SO! That's a LOT of links. I'm sure that if you want to practice German, you'll be able to keep busy at least until next week. If any of the links are good, bad, or don't work, please tell me. Also feel free to mention any other links that you may know of, so that I can share them with the rest of the class.
"Taxi's" or "Taxis"? Read on to find out! (Photo Credit).
Hello everyone! It's been a while since we looked at a Common Error, but this is one that I've noticed a lot recently. Interestingly, it's a common error that advanced learners and even native English speakers make--the sign in the picture above was in England! The problem happens when you try to incorrectly make a word plural by adding 's (an apostrophe plus 'S').
Common Error: Incorrectly making a word "plural" by adding an "apostrophe + s"
DON’T say this:
When I teach young student's, I talk with their mother's and father's. The sign said it sold "ice cream, hot dog's, and hamburger's."
WHY?
-This is an easy error to correct and recognize:
-Generally, to make a regular noun plural, add "-s" or "-es."
-If you add "'s" (apostrophe + s) to the end of a word, it usually makes it possessive, not plural, or in some cases it may be a contraction of the word "is."
INSTEAD, SAY THIS:
-When I teach young students, I talk with their mothers and fathers.
-The sign said it sold "ice cream, hot dogs, and hamburgers."
-Mike's a great guy, and he can make delicious hamburgers. (Here, Mike's = "Mike is")
-Let's go to Mike's house. (Here, Let's = "let us," indicating a suggestion, and Mike's = the house belongs to Mike)
So, apostrophes can sometimes be a bit confusing, but remember that they're usually NOT used to make plurals! If you are comfortable reading advanced English, AnnaLisa has written a couple of posts about apostrophe use on her blog "Word-wise." The posts are very complete, so check them out if you can!
If you have any comments or questions, or especially if you have any suggestions for future Common Errors, please leave a message in the Comments section or contact us.
Hello everyone, and welcome to Mistake Sunday (Monday is going to be busy, so I'm posting this Common Error a day early)! Today's error is common for most of my Spanish-speaking students, since Spanish--and probably other languages, too--has a tendency to group people together under a "masculine" word. For example, if someone says "Tengo cuatro hermanos" ("I have four 'brothers'"), it's unclear if the speaker is referring only to males, or to males and females together.
English did and still does this, too, but it's not as common these days. Consider the phrase from the Declaration of Independence, "all men are created equal." That was obviously written hundreds of years ago, and today would probably read, "all men and women" or "all people." Nevertheless, this error is easy to recognize and correct, with a couple of good vocabulary words. Let's take a look:
Common Error: Confusing "Family" Words
DON’T say this:
Clark Kent lived with his fathers, Jonathan and Martha, before he became Superman. I'm going to visit my uncles Peter, Paul, and Mary during the vacation. We are seven brothers in my family, and I am one of the three girls.
WHY?
-If you are talking about two dads (both males, obviously), then you can use the word "fathers." If not, use the word "parents," which indicates men and/or women.
-Use "uncles" for men, but if you're including women, you have to use the phrase "aunt(s) and uncle(s)."
-For brothers and sisters together, use the word "siblings," which indicates brothers and/or sisters together.
-Finally, if you're talking about the number of people in your family, the phrase "we are" sounds strange. Instead, say something like "there are (3) of us" or "I have (2) siblings."
INSTEAD, SAY THIS:
-"Clark Kent lived with his parents, Jonathan and Martha, before he became Superman."
-"I'm going to visit my aunt Mary and my uncles Peter and Paul during the vacation."
-"There are seven siblings in my family, and I'm one of three girls." OR
-"My parents had seven children, including three girls."
So, I hope that was helpful! If you have any comments, questions, or suggestions for future Common Errors, please leave a message in the Comments section or contact us.
A few weeks ago we were looking at loanwords from other languages, including German. I said that I wanted to mention some similarities and differences between German and English, since I teach both languages and I'm hoping to start teaching a German class soon. So, that's what this post is about. If you're not interested, that's OK; I'll try to put up another English-learning post later this week. So, here we go:
"March 18th Plaza," in Berlin.
SIMILARITIES: History, Vocabulary, and Verbs
Historically, German and English came from the same language family. In fact, English is considered a "Germanic" language (click here for a language map and here for a cool graphic with more information). That means that many common words are similar in both languages. Some quick, easy examples are house/Haus, man/Mann, here/hier, and good/gut.
If you have a high level of vocabulary in English, you can also notice other similarities between the two languages. For example, the German word for "dog" is "Hund." That looks pretty different, but if you know that "hound" is another English word for "dog," then you can see the similarity. Similarly, "chair" is "Stuhl" in German; it looks very different, but it's pronounced quite similarly to "stool," a synonym for "chair." There are many more examples.
Another area where we notice both similarities and differences is grammar. In some ways, German grammar is horrible (trust me). Simply put, it's much more complicated than English grammar. Still, if you know that a verb is irregular in English, it's almost always irregular in German, too. For example, the English verb "to swim" is conjugated swim - swam - swum; in German, it's schwimmen - schwamm - geschwommen. That's obviously not exactly the same, but if you compare it to a Romance language like Spanish (nadar - nadé - nadado), then you can see English is quite a bit closer to German than Spanish.
Löschwassereinspeisung is a compound noun meaning "fire-fighting water feed-in."
DIFFERENCES: Grammar, Vocabulary, and Pronunciation
Before we look at the differences, I wanted to recommend a semi-famous article by Mark Twain called "The Awful German Language." It's a classic among German students, but even if you don't study German, it's pretty funny, and you can hopefully read it to appreciate the German language--while laughing a bit, also!
As you probably noticed, "vocabulary" was in the "similarities" category, too. That's because there are some similar words between English and German, but there are also many different words, as well as different word-forming patterns. As you can see in the picture above, German can sometimes have very long compound nouns. Some can get ridiculously long. Here's a fun one, since yesterday was Independence Day in the U.S.: Unabhängigkeitserklärung ("independence declaration"). Speaking of nouns, another characteristic of German is that the first letter in a noun is always capitalized; that's why Hund, Stuhl, and Unabhängigkeitserklärung are all written with a capital letter.
Another difference is definite and indefinite articles. These exist in English, but they're more complicated in German. The English definite article is "the," and the indefinite article is "a" or "an." But in German, the definite article can be der if the word is masculine, die if it's feminine, or das if it's "neuter." For example, Stuhl is masculine--don't ask me why, though!--so it's technically "der Stuhl," if the word is the subject of a sentence. If it's an object, itchanges to denStuhl. And it changes again if it's an indirect object and again if it's possessive. And that's just for the definite articles--the indefinite articles are a whole other problem! To make a long story short, there are between 6 and 12 ways to say the word "the" (depending on how you count).
You're probably thinking, "Wow, that's horrible! Aren't there any good differences between German and English?" Yes, there is at least one area where German is generally considered easier than English: Pronunciation. English pronunciation is notoriously difficult to master, but German is much more phonetic, and if you can figure out how to read some of those ridiculously long words, you can also probably pronounce them without too many problems. German does have a few different sounds and letters (Ö, Ü, and Ä, plus the ß, which is basically the same as "ss"), but once you learn what they sound like, they always sound the same way, which is convenient. Then you just need to work on accent reduction!
So, I think that's all for now. I could talk a long time about all this stuff, so I hope it was interesting for anyone who's made it this far. I also hope I've not scared you away from German forever! It's difficult, but also sort of fun if you learn it with the right attitude. If you've got any questions about English, German, or anything else, please feel free to say hi in the comments section or contact me.
Over the last week or so I've come across a few sites that I thought would be helpful for my readers learning English. One is TOEIC-related, and the other two are more about current news.
The first, English-Test.net, has some good practice exercises and tests to prepare for the TOEIC or other similar, standardized tests, like the TOEFL. It seems to have a lot of information, so it's probably good to spend some time exploring it.
Next, I also came across the PBS site called NOW. PBS is the public broadcasting network in the US, and this site has longer reports and videos about current events (for example, here's one about natural gas drilling in the USA).
So, check them out, and if you have any other links you've found lately, I'd love to hear from you in the comments section! Thanks for reading, and have a great weekend!
Hello, and happy Friday! I'm still planning on talking more about other languages' influence on English, but it's been a while since we've had a common error, so I wanted to share this one. I've heard my students make mistakes with words like bored/boring, excited/exciting, amazed/amazing, and other similar word combinations. Fortunately, this is an easy error to correct. Let's look:
Common Error: Bored vs. Boring, etc. (-ed vs. -ing)
DON’T say this:
I have been doing grammar exercises for an hour, so I'm very boring. The movie last night was very amazed. This Common Error is not very confused. Can you please play some relaxed music?
WHY?
For word pairs like these, just remember how to use the two endings:
-Use -ing at the end of the word if the subject causes the emotion.
For example, a movie can cause an emotion, but it can't experience an emotion (because it's not alive). So, we'd have to say:
"The movie was boring/exciting/interesting/etc."
-Use -ed at the end of the word if the subject experiences or feels the emotion.
For example, a person can experience an emotion, so you could say:
"John is bored/excited/confused/etc."
-BUT, a person can also cause an emotion (if he or she makes someone else experience that emotion). So, you could also possibly say:
"John is boring/exciting/confusing/etc."
...depending on what you want to express in your sentence.
Other similar word pairs include:
-annoyed/annoying
-depressed/depressing
-disappointed/disappointing
-embarrassed/embarrassing
-enchanted/enchanting
-fascinated/fascinating
-frightened/frightening
-frustrated/frustrating
-interested/interesting
-pleased/pleasing
-relaxed/relaxing
-shocked/shocking
-surprised/surprising
-tired/tiring
-worried/worrying
Can you think of any others?
INSTEAD, SAY THIS:
-"I have been doing grammar exercises for an hour, so I am very bored."
-"The movie last night was very amazing." -"This Common Error is not very confusing."
-"Can you please play some relaxing music?"
I hope that this Common Error isn't too confusing... and I also hope that you're not confused! If you have any comments or questions, please feel free to leave a comment or contact us. Thanks for reading, and have a great day!
Welcome to our final post about loanwords! We've previously talked about loanwords from French and Spanish, but I wanted to mention German loanwords. I studied German for nearly 10 years, and even though it's difficult, I really do like German.
Sauerkraut, anyone?
I didn't think so.
I originally was going to talk about how German is related to English, but I think that topic is much more complicated than just loanwords, so I'll talk about that in a different post in a day or two. Today let's just focus on German loanwords in English.
German and English share many historical similarities, so many vocabulary words are similar. However, the number of direct German loanwords in English is much smaller than the number of words from French or Spanish. (Click here for a partial list). There are a few areas where we can notice a higher concentration of German loanwords.
Like Spanish, German gave English some specialty words related to food; some examples are bratwurst, sauerkraut, delicatessen, schnitzel, and strudel. There are also words related to technology, such as autobahn, wunderkind and ersatz. Also, it's interesting to note German's contribution to philosophical and psychological vocabulary, with words such as gestalt,realpolitik, angst, and zeitgeist.
Unfortunately, many German words migrated into English as a result of World War II, and as a consequence they have an association with Nazis and/or war in general. Such words include blitzkrieg, fuehrer, lebensraum, flak and even Nazi (an abbreviation of "Nationalsozialist").
However, it's not all gloom and doom (or Sturm und Drang, if you prefer). German has many great words that made it into English, so here I present you with my list of...
Ryan's Top 7 German Loanwords in English*:
7. kindergarten: Literally meaning "children-garden," it makes going to school seem fun. Now I suspect it may have just been a trick.
6. poltergeist: It means "banging spirit." In other words, call the Ghostbusters.
5. kitsch: A dismissive word used to indicate something is tacky or uncool.
4. kaput: A synonym of "broken."
3. gesundheit: It literally means "health," but it's what you say when someone sneezes.
2. schadenfreude: It means "misfortune-pleasure," but it's a word to describe the sensation of being happy when bad things happen to other people. Very German.
1. wanderlust: Not as funny as "schadenfreude," but it's nicer. It means the desire to wander or travel.
Can you think of any others? What are your favorite loanwords, either from German or any other language? Please share your thoughts in the comments section!
So, that's it for today. Since we're already talking about German, I'll write a post in a few days exploring some similarities and differences between German and English, just in case you're interested. Thanks for reading, and have a great day!
*A few of these words are spelled differently in German (like kaput/kaputt), and in German all of them except kaput would start with a capital letter, since German nouns are capitalized.
