Friday, February 25, 2011

Supplement: More Jobs ;o)

Sorry, that you had to wait so long for this next post but I was busy doing stuff for school. That sucks! Anyways here are some more professions I consider noteworthy. Some of them just came to my mind in the last days, others were mentioned in the comments of the last post - thanks for the feedback!

German English
Arbeitslos unemployed
Buchhalter accountant
Künstler artist
Programmierer programmer
Hausfrau housewife
Hausmann househusband
Mutter Mother
Löwenbändiger lion tamer
Hacker hacker
Pfarrer minister
Richter judge
Meeresbiologe marine biologist
Informations Technologie   information technology

The last one is especially for for Chris ;)
Still, if you have any requests or if you want a topic to be covered with some vocab, just post it in the comments!

Sunday, February 20, 2011

Lesson 4: Vocabulary: jobs

Since you already learned how to introduce yourself and  how to tell about your job in lesson 2, here are some professions you might use in tis context:

German English
Anwalt attorney
Apotheker chemist
Arzt doctor
Astronaut astronaut
Autor/in author/ess
Bäcker baker
Bauarbeiter construction worker
Bauer farmer
Bergarbeiter miner
Bestattungsunternehmer undertaker
Biologe biologist
Busfahrer bus driver
Chirurg surgeon
Dachdecker roofer
Elektriker electrician
Feuerwehrmann fireman
Fleischer butcher
Fliesenleger tiler
Florist/in florist
Forscher research scientist
Friseur hairdresser
Gärtner gardener
Glaser glazier
Hausmeister caretaker
Ingenieur engineer
Jäger hunter
Kellner/in waiter/waitress
Kindergärtnerin nursery-school teacher
Klempner plumber
Koch cook
Kosmetikerin beautician, cosmetician
Krankenschwester nurse
Lehrer/in teacher
Maler painter
Maurer bricklayer, brickie
Mechaniker mechanic
Modell fashion model
Physiotherapeut/in physiotherapist
Pilot pilot
Polizist/in policeman/policewoman
Sänger/in vocalist
Schäfer/in shepherd/ess
Schauspieler/in actor/actress
Schornsteinfeger chimney sweep
Sekretärin secretary
Taxifahrer cab driver
Techniker engineer
Tierarzt vet
Tischler carpenter
Trainer trainer
Verkäufer/in shop assistant
Zahnarzt dentist
Zoologe zoologist

If your profession is missing, just write it in the comments!

Friday, February 18, 2011

Yahoo! New domain!

Yahoo! WE have a new domain, from now on you can also reach this blog under
Also, I will take requests. If you know any topic you want some vocabulary about or a particular word/sentence you want me to translate, just write it in the comments!

Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Tip for the pronounciation

If you have trouble with the pronounciation of particular words, i just found something that could possibly help you.

Go to http://www.dict.cc/, type the word you are looking for in the search bar and press enter. Now, it will show the word and it's English translation in a table, with a speaker-sign next to each one. Click on it and you can hear the word you were looking for read out loud by a member of the dict.cc community.
There is also a Plugin for Google's  Chrome browser, so that you can look up the words quicker.

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Lesson 3: How to say 'hello' and 'good bye'.

The proper German word for 'hello' is
'Hallo!'
but 'Hi' or 'Hey' are also used frequently

If you want to greet someone in a more polite way you say:
'Guten Tag.'
which means 'good day', you can also change 'Tag' to 'Morgen'(morning) or 'Abend'(evening).

Guten Tag can also be used to say goodbye, but there are also other ways:

Tschüss! (bye)
Bis bald/dann! (roughly: See you soon/later)
Auf Wiedersehen. (means roughly: let's see each other again)

Another way, which ist especially used in southern Germany and Austria is
'Grüß Gott.'
Which literally means'Salute God' and has the meaning of 'god bye' as well as 'hello'

Monday, February 14, 2011

Lesson 2: How to say 'What is your name?' in German

In Germany there are three common ways to ask for someone's name.

Wie heißt du?
This literally means 'How are you called?', the appropriate response is:

Ich heiße ______ (name).

Also, you can say:
Wie ist dein Name?
This is word by word 'What is your name?'. The answer to this question is:

Mein Name ist ______(name).

Another way to ask for someone's name is:
Wer bist du?
It actually means 'Who are you?' and in the answer to this question you can put some additional info about yourself, eg. your job:

Mein Name  _____ (name), ich bin _____ (job, etc.).

In the most cases, you can use any of these answers to respond to all of these questions, so you can talk more diversified.

Wednesday, February 9, 2011

Lesson 1: Pronounciation

If you want to learn German you will first of all have to know the German pronounciation which is slightly different to the English. As learning how to speak the words is hard if you do it just by reading, I found this video which, in my opinion explains the German pronounciation quite well. It also includes the umlauts ä-ö-ü, which are quite hard for most foreigners and the most difficult letter constellation "ch".
good luck ;)