Wednesday, March 2, 2011

German Words I've Learned

Here are some of the words I've learned in German. You'll see it's not many! And no guarantee that they are spelled correctly at all!

  1. Drucken. The first word I learned. It means "push". As in, push open a door. The opposite is "Zeihel". All the doors here have pull handles on both sides. I just can't get the hang of it. My co-worker Craig apparently has a better engineering degree than I do and said he looks at the hinges, so that is helping, but it's a problem. Again, one of the little things I like about the US - different style handles for "push" and "pull" sides of the door. 
  2. Weizen Bier. Wheat beer. There is a dunkel Weizen (dark wheat beer), lieght (or something like that) weizen (light wheat beer) and hefeweisen (somewhere in between). 
  3. Prost. Cheers. As taught by some random old man in a bar. But I did confirm the meaning with people at work to make sure it wasn't some sort of bad word!
  4. Damen. Women. As in, which bathroom to use. And Herron, as in the other bathroom to avoid!
  5. WC. Restroom. Easy enough. But it's pronounced "Veet cee," almost. So if you go into a gas station trying to get the key to the outdoor restroom the best bet is to ask for the toilet. That's universal. 
  6. Danke. Thanks. 
  7. Salat. Salad. And "mit" is with, so on a menu if I want to make sure to get some sort of vegetable I can go for something that says "mit salat"
  8. Radler. Wheat beer mixed with lemonade. Really good, actually! Or that may be a Russo. I honestly don't remember which is wheat beer with lemonade and which is regular beer with lemonade. 
  9. Cola Weizen. Wheat beer mixed with coke. Not so good, in my opinion. It probably didn't help that I asked for diet coke. I'm not sure why so many of the words I know have to do with beer!
  10. Malhzeit. This is my favorite German word! It essentially means "Happy lunchtime" as far as I can tell. According to Google Translate it just means mealtime, but it's the greeting people use around lunchtime. It can be a question, like "time to go to lunch?" or just a greeting as you pass someone at lunchtime. I think we need a "happy lunchtime" greeting in the US!
I know I've learned more than that, but that's all I can think of right now and it's bedtime! :)

1 comment:

  1. Looks like you've learned enough to navigate lunchtime and happy hour!

    ReplyDelete