At the end of the year a lot of Germans use the phrase zwischen den Jahren. Between the years?! That's not possible!

Or is it?

There are two things you need to know about this phrase zwischen den Jahren.

1. It's a real thing.

A lot of German offices shut down on Heiligabend (Christmas Eve) and don't open again until after Neujahr (New Year's Day). That means all their everything must be done on December 23rd! Since they won't be back to work until the new year has begun, then they have finis…

Amended: This post now includes 8 Easy German Book recommendations for A1-level learners,
3 from adult literature and 5 from youth literature.

All of the books listed here are A1 books, however if you look in a bookstore, make sure you look for an emblem or a marking with "A1" on it. No matter where you buy it, I recommend you purchase a physical copy so you can take notes in the book and also so you can use the included audio/mp3 download with the book.

These are books I recommend for you fo…

and make German a part of your everyday life.

Sometimes it amazes me how quickly people can pick up German words and sentence structure, even though they've never been to Germany and haven't learned German before.

Clients come to a lesson and they have no idea what German bread tastes like, but they can talk about German breakfast: das Brot, die Marmelade, der Kaffee.

It can be a source of frustration, however, to learn German, but only to have all these North American elements around us:  sp…

As a little gift to you for Hanukkah this year, here are some printable flashcards on Judaism and Hannukah auf Deutsch!

What's fascinating about many vocabulary words for Judaism and Hanukkah in German is how strikingly similar they are to the English words. "Kosher" is simply spelled "Koscher," for example, and simply reflects the German spelling ("sch") as opposed to the English ("sh").

Here are the flashcards for general terms on "Das Judentum in Deutschland." (Judaism in Germany) This PDF …

The W-Fragen in German are question words.

They are also known as 'open-ended questions. In English the W-Fragen also begin 'w':  who, what, when, where, why, and how.

You begin learning the W-Fragen at the A1 level in German.

(These questions are different from the ja/nein Fragen or yes/no questions in German begin with the verb ("Arbeiten Sie heute?" "Kommen Sie aus Bayern?").)

In most books you usually see a list like this, it's just the German and English translations. But is that really…

Für Geld gibt es im Deutschen gaaanz viele Wörter. Wie viele kennen Sie schon?

There are sooo many words for "Geld" (Money) in German. How many do you know already?

Nehmen Sie sich eine Minute und schreiben Sie so viele Wörter für Geld, die Sie kennen. Mit diesen drei können Sie anfangen:

Geld, Cash, Kohle ...

 Also, hier gibt's einige, sowie eine kurze Erklärung zu den jeweiligen Vokabeln.

Here are a few synonyms, as well as a short explanation to each of these vocabulary words.

"Das mache ich gern."

"Ich gehe gern schwimmen."

oder

"Das mache ich gerne."

"Ich gehe gerne schwimmen."

Was ist eigentlich der Unterschied?! Sagt man eigentlich "gern" oder "gerne"? Gute Frage!

Man kann entweder "gern" oder "gerne" sagen--es macht praktisch keinen Unterschied. Je nach dem, was Sie sagen wollen, können Sie frei wählen, ob Sie "gern" oder "gerne" sagen möchten.

You can use either "gern" or "gerne" in German, it doesn't really make a difference. Depending on the sente…

IKEA Germany advertises with a catchy slogan:

Wohnst du noch, oder lebst du schon?

Are you still living, or are you already living?

Sehr lustig.

This works in German since wohnen ≠ leben. But the difference is significant. Here's how to tell the difference between wohnen and leben and which one to use when.

wohnen

"wohnen" is used for short-term situations.

"Ich wohne bei meinen Eltern" ...because I'm at home for the summer.

"Ich wohne bei einer Freundin" ...because I'm waiting for m…

"Kennen" is not the same as "wissen" and it can be very confusing trying to tell the two apart.

Here you will learn what "kennen" means, what "wissen" means, and finally how to tell the difference.

There are example sentences, too, and I highly recommend you grab your German notebook and write them down so you can refer back to them later.

kennen

Ich kenne... is for things you can get to know. You might not have always known your German friend Marius, however you got to know him once, which …

An "Elfchen" is similar to a Haiku in that it has a set form, however it is unique in that it has 11 words, the lines having 1-2-3-4-1 words, respectively.

It always has this form (replace each number with a word):

one

one two

one two three

one two three four

one

The first word is the topic and the final word is often a commentary or a summary word. Here’s one I wrote for my student’s Valentine’s Day (Valentinstag!) lesson last night:

Liebe

bewegsam

grosse Gefühle

veraendert das Her…