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Christian Holidays are often public holidays in Germany, so these are good words to know whether you're non-religious, atheist, agnostic, or religious.

The schedule carries over into school and school breaks, too. One of my clients is currently on Osterferien, Easter Holidays, and doesn't have school this week or next.

This week is Karwoche, or Holy Week, and in a non-pandemic year there would be much singing of the Bach Passions: the Matthäus-Passion (St. Matthew Passion), the Johannes-Passio…

The Plusquamperfekt is a form of the past tense in German.

It's generally reserved for high intermediate and advanced learners at levels B2 and C1.

If you're not there yet, I recommend you save this blog post for later.

The remainder of this blog post is in German, as is the explanation video.

Das Plusquamperfekt ist sehr hilfreich, wenn Sie über zwei verschiedene Ereignisse reden wollen, und beide bereits passiert sind.

Es kann viel Spaß machen, wenn Sie das Plusquamperfekt bilden und au…

Almost all of the people who sign up for private German lessons have already run into German verbs and their conjugations.

When we get to the Perfekt (the present perfect or spoken past tense), it's always interesting to hear what they think of it so far.

Here are a few of the top questions people have asked me about learning the Perfekt:

1. Are these regular or irregular verbs?

2. What's the difference between them?

3. What's the pattern for these verbs? And for these verbs? And f…

When you first learn German - or first start learning German - you say everything in the present tense. You learn only a little bit of the past tense, mainly the two verbs here, and then later you learn the Perfekt, or the spoken past tense (Ich bin gefahren. Wir haben ein Buch gelesen.).

This is the order you would ideally learn everything in:

Present tense --> these two verbs --> a bunch of the Perfekt

If you learn the past tense in any other order than that, it is out of order.

No excepti…

Here is a short exercise for you to practice two separable verbs in German: einatmen and ausatmen.

You may have noticed these two verbs in a blog post earlier this month, and to help you learn them even better, you'll use them in this exercise.

This may be the most relaxing German separable verbs exercise you'll find on the interwebs.

Here are the instructions in German. Scroll down to the flower to read the instructions in English.

Hier ist ein kurzes Audio für Sie.

Zuerst hören Sie «Ich…

Today you get to learn separable verbs (trennbare Verben) just like one of my German clients!

This is a technique I've used with dozens of German learners and it makes separable verbs a kinaesthetic exercise--and that in two different ways.

You'll need print out or write out some cards, and to have one supply to have ready when you start the video.

Los geht's!

Step 1: Print out or make these cards of trennbare Verben

Download this PDF of 4x6 cards and print them.

If you can't print them, …

Separable verbs are not hard to understand, however learning to use them takes practice and time.

For the purposes of this first section, we'll use two separable verbs in the present tense – so we'll use them to talk about now.

Right now.

A separable verb (in German: ein trennbares Verb, plural: trennbare Verben) is a verb that requires you to do three things :

1. remove the prefix from the verb

2. conjugate what's left

3. tack the prefix on to the end of the sentence.

That's…

Meet the Milwaukee Pretzel Company!

They make pretzels--German pretzels!

They make them here in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

You can have them shipped to you!

These are the best pretzels I've eaten outside of Germany.

When you visit one of their stands here in Milwaukee you'll likely have a chance to eat their Obatzda, which is a delicious, Bavarian cheese specialty made with camembert, butter, a splash of beer, onion, and paprika. And yes, their Obatzda is also the best Obatzda I've had outside…

Plus one immune booster used often in Germany.

Being sick is a drag in any language. Your throat gets scratchy, it hurts, you get all phlegmy...you feel awful, you're tired, and you miss out on work, time with your friends, your family. What a drag.

Now more than ever we've become aware of taking very good care of ourselves when we get sick. Here are a couple of German lozenges you might not have heard of that are excellent to have on hand.

You can order them from the Smallflower.com Apotheca…

One of the hardest parts of shopping for authentic German food is actually your location. If you don't live near a city with a German supermarket or your supermarket doesn't carry international products, it can be difficult to shop for them.

Plus there are no surprises when you shop for it all yourself. Why not enjoy a surprise now and then?

What if you could get a box of authentic German products shipped to your door every month and each month it's a surprise? New products, different items, a…