introducing your course of study

you should make sure everybody understands what it is really about, otherwise you might end up with someone asking you:

"Your course is a main course, right?"

deutsches blabla - schweres blabla

Ein Hoch auf deutsche Facebookwerbung....

Ein gutes neues Jahr!

An nou fericit! šťastný nový rok! naya saal Mubarak Ho! शुभं नववर्षम्! !سنة سعيدة Urime viti i Ri! Feliz Ano Novo! Felice Anno Nuovo! Mutlu Yıllar! ¡Feliz Año Nuevo! BONNE ANNÉE! Sretna Nova godina! Blwyddyn Newydd Dda! Kiortame pivdluaritlo! Onnellista Uutta Vuotta! Boldog Ooy Ayvet! Sanah Jadidah! Laimīgo Jauno Gadu! laimingų naujųjų metų! Godt Nyttår! C Новым Годом! 圣诞快乐并贺新禧!есела Коледа и щастлива Нова година!Καλά Χριστούγεννα κι Ευτυχισμένος ο Καινούριος Χρόνος! חג מולד שמח ושנה טובה クリスマス、新年おめでとうございます schöni Wiehnachte und es guets Neus! เมอรี่คริสต์มาส และสวัสดีปีใหม่ a freydikn nitl un a gor freylekhn nay-yor!

tintinnabulations

... and then tell me only germans create long, weird words..

What does it mean to you?

Being in the middle of the European Championships, the issue of patriotisms surfaced again. It's a part of culture that feels a bit strange to me, and I wonder how you feel about it. Should one be patriotic, and why (or why not)? And what classifies as it?

In this sense, I invite you (even ask you) to share your ideas on the matter with me. To get started, I will attach an extract from a dictionary.

if you flee, do it properly

after getting the simple past wrong for long enough, I decided to look it up.. if you flee you at least want to make sure to not leave a bad impression, don't you?

to lie or to lie? it's just not the same...

Seeing that there were quite some heated discussions about lying in the grass, why/if people were supposed to lie with someone and later lie about it, I decided to dedicate this post to the issue.
As usual dictionary.com is my friend and helper, and for some of you hopefully this will bring order in your troubled mind wondering if your lying was of a proper and/or decent nature.
Enjoy :)

Kryptographie

Anscheinend ist es jetzt Mode geworden, sogar veröffentlichte Texte wüstest zu 'verschlüsseln'. Dieser Eintrag macht mich buchstäblich sprachlos, denn solcher Urwuchs im Sprachengarten spricht der Schreiberin schon fast die Kompetenz zu dessen Pflege ab. In Anbetracht solcher Verwüstung/Verwirrung scheint jede Diskussion über Sprachreformen obsolet, denn bei einem Fehlen jeglicher Logik kann man vom Verständnis von Regeln nur träumen.
Mein Beileid jedem Deutschlehrer ;)

Mit diesem Hintergrund überrascht es auch nicht mehr, dass laut einer Studie Einwanderer oft besser ausgebildet sind, als die hiesigen EU-Bürger. Denn wenn man nicht einmal seine eigene Sprache im Griff hat, wie soll man sich an nur annähernd komplexere Gedankengänge heranwagen?

Flüsterpost

When I was a kid, we used to play this game of which the name is put together from 'flüstern' = 'whisper' and 'post' which is like 'mail'. The idea is rather straightforward, someone says a word into the ear of someone else who whispers it to the next and so on.. the last one has to say out loud what he understood... usually it is marginally phonetically related to what the first one said and everybody is very amused about it.

On the other hand, this can serve as a very good example of how messages, rumors, stories, etc. can transform through lack of attention. In the end something similar comes through, however, it's usually not quite the same..

When clearing up my room, I found some nice examples of this phenomenon in the form of quotes of student's exam mishaps. The nicest ones refer to some biblical stories that come across from slightly strange to miraculously amazing..

Let's start from the beginning:
"The Bible is full of interesting caricatures. In the first book of the Bible, Guinnessis, Adam and Eve where created from an apple tree. One of their children, Cain, asked: "Am I my brothers son?"

- This is already kinda unexpected, a book full of caricatures.. But not only this, it also starres interesting evolutionary evidence, involving the development step from an apple tree to fully fledged people.. rather amazing I would say, however, who knows what can happen if a lot of Guinness is involved..

Also, other countries - other customs.. Which probably justifies the following:
"Solomon had three hundred wives and seven hundred porcupines."

But let the miracles continue:
"Moses led the Hebrew slaves to the Red Sea, where they made unleavened bread which is bread made without any ingredients. Moses went up on Mount Cyanide to get the ten commandmends. He died before he ever reached Canada."

In fact, we should not only be surprised about all these wonderful stories but about the fact that, according to the following statement, the bible is not even half as old as we thought:
"It was an age of great inventions and discoveries. Gutenberg invented removable type and the Bible. Another important invention was the circulation of blood. Sir Walter Raleigh is a historical figure because he invented cigarettes and started smoking. And Sir Francis Drake circumcised the world with a 100 foot clipper."

What can you say more?

Curiosities

Playing on freerice is very entertaining, cause sometimes it brings along words of whose existence you could have never dreamed of...

One example I just came accross is the world 'nosegay'.. Never heard of it and sounds rather strange to me...

Could you have guessed that in fact it is not at all related to anything illegal or indecent but just means 'bouquet', so literally refers to something that pleases ones nose? (Taken the original meaning of 'gay' this seems actually quite reasonable.. but as language goes, the semantics shift around a bit, causing the odd confusion ;)

presents?? presenting??

ok, after endless discussions i finally looked it up and i have to admit that 'to present' can be used for expressing 'to give someone a gift'. HOWEVER (for all of you, who have been rejoicing too much now) it is not used as in 'present something to someone' (which rather sounds like introducing someone to their present...'pleased to meet you..') but like 'to present someone with something'....

enjoy also all the other variants where this nice verb can be used:


(taken from www.dictionary.com)