To avoid losing the depth and the complete meaning of the words, in the German grammar you will find very often words made from the addition of other words. Zum Beispeil “Fahrrad” that means bicycle: “Fahr” is the act to drive and “Rad” means wheel.

There are a lot of words in German that are easy to memorize because they are logical. For example the word rhinitis. According to the dictionary, rhinitis is a mucosal inflammation of the nose. The German word for that is Nasenschleimhautentzündung and if you split the words “Nase” is nose, “schleim” is mucous membrane and “entzündung” is inflammation.

Here are some words that follow the same rules:

Fußwegübergangen – if you translate the word it is something more or less like the place where you walk to cross the street.

Wochenende – “Woche” = week and “ende” = end à Weekend

Weihnachtsbaum – “ Weihnachts” = Christmas and „baum“ = tree à Christmas tree

Geschirrspülmaschine – „Geschirr“ = dishes, „spül“ = wash and „maschine“ is machine à machine to wash dishes

wiedersehen – „wieder“ = again and „sehen“ is to see à see you again

Gabi

Como conhecer bem o Brasil em dez dias? Como selecionar alguns destinos diante de opções fantásticas e tão variadas como sobrevoar as Cataratas do Iguaçu (PR), visitar uma tribo indígena na Ilha do Bananal (TO), saltar de asa-delta da Pedra da Gávea (RJ), apreciar o pôr-do-sol em Bonito (MS) ou explorar o Museu da Língua Portuguesa (SP)? Felizmente, com este livro as coisas ficaram mais fáceis.

O livro da Editora Globo foi concebido a partir de dicas enviadas pelos internautas pelo site do Fantástico programa exibido pela emissora Rede Globo do Brasil. A partir das idéias enviadas foram criados os textos dizendo onde ficam esses lugares, porque é interessante visitá-los e quais as informações práticas para quem quer conhecê-los.

Para facilitar a consulta, os 1000 lugares são apresentados em ordem alfabética, numerados de forma crescente. Para ajudar a localização geográfica, nas páginas iniciais estão os mapas das cinco regiões do país, acompanhados da relação de lugares pertencentes a cada região e em que Estado estão localizados.

A publicação é ricamente ilustrada por fotos e mapas. Uma vez que o livro comtempla uma diversidade muito grande de atrações como praias, museus, teatros, cachoeiras, igrejas, açudes, cada lugar é precedido por um ícone que identifica o tipo de atração que representa.

1000 Lugares Fantásticos no Brasil reúne dados dos locais, curiosidades, informações históricas, culturais, geográficas e até esportivas.

Se você está pensando em ir para o Brasil mas não tem idéia dos lugares que pode visitar e está afim de fazer um mochilão percorrendo todo os país, esse é o seu guia! Boa viagem e aproveite as riquezas que o país tem a oferecer.

Gabi

German and English are closely related and have many words in common. And the bad news? German and English are closely related and have many words in common.

Any English-speaker learning German should be aware of this fact. But sometimes things are not what they seem to be. Among the many words the two languages have in common lurk the so-called “false friends.” Linguistic false friends can be just as dangerous as the human variety. These treacherous words pretend to be something they aren’t. They can lead to embarrassment, or if you’re lucky, just laughter.

False friends, more accurately known as “false cognates,” are particularly prevalent in the two Germanic languages English and German. Because the two languages are such close relatives, they have a lot of words that look and sound alike or very similar. The innocent variety includes word pairs such as: begin/beginnen, house/Haus, garden/Garten, brown/braun, father/Vater, and summer/Sommer. There are many of these genuine cognates, and any language learner should use them to advantage.

The genuine cognates can be just as helpful for a German learning English as for an American learning German. But the false ones can also be a hidden danger going both ways. (There are many German books warning of such dangers in learning English.) Whether they are called “confusing words,” “false friends,” “words to watch out for,” or anything else, false cognates are something a language-learner must always be aware of. It’s too easy to fall into the trap.

So, just what are we talking about, actually (aktuell)? Eventually (eventuell), we have to be brave (brav) and face the problem (Problem).

Das ist sehr sehr schön oder???? – Wir sagten

Sie wurden klein Monsters!!! – Janina  sagten

Studying only a month with Janina and we became little monsters! It is funny how we can learn and memorize easily new things if we have a funny history behind the word or sentence.

Until I started on A2.2 course at Deutschakademie I was not used to say a lot of words and expressions that now are part of my German vocabulary thanks to Janina, my teacher.

In a different way of teaching she could make us to learn a bunch of new things that for sure we will never forget. Using gestures, funny face expressions and movements with the body she transformed us in little monsters because now we repeat it all the time and use them naturally in our sentences.

Here are some of the new things that we learned:

–          Nicht schlecht oder???

–          Das ist sehr sehr sehr shön!

–          Tut mir leid. Tut mir sehr leid aber das ist Deutsch.

–          Noch mal bitte?

–          Reflexiv Verben! Upasana??

–          Rrrrrrrrrelaxa gata! (Ok, this was not her idea but we had a lot of fun with this Brazilian way of speaking)

Thanks for everything Janina and bis Januar!

Gabi

Let’s take advantage of this Christmas spirit where people are more sensitive, friendly and emotional to philosophy a bit.

Do you believe that you are never in a place by chance? That every little step that you took in your whole life brought you to where you are today and made of you who you are today?

One curious fact is that if you analyze a group of people who works at the sample place for example, you will realize that each single person made different choices in life and follow different ways but that all of these choices took them to the same place. Besides each particular step that was taken all of them converged to the sample place at the end.

What brought people from Brazil, Italy, Mexico, Germany, Peru, Romania and Turkey to the same place at the same time? There was an important decision that we all made in the past that was crucial to decide our future or a lot of facts together brought us to where we are today?

When we are young our parents take some decisions sometimes for us and we get so angry because we don’t agree but at the end we just have to thank them for leading us the right way. I really would like to thank everyone who was part of my story so far and somehow helped me to be who I am today and to reach what I reach until today.

Gabi

Each country has its own culture, language, way of living, typical foods, dance and music and way of celebrating the New Year’s Eve. Besides the huge differences between people, there are some things that connect millions and millions of people at the end of the year: The New Year’s superstitions.

During a talk with some friends we realize that many superstitions are common for a lot of countries:

–          If your wish is to travel, run around your house with an empty suitcase.

–          Put some raw lentils in your pocket to bring money for the incoming year.

–          If you are in the beach, jump three waves and make a wish.

–          Eat three grapes for good luck.

–          Use different colors of underwear to bring love (red), peace (white), money (yellow)…

–          Eating peas will bring luck for the incoming year. If you also have cabbage in your plate, you will have even more luck!

–          Change the bed sheet on the first day of the year so you can leave the problems and the bed things in the washing machine.

If your country has any different superstitions share with your colleges!

Gabi

You never realize that you have a particular way to say some words or that there is a word that you say quite often, if someone doesn`t come to you and start to imitate you.

Everyone has its own characteristics and different ways of speaking and expressing his/herself and this becomes even clear when you live in an international environment. The accent, gestures, face expressions and body language are really different from person to person.

There are some people who say “This is tchuuu mãch for me!” or even “Like Ãnestly”. Others just ask us to do it “Properly and stop bullshiting around (moving the hands in circles-very important!)” and “Vér are ví goiiiing guys? Vér?”. There is also the kind of friend who looks so serious and when you ask him something, he just moves his ears (yes! His ears), his eyebrows and say “Nooooo, it is ok Philly. I don’t miiiind” or when you do something really tricky “Triiiiiiicky giiiiiiiiiiiiiirl”!

The funny thing is that if you see those people everyday somehow you absorb these expressions to your life and when you realize you are speaking just like them and now they can make fun of you as well!

Do you or your friends have a particular way to behave or say something? Share with us!

Gabi

Du musst Deustsch sprechen! Du musst Deustsch sprechen!

I decided that the best way to practice German is to dive very deep into the language: listen German radio (z. B antenne Bayern), read die Zeitung in the train, practice with friends, take lessons from your boss/supervisor and even deeper than this! To memorize the prepositions “zwichen, auf, an, hinter, vor, unter, über…” what about sticking in your toilet a poster so you can read while you are in a… what I call ”meditation moment”?!

Gabi

If you have nothing to do at 5 PM in a Friday and you are an intern without any supervisors around what can you do but an ICE CREAM AFTERNOON??

It doesn’t matter if the recipe asks for pasteurized fluid milk and you have only skimmed milk powder, or if you need a milk cream with 30% of fat but you have the one with 10% or even if you need to use a glucose syrup but you only have powder dextrose. The best inventions were born like this: put a bit of this, a bit of that let it rest for a couple of days and tchaaaaaanã! That’s how two wonderful things in life were invented: beer and chocolate =)

After putting inside your ice cream all the ingredients that you found in your shelves it is time to invite all your friends and EAT!!!!

Gutten apetit!

Making a mess everytime that you need to choose one “artikel” for the german substantives?! When is die you say das, when is das you say der and so on…..

Here are some tips that our amazing teacher gave us to help to choose the articles. They are very useful!

• Feminina

All the substantives ended in keit, heit, in, ung, tät, ion, schaft, ei and ur are ALWAYS feminin. The words ended with “e” are 80% of the times feminin.

• Maskulina

All the substantives ended in ant, ist, ismus, or and ling are ALWAYS masculin. The substantives ended in “er” are 90% of the times masculin.

• Neutra

The substantives ended in chen, lein, um and ment.

Gabi