"Bald ist Nikolausabend da! Bald ist Nikolausabend da!" (rough translation: Fun, fun, tralalala, soon it will be the evening before St. Nikolaus Day! Soon it will be the evening before St. Nikolaus Day!”) If you are like me, this song has been stuck in your head all...
The GW Expat Blog
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German language
An American in America
Even though it's the twentieth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall I won't be addressing the relevant and memorable occasion in this post as fellow blogger Hyde already has. Instead I will be addressing the other side of the Wall. Far west of East Berlin in...
The Instant Expat
Because I have to go back to work earlier than anticipated thanks to the recession, we had to think about childcare for the little ones earlier than anticipated. With two kids under three, daycare (Kinderkrippe) was not an option due to the cost involved. Although an...
Zwetschgen and the end of summer in Germany
Here in Baden-Württemberg the school year begins again this week. While my children are not yet school age, we've been enjoying rituals associated with this time of year: a last visit to the Freibad (outdoor public pool), buying closed toe shoes for autumn/winter and...
The dreaded “Materialliste”
If you have children in school here in Germany, at some point, either at the end of one school year or the beginning of the next, your child will hand you a meager piece of paper called a Materialliste, which is exactly what it sounds like, a list of supplies for the...
German banking (and credit cards) for beginners
Notice! This older blog post has been replaced by a new German Way article. This deprecated blog post will be deleted soon. When I was traveling in France recently, I rediscovered some of the differences among the European countries in the area of banking and credit...
Raising a Native “Shpeaker”
My daughter Vera is now a few months older than two, and like many parents, my husband and I have been marvelling and taking delight over her speech development. Like so many German Way readers, we are doing our best to raise her multilingually and have gone the route...
The Expat Trap
As I write this, I've been living in Germany for about two years. From time to time I meet up with other English-speakers in cafes or restaurants just to get that "fix" of speaking my native tongue at full speed complete with cultural references and a chance to drop...
The downside of English as the universal language
Why is it that many Anglophones seriously consider going to Germany to work when they have zero German skills? A German would never for an instant think that he/she could go to Britain or the United States to work without knowing English well. So why would it be OK...
You Can Du Me: The Du/Sie Question
The question of du or Sie, informal versus formal "you," is a perennial one for expats in a place like Germany. Many European languages make a linguistic distinction based on interpersonal relationships. These distinctions have fallen out of use in modern English....
Airing Out a German Phobia: The Killer Draft
One definition of a split second: the time it takes between opening a window on a hot train and hearing a German say the two most dreaded words in the German language: "Es zieht!" ("There's a draft!") In the summer on German trains, in the days before most were air...
Tatort
One of my favorite German-made TV shows is "Tatort". In general, I am not a TV kind of person. Most of the time I would just prefer to read a book while my husband zaps through the channels. But Sunday nights at 8:15 (which is when prime-time shows come on here), you...
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