Albany, CA - In our time living abroad in Switzerland, I learned a very little amount of German. German is a confusing and wonderful language and I'll take you on a brief journey of the things I learned. Compound Words German is famous for its compound words, of which there are many. In fact, once you know a decent amount of root words, you can sometimes figure out the meaning of new words just by breaking the word apart into its various components. For example: dafur: da (there) fur (for) - therefore Zahnfleisch: Zahn (tooth) fleisch (meat) - gums Zahnarzt: Zahn (tooh) arzt (doctor) - Dentist The Zeugs: there are a number of these... flugzeug: flug (flight) zeug (thing) - airplane fahrzeug - fahr (drive) zeug (thing) - vehicle feuerzeug - feuer (fire) zeug (thing) - lighter Spielzeug - spiel (play) zeug (thing) - toy Tongue Twisters German is famous for its long and hard-to-pronounce words. Here are a few I encountered. Geschwindigskeit - speed verpfliptichgung - obli...
Adventures living abroad in Switzerland.