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LANGUAGE AND CULTURE

Six easy ways to boost your German skills now

Ali Butt, a student of German at Oxford University, recently spent six months in Berlin. He imparts some pearls of wisdom that'll help your language skills soar.

Published: 21 July 2016 10:48 CEST
Six easy ways to boost your German skills now
These guys probably speak good German. Photo: DPA.

1. Read your favourite children's book in German

Remember that book you couldn’t put down as a kid? Was it The Cat in the Hat? The BFG?

If you know a children’s book inside out, try picking up a German translation. You know the general story anyway, so you shouldn’t have too much trouble figuring out what’s going on.

I must have read the Harry Potter books at least 20 times each, so the first book I ever read in German was Harry Potter und der Stein der Weisen. JK Rowling is objectively a pretty bad, repetitive author, so once I got past learning the words for “wand”, “magic” and “love”, it was plain sailing.

In fact, the majority of the first Harry Potter audiobook is on YouTube up until the epic wizard's chess scene.

If you want to really assimilate, take a look at Pippi Langstrumpf. Germans grew up with this series about a carefree little girl with superhuman strength, and you’re sure to bond with some natives if you’ve read Pippi too.

There was also a Swedish TV show that was dubbed into German in the early 1970s, so you can go old school with the whole shebang, learning through children's TV and books and pretend you grew up in Cold War West Germany. Geil.

A still from 'Pippi Langstrumpf' (1997). Photo: Buena Vista International.

2. Watch your favourite movie

Basic, I know. Everyone does this, but that’s because it works so well.

You can watch a lot of movies on German Netflix with German dubbing. And again, since you already know the plot line you can focus on learning how to say your favourite movie lines, which can come in handy in conversation with your German buddies.

Movie quotes can also fall flat when dubbed into German, which is satisfyingly entertaining. I find it really funny when the nuance of a quote gets completely lost, such as Casablanca’s iconic “Here’s looking at you, kid.”

In German this gets translated as “Ich seh dir in die Augen, Kleines,” which means “I am looking into your eyes, little one.”

3. Reality TV

Germans love trash television. It’s a fact. If you want to get closer to becoming a ‘real German’, you’ll have to immerse yourself headfirst into the world of German reality shows.

Everyone knows Big Brother, but here's a fun fact: did you know that the German version has been running six months longer than its British sibling?

Like many other versions, BB Germany features a 24-hour live feed and is a great way to observe natives and how they act.

You can pick up some slang here and there as well as copious amounts of swearing – something you don’t learn in school but that's essential in real life, just like how to fill in your tax return.

Germans also have a version of Celebrity Big Brother, which they call 'Promi Big Brother', so you can get up to speed with both your lingo and your pop culture.

Presenter Jochen Bendel on the Big Brother set. Photo: DPA.

4. YouTube tutorials

YouTube is an incredible resource of knowledge, cat videos and wisdom.

You can pretty much learn anything for free on the site nowadays, and why should language not be included in this? There are videos for learning conversational phrases, slang and swearing.

 
5. Get drunk
 
Maybe you already speak German to your non-German speaking mates to dazzle them when you're drunk. I've found that speaking to Germans when drunk is also unbelievably fun.
 
If you head to a beer garden and have a go, you'll find you care much less about nonsense like grammar and word endings.
 
The more you drink, the more you speak, and the more you speak, the more you improve.
 
The person you're talking to will likely be impressed with your confidence, and if you make a few slip-ups, who cares? You're drunk! So get some beers down you and start practising that Deutsch! 
 
Photo: DPA.
 
6. Get passionate
 
Is there a specific area of German culture or history you're particularly interested in?
 
If you're really into a particular art movement for example, you can go to an exhibition and make some new friends there. You'll be fine because all the art vocabulary is pretty much the same in German as in English anyway.

'Surrealismus'? 'Impressionismus'? 'Barock'? You're sorted.
 
Or, if you like football, try watching the Bundesliga in an Eck Kneipe (local pub). 
 
I was always really interested in life in East Germany, specifically East Berlin, so one of the first things I did when I came to the capital was go to the classic Berlin Wall attractions and strike up conversation with native Germans.
 
I learnt a lot of new vocab, but it didn't feel like work at all because I was learning about something I was fascinated by.
 
Checkpoint Charlie, one of the Berlin Wall's crossing points during the Cold War. Photo: DPA.
 
Speak, read, listen.
 
All you need to do to become really good at German is find fun ways to immerse yourself. 
 
I find my German improves the most when I don't even feel like I'm working hard to practise it.
 
Viel Glück und viel Spaß!
 
By Ali Butt
 
For all The Local's guides to learning German CLICK HERE

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LANGUAGE AND CULTURE

Le Havre rules: How to talk about French towns beginning with Le, La or Les

If you're into car racing, French politics or visits to seaside resorts you are likely at some point to need to talk about French towns with a 'Le' in the title. But how you talk about these places involves a slightly unexpected French grammar rule. Here's how it works.

Published: 30 November 2021 13:04 CET
Updated: 4 December 2021 17:47 CET
An old WW2 photo taken in the French port town of Le Havre.
An old WW2 photo taken in the French port town of Le Havre. It can be difficult to know what prepositions to use for places like this - so we have explained it for you. (Photo by AFP)

If you’re listening to French chat about any of those topics, at some point you’re likely to hear the names of Mans, Havre and Touquet bandied about.

And this is because French towns that have a ‘Le’ ‘La’ or ‘Les’ in the title lose them when you begin constructing sentences. 

As a general rule, French town, commune and city names do not carry a gender. 

So if you wanted to describe Paris as beautiful, you could write: Paris est belle or Paris est beau. It doesn’t matter what adjectival agreement you use. 

For most towns and cities, you would use à to evoke movement to the place or explain that you are already there, and de to explain that you come from/are coming from that location:

Je vais à Marseille – I am going to Marseille

Je suis à Marseille – I am in Marseille 

Je viens de Marseille – I come from Marseille 

But a select few settlements in France do carry a ‘Le’, a ‘La’ or a ‘Les’ as part of their name. 

In this case the preposition disappears when you begin formulating most sentences, and you structure the sentence as you would any other phrase with a ‘le’, ‘la’ or ‘les’ in it.

Masculine

Le is the most common preposition for two names (probably something to do with the patriarchy) with Le Havre, La Mans, Le Touquet and the town of Le Tampon on the French overseas territory of La Réunion (more on that later)

A good example of this is Le Havre, a city in northern France where former Prime Minister, Edouard Philippe, who is tipped to one day run for the French presidency, serves as mayor. 

Edouard Philippe’s twitter profile describes him as the ‘Maire du Havre’, using a masculine preposition

Here we can see that his location is Le Havre, and his Twitter handle is Philippe_LH (for Le Havre) but when he comes to describe his job the Le disappears.

Because Le Havre is masculine, he describes himself as the Maire du Havre rather than the Maire de Havre (Anne Hidalgo, for example would describe herself as the Maire de Paris). 

For place names with ‘Le’ in front of them, you should use prepositions like this:

Ja vais au Touquet – I am going to Le Touquet

Je suis au Touquet – I am in Le Touquet 

Je viens du Touquet – I am from Le Touquet 

Je parle du Touquet – I am talking about Le Touquet

Le Traité du Touquet – the Le Touquet Treaty

Feminine

Some towns carry ‘La’ as part of their name. La Rochelle, the scenic town on the west coast of France known for its great seafood and rugby team, is one such example.

In French ‘à la‘ or ‘de la‘ is allowed, while ‘à le‘ becomes au and ‘de le’ becomes du. So for ‘feminine’ towns such as this, you should use the following prepositions:

Je vais à La Rochelle – I am going to La Rochelle

Je viens de La Rochelle – I am coming from La Rochelle 

Plural

And some places have ‘Les’ in front of their name, like Les Lilas, a commune in the suburbs of Paris. The name of this commune literally translates as ‘The Lilacs’ and was made famous by Serge Gainsbourg’s song Le Poinçonneur des Lilas, about a ticket puncher at the Metro station there. 

When talking about a place with ‘Les’ as part of the name, you must use a plural preposition like so:

Je suis le poinçonneur des Lilas – I am the ticket puncher of Lilas 

Je vais aux Lilas – I am going to Les Lilas

Il est né aux Lilas – He was born in Les Lilas  

Islands 

Islands follow more complicated rules. 

If you are talking about going to one island in particular, you would use à or en. This has nothing to do with gender and is entirely randomised. For example:

Je vais à La Réunion – I am going to La Réunion 

Je vais en Corse – I am going to Corsica 

Generally speaking, when talking about one of the en islands, you would use the following structure to suggest movement from the place: 

Je viens de Corse – I am coming from Corsica 

For the à Islands, you would say:

Je viens de La Réunion – I am coming from La Réunion 

When talking about territories composed of multiple islands, you should use aux.

Je vais aux Maldives – I am going to the Maldives. 

No preposition needed 

There are some phrases in French which don’t require any a preposition at all. This doesn’t change when dealing with ‘Le’ places, such as Le Mans – which is famous for its car-racing track and Motorcycle Grand Prix. Phrases that don’t need a preposition include: 

Je visite Le Mans – I am visiting Le Mans

J’aime Le Mans – I like Le Mans

But for a preposition phrase, the town becomes simply Mans, as in Je vais au Mans.

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