Meine Lieblingswoerter

Since I finally have a reason to procrastinate (final test in German class tomorrow), I thought I would return to the blog, although most of you have probably given up on me, since I've been gone for so long...

Anyway, I have chosen as the theme for today, "Meine Lieblingswoerter" aka "My Favorite Words."

The first word is schnupfen, as in Ich habe schnupfen. Schupfen means a cold or stuffed nose. I like this word because it sounds like what it is.

The next word is schmutzig, which means dirty or soiled. I don't know whether the Yiddish word is an outgrowth of the German word or vice versa, but I've been saying schmutz for years. That's one less new vocabulary word I have to learn.

Moving right along to mist. Mist translates literally to dung or animal feces, but is used more like Americans use the word "crap." Last time we went to pick up the kids and Karlotta started making a drama, Friederike said to me "Mist, oder?" ("Crap, right?" - Germans use 'oder', which means 'or', like the French use 'n'est-ce pas?' or the Spanish use "Verdad?"). But this word makes the list because it coincides with the weather here. For a while in November we were having shitty weather (das schlechtwetter), with cold temps, fog and light rain. It was making me really grumpy. I went to the NY Times website one morning, where I have the weather location set to Hamburg. It said "Hamburg, Mist 3 degrees C." We laughed about that one for a while.

I have recently taken to reading the German-English dictionary to find funny expressions (yes, I like reading the dictionary), and my favorite one so far is "Bei dir piept's wohl." This loosely translates to "You hear peeps in your head," in other words, "you're off your rocker." I now find many opportunities to use this expression...I think Nico doesn't like it when I read the dictionary.

This weekend with the kids we went to the schwimmbad not too far from our house. The girls were super excited, although they freaked out when the waves in the wavepool started. We also had a little photo session, which they loved.

Okay, now I have to go study....