Learning Strategies (Part 9) – voCHabular
Learn Swiss German (and Standard German) with voCHabular According to UNESCO, German is one of the most difficult languages in the world. At the same time, it is one of the most studied languages in the world. But anyone learning German in the German-speaking [...]
Learning Strategies (Part 8) – films and TV series
Language learning with films and TV series In addition to attending a language course, you can also learn a foreign language on your own outside of the classroom, for example… … in a language learning tandem; … by listening to podcasts; … by reading [...]
Swiss German (Part 3) – Pronunciation
The unpronounceable word "Chuchichäschtli Can you pronounce the infamous Swiss German word “Chuchichäschtli”? Surely, you have heard it before. As a matter of fact, many people who do not speak Swiss German find it quite a challenge to pronounce “Chuchichäschtli” correctly. In this blog [...]
Learning Strategies (Part 7) – Music
Learning languages through music There are many ways to learn a foreign language outside the classroom. In this blog series, we have already covered learning in a tandem (Tandem Language Learning), learning through podcasts (The Best Free Podcasts to Learn German) and books (Improve [...]
Swiss German (Part 2) – Peperoni or Paprika
Grüezi! And welcome to another blog post in our new blog series on Swiss German. In the introductory blog post on Swiss German, we learned to distinguish between Swiss German and Swiss Standard German. We also learnt that there are so-called Helvetisms in Swiss [...]
Learning Strategies (Part 6) – Books
Improve Your German by Reading Today we are going to focus once again on learning German outside the classroom. We already got to know two of many methods in the blog posts Tandem Language Learning and The Best Free Podcasts to Learn German. These [...]
Reasons to Learn a Foreign Language (Part 3)
Are you thinking about starting to learn a foreign language? Or do you need some motivation to brush up on your language skills? In either case, this blog series is for you. In the first part we looked at travel-related reasons, while in the [...]
Swiss German (Part 1) – Introduction
Switzerland's language situation is without doubt special. There is not just one, but four national languages (German, French, Italian and Romansh), with German being the most widely spoken language in Switzerland. In addition, there is a diglossia situation in German-speaking Switzerland. In a diglossia [...]
Common Challenges for German Learners (Part 3) – Upper and Lower Case
The importance of capital letters in German The German language is almost the only language in which nouns, names and nominalisations are capitalised. This is why capitalisation is a challenge for most German learners, and even native speakers are sometimes unsure whether a word [...]