German Of The Day: Deprimiert

That means depressed.

German bosses are depressed – And dissatisfied with the government.

We are at a dangerous point,” worries Arndt Kirchhoff, boss of the employers’ association in North Rhine-Westphalia and one of three brothers who run Kirchhoff, a maker of car components. Germany recently slipped into a technical recession. Many companies are investing abroad rather than at home. Chinese consumers are importing less after the lifting of pandemic restrictions than German manufacturers had been hoping. And Ukraine’s counter-offensive against Russian invaders is injecting uncertainty into Germany’s backyard.

Dumb Deutsch

Dumb Deutsch, Absurd German Language Errors (auch für deutsche Leser geeignet). Apple, Barnes & Noble, Scribd, etc.

Amazon image

Have you ever ordered leather cheese? Have you ever told your cab driver that your hotel is located on One-Way Street? I doubt it. But English speakers trying to speak German say bizarre things like this all the time and I, for one, feel their pain. Acutely, even. They are speaking Dumb Deutsch. And they have no one else to blame but themselves.

The German language is complex, treacherous and terribly difficult to learn, you see. Dumb Deutsch, on the other hand, is relatively straightforward and can be learned in about fifteen minutes. This is the problem, of course. And here are some of the shocking results.

Please sit back and enjoy this short collection of bloodcurdling blunders, frightful faux pas and grisly gaffes, all in the Dumb Deutsch original. For the sake of fairness, a number of ridiculous errors Germans make when trying to speak English have also been included.

Bitte Beachten: Diese Sammlung von peinlichen Ausrutschern und haarsträubenden Fehltritten ist selbstverständlich auch für Deutsche Leser geeignet.