Category: German

Over the past few months I’ve been thinking a lot about the power of dialogue. Whether it’s the Socratic dialogues or the Analects of Confucius, both Eastern and Western traditions have been using dialogue as a teaching tool for more than two millennia! Why is that? Plato for example could have just doled out his…

When Wikipedia first became popular I remember my teachers and professors scoffing at it: “A free encyclopedia? On the Internet? Why, that can’t be good! You had better learn to use the library instead, young whippersnapper!” And yet everyone still used it. All the time. Was (or is) it perfect? Of course not. When it…

When we think of Brazilian music we think of samba, bossa nova, a cool breeze on the beach and the Girl from Ipanema. But what do you think of when you think German music? Do you think of laid-back melodies and velvety vocals? Or more industrial staccato and alveolar trills? Whatever your particular associations may…

There are many ways to learn German, and they all have their pros and cons. Obviously, I’m a huge fan of learning German with stories. I believe it’s one of the most fun methods of acquiring new vocabulary and making it stick. But if you don’t regularly maintain your treasure trove (we actually call it…

Good news, everyone! Jeff Richards and I completed another workbook for the Dino lernt Deutsch series. This time we’re bringing you another 60+ pages packed with exercises, writing prompts, crossword puzzles and other activities for Karneval in Köln. As with the previous two workbooks for Café in Berlin and Ferien in Frankfurt this comes to you…

Did you enjoy Babylon Berlin, the critically acclaimed German TV series? Perhaps even used it to boost your German listening skills? If you’ve ever wondered about the historical accuracy of the series there’s a great documentary which aims to provide some context around the year in which the event of the series take place. 1929: Das Jahr…