How to get your Anmeldung in Berlin
Moving to Germany comes with challenges. The cold winters. The BVG. The horror of flat castings. Changing your idea of what small talk is. But one day, you wake up to confirmation that you have successfully risen to one of these challenges: you’ve been offered…
5 Funny Foreign Language Faux-pas by Big Companies
Be it a false friend or bad conjugation, mistakes are an inevitable part of any language learner’s journey. In fact, they play a vital role in solidifying your learning and prove you’re actually using the language: progress comes from practice, not perfection. That said, things…
German Food Culture: a day of eating in Ostfriesland
What few people seem to know about German food is that it varies greatly from region to region. I grew up in California, but my mom is German so I spent many summers of my childhood at my Oma’s house in rural Niedersachsen (Lower Saxony)….
Working in Germany: What do you need?
The day has arrived. You’ve landed in Germany! You step off that plane with a pocket full of dreams (and if you’re non-EU, a bank balance full of change, as per your visa requirements). Your backpack is heavy with books on German grammar. Your heart…
8 Things to Know When Driving in Germany
You might be living in Germany and sometimes need to drive, or maybe you have some friends/family coming to visit you by car… well, make sure you read this little sum-up we made for you so you can be sure that alles ist in Ordnung…
Language Learning Tips from a Two-Year Old
It is said that from the day we are born we become life-long language learners. Linguists and medical experts assert that children can actually perceive language in the womb, and once they are born their lives become shaped by the languages around them. Following the…
5 German Things to Help You Go Through Winter
Hallo! My name is Lauréna and I’m a French national. I am passionate about differences between languages, between countries and between customs and cultures in general. Learning a language is discovering new words, new grammar rules and new phonetics (that’s linguist’s jargon for sounds 😉),…
How did the Berlin Wall Fall?
In the autumn of 1989, Berlin was about to be the setting of yet some more historic images that would be broadcast live around the world and become, like a few others during the 20th century, part of a whole generation’s collective memory and have…
How Germany Changed My Latina Habits
I moved to Germany right after high school. Now, after 13 years in an on-and-off relationship with this beautiful country, I have finally sat down to reflect on how it has shaped me. I always find it hard to talk about culture without making some…