Well I can hardly write a blog called "Bestandwurstofgerman" without mentioning WURST can I? Germany has a spectacular variety of mouth-watering "sausages" as everyone knows. These range from the FRANKFURTER from, obviously, Frankfurt and the NÜRNBERGER from, obviously Nürnberg in Bavaria. (Also avialable in all good branches of LIDL.) I'm reminded once when former German national football manager Rudi Völler's team performed really badly, Bild newspaper ran a vitriolic piece dubbing the team RUDIS WURSTTRUPPE or Rudi's sausage troops. Bit of an insult really. Also who can forget Austria's 2014 Eurovision winner Concita Wurst?

tags: food, football

When it comes to the all-conquering German football team, who are the current FIFA world champions, NIEDERLAGE isn't a word that you'll hear very often, meaning as it does "defeat". I suppose its meaning dervies from NIEDER being low, or "nether", as in "nether regions" or "Netherlands" and LAGE meaning "situation" or "position". You might expect "victory" to be "Oberlage", but it's not. It's SIEG.

tags: football

Right, I know whenever you start learning another language, it's always tempting to look up "rude" words in the dictionary. So say hello to FURZ, which means a "fart". It's not exactly rude but, hey, it's worth a laugh. I don't think Germans realise that for English-speakers on their wonderful motorway network, driving past an AUSFAHRT or "exit" will always elicit a snigger. Oh, and before you ask, the verb "to fart" is FURZEN. And while we're on the topic, the German for "old fart", as in a boring old person is ALTER KNACKER. So now you know.

So as it's Christmas, here's something you appropriate: an object that you might have on the top of your tree -- an ENGEL or "angel". Not to be confused with ANGELA as in Angela Merkel, the German KANZLER or "chancellor" (as in prime minister), who's someone you definitely don't want sat on the top of your WEIHNACHTSBAUM or "Christmas tree". Happy Chritmas!

tags: easy peasy

That last blog entry about sausages has got me hungry, so here's the perfect accompaniment: a slice of BROT or "bread". Like Germany's sausages, the bread in the country is spectacular and comes in a bewildering variety of types, flours and flavours. My particular favourite is any kind of ROGGENBROT or "rye bread", which is gorgeous with a spot of SCHINKEN, or "ham", some TOMATEN, "tomatoes" and perhaps a dollop of SENF or "mustard". Ooo and maybe a GÜRKE or "gherkine"> I also like the dark, almost black bread called PUMPERNICKEL, which has a rather amusing etymology. And if you thought it had something to do with breaking wind, you'd be right.

tags: food, football

Right it's Friday night, work's finished and I am dog tired. Or as the Germans would say, I am HUNDEMÜDE, "dog" being HUND and "tired" being MÜDE. I guess HUND is basically like "hound" but I have no idea why MÜDE is tired.

It's funny that HUND/hound connection as in a similar vein you've also got RUND/round, WUNDE/wound and MUND/mouth. But that's your lot for today as I am most definitely not feeling that inspired, or INSPIRIERT as you might say.

Well SCHADE means "shame". But as I've learned today, although English-speakers say "it's a shame", your Germans will just say "Es ist schade", as opposed to "Es ist eine Schade". Which is a shame really as it would be a lot easier not to make that dopey mistake.

I'm also remined of a country road outside Munich near where Katja grew up that's fairly anonymous apart from one thing. Incredibly for Germany, which has a reputation for road surfaces that are as silky smooth as a brand new billiard table, this particular road is rutted, potted and basically a bit shit. But being the efficient Germans they are, a sign has been installed alongside the road, warning drivers of STRASSENSCHÄDEN or "street imperfections". The sign has been up for years, which surprises me as normally the country jumps into action over even a nano-sized dent in a road.

And related to SCHADE is of course the internationally known and loved word SCHADENFREUDE or the joy in someone's else misfortunes. What a shame there's no direct equivalent in English.

After yesterday's abomination of GESCHWINDIGKEITSBEGRENZUNG, here's a great German word that's neat, simple and just doesn't have an equivalent in English. I'm talking about FEHLPASS, which is used in football to describe what happens when one player tries -- but fails -- to pass a ball to a team-mate. A "failed pass" if you like.

You hear it constantly on German telly from football commentators and pundits, although given the strength of German football, it's a term that's mainly directed at sloppy foreign players.

In fact, you have to like German if only for the fact that football is simply FUSSBALL. None of this weird "futbol" nonsense as in Spanish. A "foot"is a FUSS. A "ball" is a BALL. Football's a simple game and so is its translation into German.

Whoa, whoa, whoa stop right there. That is one helluva crazy word for "speed limit". Well BEGRENZUNG is "limit" and GESCHWINDIGKEIT " is speed. Don't ask me why. But, hey, why use just 10 letters when 26 will do? Who wants three syllables when seven is even better?

Katja thinks GESCHWIND is kind of like "swift" in English. But she's only trying to be polite for what is a truly daft word. I mean you'd think you'd want something short and punchy if you were a copper booking a driver for going too fast.

No, we're not having this word. It's long, it's ugly, it's got too many nasty consonants. It's going in to Room 101. Goodbye GESCHWINDIGKEITSBEGRENZUNG

KLASSE means "class" as you may have guessed. It's also used when you're impressed with something, in the sense that it's "great" or "class". Great lingo to use if you're a footballer: "Das ist klasse!"..."That's great."

But before you think I'm giving German an easy ride, then you've got the word UNTERRICHT, which means "teaching" or "instruction".

I'm a happy bunny today as my team, Birmingham City, have just thrashed Reading 6-1 at home in the Championship -- English football's second tier. The club's fortunes have turned around massively since the start of November following the appointment of former defender Gary Rowett as manager. The new gaffer has so far led us to four wins, two draws and just one defeat in his first seven games in charge. (Typically, the defeat occured to Blackpool, whose new manager is our old boss Lee Clark.) Rowett took over following a disastrous 8-0 defeat at home to Bournemouth, which means that today's result does wonders for our goal difference too.

As things stand, though, 1860 are doing much worse in the league than we are, currently third from bottom, lying in place SECHZEHN, or sixteen, in the table. We're 15th in a much bigger league of 24 teams so thing are definitely looking up for us. What I'd love would be for the run to carry on and for the Blues to end up in place SECHS in the table at the end of the season, which would get us into the play-offs and possibly back up into the Premier League.

As it's near Christmastime, I've been thinking about the word TANNENBAUM, which means fir tree and is the theme of the famous carol "O Tannenbaum" that may have been sung, by the way, during the truce between British and German soliders at Christmastime during the First World of War. If you look up the lyrics, they commend a fir tree for its loyalty (in being green all year round) and durability (in not losing its leaves in winter). But why is "tree" BAUM? I mean the words don't even sound similar. In fact, English has the word "boom", which is the bottom, horizontal, wooden bit on a sail. Boom traces its roots to BAUM -- in fact, so does the English word "beam", which generally also refers to long piece of wood.

So it's simple really -- a Baum is a beam.