ABOUT THIS BLOG

The American author Mark Twain once wrote an essay called "The awful German language", which poked fun at German's most annoying tendencies. You know – those long-winded, convoluted sentences, particularly in newspapers and books, and its sometimes weird word order. He also had a good old laugh at German's love of big, fat, clunky compound words, like FREUNDSCHAFTSBEZEIGUNGEN, DILETTANTENAUFDRINGLICHKEITEN and STADTVERORDNETENVERSAMMLUNGEN.

And because I've always felt Twain was spot on, what I want to do with this blog is give German a bit more of his light-hearted poke in the ribs. The language deserves it, because German annoys the hell out of me too, just as it cheesed Twain off. But this blog won't only be about having a pop at German; I also want to celebrate the language too.

You see, I've basically got a bit of a love-hate relationship going on with German. It intrigues me that there can be some very simple easy-peasy words that are identical, or almost identical. to those in English – ARM, BIER, HAND and RING– but others that are just impossible for a non-native speaker to guess what they might mean until someone tells you. Beschleunigung? Schnürsenkel? Leidenschaft? There are also some loveable words that have no direct English equivalent – my favourite being FEHLPASS, which is what happens in football when a player tries to pass the ball to a teammate but sends it skew-wiff.

So what I'll be doing in this blog is to look at a range of German words, from the simple to the complex, and maybe examine some German "culture" along the way – including its food (available at all good Lidl shops), football (including the club you love to hate, Bayern Munich) and famous people (from former Liverpool midfielder Dieter "Didi" Hamann to "German comedy ambassador" Henning Wehn). This blog isn't trying to teach you German or anything, but if it does shed a tiny light on the language and country then I'll be pleased.

I'll also discuss some awful phrases that are used in Germany – particularly in business circles – in which unsuspecting English words have been cruelly mangled to create some truly ghastly expressions, like the ubiquitous WELLNESS HOTEL and GEDOWNLOADET. And I won't be able to resist having a laugh at some silly long German names of towns (my favourite being Oberpfaffenhofen, which sounds like the cry you'd make if an endoscope was shoved up somewhere painful) and some daft surnames. You've just got to love poor Mr ARSCHTURENBOMBACH.

You might be wondering who am I to start banging on about German. I won't bore you with a tedious biography, but suffice to say that I first learned the language from my mother, who is German, while growing up in England in the 1970s and 1980s. My formative period German-wise was the six months I spent teaching at a boarding school in Schleswig-Holstein where my German reached a decent level – or at least good enough to give the kids a bollocking when they needed it. It then went a tad rusty until I met the lovely Katja, who is from Munich, in 2001.

For the past three years I have been talking to my children in German – it's a fantastic language for yelling like a demagogue at youngsters particularly when they're naughty or won't go to bed – and the experience has helped me get lots of basic mistakes out of my system. I can now hold a decent conversation in German with other adults but I still keep picking stuff up.

So as I learn words, I'll use this blog to pick them apart, while at the same time enjoying some other, more pleasing German words like SCHADENFREUDE, HANDSCHUH and TüRKLINKE. If you have a favourite you'd like me to feature, please email me at matin@madkats.net.