Facts and Episodes
about Germany, the Germans and the German language
Cross-Culture: Bier vs. Beer
Some intercultural differences are difficult to understand and explain. But there are also differences that are very easy to explain. For example, when an American client once asked me: "Why don't you Germans drink your beer ice-cold?", my answer was easy: "We don't...
How the Decision Tree Found its Way into our German Language Training
I had done my best and tried to explain to my American client Tom when to use 'haben' as an auxiliary verb and when to use 'sein' in the perfect German. But Tom wasn't entirely satisfied. "That's certainly right, Niels. But I'm an engineer, and as an engineer, I love...
Learning German in Paradise
If you want to book a face-to-face German course, the first thing to consider is, of course, the quality of the provider. Here, we at S&W Training really don't need to shy away from any comparison: https://sw-training.com/kunden-englisch/ In addition to the...
Article Rules: What Mark Twain Didn’t Know
"Every noun has a gender, and there is neither sense nor system in the distribution; therefore you must learn the gender of each noun by heart. There is no other way. If you want to tackle this, you must have a memory like a memorial book." This is how Mark Twain saw...
Business German: Presenting Facts and Figures in German
In terms of grammar, Business German hardly differs from German as a general language. In terms of vocabulary, however, it differs a lot.. And here the purchasing manager in the automotive industry needs a largely different technical vocabulary than the chief...
Cross Culture: Crossroads and Roundabouts
At the end of a long trip through the UK, we met Gordon in London. Gordon had worked as a banker in Frankfurt for a few years. During this time, Gordon had visited us several times for intensive German courses in Meersburg. Now he was back home. We met in one of those...
An Italian learns a tricky German word – or two?
Some time ago I was reading a German text with my Italian client Flavio. Then it came to this little dialogue: Flavio: Niels, what does ‚anhalten' mean? Niels: 'to stop', 'fermarsi'. (I see Flavio noting: „anhalten = to stop“. I intervene)...
1 September – A historical date
85 years ago, on 1 September 1939, the Second World War began with the German invasion of Poland. It was waged - as we all know - primarily by the German terror organisation SS - but in many cases also by units of the German Wehrmacht with unimaginable cruelty. No one...
Most Relevant German Verbs
If you want to or are supposed to learn German, you will have to learn German vocabulary, among other things. This may not be much fun, but it is unavoidable if the project is to be successful. Of course, you have the same problem in other languages. If you want to...
Cross Culture: Is this the ‘typical German presentation’?
In the past few years, we have often helped executives from all over the world to prepare presentations in German. Sometimes this involved complete presentations. Sometimes our clients' German is only good enough for a short welcome and introduction in German. In this...
Business German: Off the Peg or Tailormade?
You will hardly find a language course provider that does not also offer 'Business German'. "Something to do with business - we'll manage that." That's probably the thinking of some of our competitors. But what can you, as a demanding manager, expect from such...
Winner by Points:
Face-to-Face! This applies at least to the area in which we can consider ourselves experts: German language training for managers. Just two or three years ago, we saw things very differently ourselves. On the contrary, the pandemic-related restrictions seemed to have...