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Discover how “der”, “die” and “das” are applied to different words
German Pets
There are more than 34.3 million pets in Germany, so it’s safe to
say they’re a big part of German culture. But how do you talk
about pets in German?
der Hirsch (the deer) – usually describes the male of the species
das Reh (the deer) – usually describes the female of the species
Are you amazed by the wonders of the deep blue sea? Then this
portion of the list is for you! You’ll also be able to see lots of the
German compound words in action.
In this list, you’ll see how simple some compound words can be
used, as well as see some easy to learn English loan words.
German Birds
Want to talk about the specific parts of an animal? Then this final
chunk of the list is for you!
After reading that list, you’re probably wondering, “how the heck
am I going to remember all of those words!?”
But don’t fret; it’s a lot easier than you think. With these simple
language hacks below you’ll be able to remember all of these
words, and their articles, without much effort.
There are already lots of words for German animals know from
speaking English.
Finding which words these are means you don’t need to learn any
new vocabulary, and you just need to say them in a German
accent!
You’ll find this to be quite common with animals that aren’t native
to Germany and have picked up their names in Europe over the
last few hundred years. Some of them are even direct loan words
and finish with the English plural “-s” at the end.
I recommend you spend your first study session picking out these
cognates and committing them to memory. You could pick up lots
of news words in very little time!
Because if you learn these common animals and their articles, you
can make learning some of the more complicated and rare
animals much more comfortable in the future. Let me show you
what I mean.
Let’s take the German word for pig, “(das) Schwein”. It’s one of the
most commonly used ways to describe less common animals like:
Here are some other common animals you can learn to maximise
this language hack:
das Pferd (the horse)
One of the most common animal word endings is “-chen”, like das
Eichhörnchen (“squirrel”) or das Kaninchen (“rabbit”). Germans
use this to signify an animal is small or cute. But in this case, it’s
just ingrained into the everyday word for that animal.
If you’ve seen an animal that you think is small and cute, you can
also add “-chen” to the end of any of the animal words you’ve
learned. For example, “der Bär” would become, “das kleine
Bärchen” to show its small size and fluffiness.
“-e” is Almost Always Feminine
When you think of an animal which gender do you think it is? Take
a look at this list and see what you think:
Lion
Bear
Duck
Cat
Mouse
Rabbit
Male
Male
Female
Female
Female
Male
Funnily enough, if your list were like mine, you’d have matched
five of the animals up to their genders in German too. The only
one that was wrong is Rabbit (das Kaninchen) which is neutral. So
if you were guessing these perceptions would have helped you
make an educated guess!
Not everyone’s perception will be the same, but it’s worth a try if
you’re really not sure what to use!
Here are seven familiar and fun to learn idioms German idioms to
help you boost your vocabulary and understand some of those
tricky sayings that sound weird out of context.
This phrase literally translates to, “To buy a cat in a bag”, and it
refers to buying to something without first looking at it.
The best way to bring this phrase to life is to think of buying one
of those mystery boxes from eBay, where you pay a certain
amount for an unknown item!
Du Fuchs
But it’s used to describe a good party, festival or event that lots of
people want to attend or are having a good time at.
If you’ve let a room in your house get dirty or untidy, you might
hear a German use this phrase to describe how it looks.
Bei diesem Wetter schickt man keinen Hund vor die Tür
It means, “In this weather, you wouldn’t send your dog outside”,
and means the weather isn’t good enough for anyone to go out in.
You could also compare this to, “It’s too wet for ducks” in English.
Phew! That was a huge list. Well done for making it through.
I hope by now you feel more comfortable with German animals
and that you’ve already increased the words in your vocabulary.
But now I want to hear from you.