The Alcuin Languages Blog

Welcome to the Alcuin Languages blog!

We’ll be using this blog to introduce new words and phrases. Sometimes the words will be seasonal, sometimes they’ll be topical, sometimes they’ll be trivia, just for the fun of it.

This is the first week of 2010 and we hope you enjoyed Christmas and New Year, so here are some German words and phrases for the time of year, plus a bit of cultural background:–

Christmas time = die Weihnachtszeit starts early for German, Austrian and Swiss children, when by tradition Sankt Nikolaus comes during the night of 5th December with his helper, Knecht Ruprecht. They collect the lists that the children have left in their socks or boots (traditionally they were left on the doorstep). In the morning, good children would find sweets and goodies from Sankt Nikolaus and bad children would find coal from Knecht Ruprecht in their socks or boots. (Originally, they would have got a beating from Knecht Ruprecht, but we live in gentler times now!) Different areas of the German-speaking countries have different variants of this tradition.

In Germany, Austria and Switzerland, people eat their Christmas meal and give out Christmas presents = Weihnachtsgeschenke (the gift giving is called = die Bescherung) on Christmas Eve = Heiligabend rather than on Christmas Day = Weihnachten or der erster Weihnachtstag. Boxing Day = der zweite Weihnachtstag is also celebrated.

New Year’s Eve/Hogmanay = der or das Silvester (also spelled Sylvester) is an important night for partying and seeing in the New Year = das Neujahr bregrüßen.

Here’s some useful vocabulary for the season:-

Christmas = Weihnachten

Christmas time = die Weihnachtszeit

Christmas present = das Weihnachtsgeschenk

Christmas Eve = Heiligabend or Weihnachtsabend

Christmas Day = der erste Weihnachtstag

Boxing Day = der zweite Weihnachtstag

Giving of Christmas presents = die Bescherung

New Year’s Eve = der (or das) Silvester (or Sylvester)

New Year = das Neujahr

Christmas tree = der Weihnachtsbaum

Christmas shopping = Weihnachtseinkäufe

Christmas greeting = der Weihnachtsgruß

Christmas carol = das Weihnachtslied

Father Christmas = der Weihnachtsmann

Happy Christmas!/Merry Christmas! = frohe Weihnachten!/fröhliche Weihnachten!

Happy New Year! = ein glückliches neues Jahr! ein gutes neues Jahr

We wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
= wir wünschen euch frohe Weihnachten und ein glückliches neues Jahr!