First German Words

German is not the easiest language to pick up, but a 2-month stay is more than enough to pick up a few essential vocabulary. 

• Jause (yau-zer) - Snack. Can also refer to a lunch snack (e.g. a schnitzel roll). You don’t wanna forget this word…
   

• Bitte (bee-teh) - Please. The loveliest sounding word in German that I know (so far). 
   

• Morgen (mor-gen) - Morning
   

• Danke schon! (Dan-ke-shoon!) - Thank you!
   

• Sehr gut (seeeeeeeer goot) - Very good.
   

• Wie geht’s (vee-getz) - How are you? / How’s it going?
   

• Strasse (strass-ser) - Street
   

• Hohn (hoon?) - Chicken
   

• Kuh (coo) - Cow. Learnt this word from EB while hiking…after I stepped on the kuhfladen (cow dung) 
   

• Foehn (foon?) - a (windy) weather symptom that causes headaches
   

• Billa (bi-la) - my favourite supermarket :) they have nice jause!
   

• Spar (shh-par) - Save. 2nd favourite supermarket! Close tie with Billa, but Billa has better veggie selection, so….
   

• Eingang: Entrance
   

• Ausgang (aus-gang): Exit
   

• Damen: Ladies. VERY important to avoid going to the men’s restroom…it was quite useful that the spelling somewhat resembles “door” in Chinese which helped in remembering this…
   

• Herren: Men/Male
   

• Tschus (choos): Informal bye bye. Sounded like “cheers”, for a long time I thought it was!
   

• Gruss gott (grus got): Hello. Used a lot when meeting fellow hikers while hiking or at the shops
   

• Servus (sehr-voos): Hello. For friends?
   

• Genau (geh-nau): Exactly. I hear this everywhere.

and of course, made famous by Heidi Klum on Project Runway,

• Auf Wiedersehen (owf-vee-der-se-hen): Goodbye