Yesterday evening, we passed this store sign in a small village. Had me chuckle a bit, since the shop owner’s name seems to be in close relationship to her business.

As an instructor of German, I’d like to share these two words with you.

The family name Pickel means pimple in English and she runs a Kosmetik Institut (beauty parlor).

Miss Pimple, I’d like a facial, please.

This has been circulating the net for quite a few years. I have just received it once again via e-mail, and in case you have missed it, here it is:

The European Commission has just announced an agreement whereby English will be the official language of the European Union rather than German, which was the other possibility.
As part of the negotiations, the British Government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a 5- year phase-in plan that would become known as “Euro-English”.
In the first year, “s” will replace the soft “c”.. Sertainly, this will make the sivil servants jump with joy. The hard “c” will be dropped in favour of “k”. This should klear up konfusion, and keyboards kan have one less letter.
There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year when the troublesome “ph” will be replaced with “f”.. This will make words like fotograf 20% shorter.
In the 3rd year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible.
Governments will enkourage the removal of double letters which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling.
Also, al wil agre that the horibl mes of the silent “e” in the languag is disgrasful and it should go away.
By the 4th yer peopl wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing “th” with “z” and “w” with “v”.
During ze fifz yer, ze unesesary “o” kan be dropd from vords kontaining “ou” and after ziz fifz yer, ve vil hav a reil sensi bl riten styl.
Zer vil be no mor trubl or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi TU understand ech oza. Ze drem of a united urop vil finali kum tru.
Und efter ze fifz yer, ve vil al be speking German like zey vunted in ze forst plas.
If zis mad you smil, pleas pas on to oza pepl.

Deutsch als Fremdsprache (DaF) Lernkrimis: reading and listening comprehension practice for level A2 – B1.

Each 48-page detective story book comes with an audio CD.

Patrick Reich, a private detective, is busy investigating cases in his hometown Kassel. The story includes regional information, definitions and exercises.

Lextra – Deutsch als Fremdsprache – DaF-Lernkrimis A2/B1: Ein Fall für Patrick Reich: Tödlicher Cocktail: Krimi-Lektüre mit Hörbuch

Lextra – Deutsch als Fremdsprache – DaF-Lernkrimis A2/B1: Ein Fall für Patrick Reich: Tatort: Krankenhaus: Krimi-Lektüre mit Hörbuch

Lextra – Deutsch als Fremdsprache – DaF-Lernkrimis A2/B1: Ein Fall für Patrick Reich: Der Mond war Zeuge: Krimi-Lektüre mit Hörbuch: Lextra – … für Patrick Reich. Krimi-Lektüre mit Hörbuch

Three more titles, Jeder ist käuflich, Liebe bis in den Tod, and  Tod in der Oper, are also available from Amazon.de

Ideal for self study.

This little book, full of practices in German grammar and vocabulary, is an ideal companion to the regular practice test books, geared at the German language proficiency test.

These quizzes are fun to take, some are in crossword puzzle format, while others are for filling in the blanks.

Leichte Tests, Deutsch als Fremdsprache (Amazon.de) can be done in self study, or when used by teachers, given as additional exercises or homework assignments.

Diese Übungen machen Spaß und bereichern Ihren Wortschatz.

Never knew before what eternity was made for. It is to give some of us a chance to learn German.

- Notebook #14, 11/1877 – 7/1878 Mark Twain -