Four expressions to level up your German

 Today we’re going to discuss four expressions or collocations you can use to level up your German.

Listening comprehension and the ability to interpret what we don’t know is important in language learning. Therefore, we are going to first play the audio only in German and then tell you what it means.

Let’s start with the first phrase, listen carefully:

The expression was:

Schnee von gestern

What do you think it means?

Funnily enough, it literally means, snow from yesterday. Why would we mention that something is snow from yesterday?

Well, it’s used to say that something is not relevant anymore, or that what we are discussing, is something from the past. In English, we usually say the same thing with the expression: “water under the bridge”. Basically, it means that something is “yesterday’s news”.

Now, let’s hear the second expression. Listen carefully and try to identify what it means:

When you’re ready, go to the next page to see the answer.

Did you get its meaning? The second expression is:

an Ort und Stelle

This expression means “on the spot”. So the examples you heard, are referring to do something right there and then.

Now, let’s continue. What do you think the following expression means?

Listen carefully and when you are ready, go to the next page to see the answer.

If you think you heard the word mustard, but are not sure why… don’t worry, you did. The expression was:

Seinen Senf dazugeben

Which literally means, to give one’s mustard. What would this mean? Well, think about someone that gave you his opinion without you asking him. He gave you his mustard.

And now, the last expression of today. Listen carefully:

Go to the next page when you are ready to see the answer.

The expression was:

Wir sitzen im gleichen Boot

and this means to sit in the same boat which is almost the same in English. We say: “we are in the same boat”. This is like saying we’re in this together. Normally it’s used while referring to having the same problems or being on the same team.

How many did you already know? Don’t worry if none of them, now you know them!

Here you can hear all of them together again:

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_m78S6wQG38PUE9-FnT2KGwNBEPa59jykc

That’s it for now, but don’t forget to subscribe to keep learning German for life and work. Bis zum nächsten Mal!