LANGUAGE CARDS
New words Spotlight — 07 — 2016
False friends 9/2019 Spotlight
New words
Pronunciation
9/2019 SpotlightGrammar 9/2019 Spotlight
Idiom magic
(In)Formal English
9/2019 SpotlightTranslation 9/2019 Spotlight 9/2019 Spotlight
9/2019 SpotlightGlobal English 9/2019 Spotlight
British speaker:
“My sister is studying for her undergraduate degree
at Johns Hopkins University in America.”
“Doing your graduation” is how speakers of Indian Eng-
lish would talk about doing an undergraduate degree
course (Bachelor-Studiengang). In Britain, your “graduation”
is the one day when you receive your degree (Abschluss);
for Indian speakers, it refers to the whole course of study.
- to die
- to have sex with someone
Euphemisms (verharmlosende Umschreibungen) are indirect
and sometimes humorous phrases that are used to talk
about uncomfortable or taboo topics — in this case, death
and sex. Euphemisms are fairly common in spoken lan-
guage.This idiom describes a party for a man who is soon to be
married. A stag party, to which only male friends are invit-
ed, traditionally celebrates a man’s freedom one last time
before his wedding.
In the 19th century, stag parties involved a formal dinner
and music. Nowadays, a lot of stag parties are held abroad,
and they may extend over a weekend, when the groups of
men do adventurous things and go to nightclubs.
- Leave me alone! / Leave me be!
- I never let my children play in the street.
- We get all students to fill in a questionnaire.
The German word lassen can often be translated as “leave”
(= einen Zustand lassen, wie er ist) or “let” (= erlauben, zulassen).
If lassen means jemanden zu etwas bringen, it is translated as
“get someone to do something” (UK) or “have someone
do something”.
- Wir haben ein schönes Grundstück gekauft, um zu bauen.
- Today, we’re going to drive out to the country(side).
- China is the country with the largest population in the
world.
In English, “land” is the solid part of the Earth, in contrast
to the sea or air. It can also be a particular area used for
some specific purpose, such as building or farming. The
German word Land is best translated as “country(side)”.In English, passive constructions are used when the per-
son who performs an action is unimportant, unknown, or
clear from the context. The passive voice is created with
a form of “to be” + past participle. The “to be” form shows
the tense of the verb and the time frame in which the ac-
tion takes place; for example, “was done” = in the past, “is
being done” = in progress at the present time.
For more on the passive form, turn to The Grammar Page (page 50).
A listicle is a short piece of writing structured as a bulleted
list (Aufzählung) and containing a number of facts, tips, ex-
amples, quotations or the like. Extra information or detail
about each point is added, however, to turn the piece into
an article or blog post. “Listicle” is a combination of the
words “list” + “article”.[ðeə] [ðIs] [ðəʊz]
[(θIətə] [θɪŋ] [θri:]The “th-” at the beginning of grammatical words, such as
articles, determiners and pronouns, is voiced and there-
fore pronounced [ð].
In contrast, the “th-” at the beginning of words that
express something concrete is unvoiced and therefore
pronounced [θ].