Culture Shock! Austria - A Survival Guide to Customs and Etiquette

230 CultureShock! Austria

Gender

Nouns can be feminine, as in Die Zeitung (the newspaper);

masculine, as in Der Mann (the man); or neutral, as in Das

Restaurant (the restaurant). There is no rhyme or reason for

which noun gets which gender, but there are patterns. Take

this as a challenge for the memory.

COMPOUND WORDS

Compound words are mesmerising. Several words are

‘scrunched’ into one. Some examples are:

Kinderbewahrungsanstalten Childcare

Donaudampfschifffahrts

gesellschaftskapitän

Captain of the Danube

Steamship Company

Unabhängigkeitserklärungen

Declaration of

Independence

Wiederherstellungsbestrebungen Endeavor to reconstruct

GERMAN IS PHONETIC

The loveliest part of the German language is that it is

phonetic. All vowels and consonants are pronounced, and

the tricky ones lie only with a few sounds:

reich (rich) Like Loch in Loch Ness but

pronounced very softly

Schüssel (bowl) Has the ‘sh’ sound, as in shame

zahlen (to pay) Pronounced ‘ts’

Mutter (mother) Same vowel sound as in book

Vogel (bird) Pronounced with a hard ‘f’, as

in food

stehen (stand)

Pronounced as if there was a

‘ch’ between s and t

stoß (push, knock)

Ends with a sharp ‘s’. The

German language is slowly

evolving to replace the ß with a

double s, or ‘ss’.