Happy October to all my Friends and Readers
New Calendar picture with this
beautiful watercolour painting by Hanka Koebsch
New Calendar picture with this
beautiful watercolour painting by Hanka Koebsch
"Gimpel"
"Bullfinch"
Hanka says to this picture:
"We photographed these small, beautiful representatives of our garden birds in the Marlow Bird Park before he 'stood' as a model in this watercolor painting."
"Diesen kleinen schönen Vertreter unserer Gartenvögel haben wir im Vogelpark Marlow fotografiert, bevor er in diesem Aquarell Modell 'stand'."
Read more on their website here. *
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September was finally a month where I could breathe. Happy, happy, happy to see my favourite season: Autumn!
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This is the time of year where a lot of us are starting to read more and I have a great German word to tell you about:
📖 Schmökern 📖
If you look up the word on Google translate, they give you "browse" but it definitely is so much more than that. Originally, it comes from the Low German word "smöken" (to smoke, see where you got that one from). Students used an old book by tearing out a a strip of paper to light the pipe.
But, over the course of the centuries, as so often, it changed its meaning. Not it means: to leisurely browse through books, immersing oneself in the content for the sheer joy and pleasure of it and delve into them without a specific goal.
One of my favourite words.
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My favourite book last month was "Remainders of the Day: More Diaries from The Bookshop, Wigtown" by Shaun Bythell.
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September was also the month of our annual holiday where both our boy met us for a couple of days. We went to Oostende in Belgium, just by the sea. It was beautiful. The weather was fantastic, we had a lovely apartment, everything was close by, especially the ocean.
To give you an impression of the beauty of our holidays, here's a collage:
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The old German word for October is Gilbhart or Weinmond.
The first word means "yellow" and "hard" and describes the yellow leaves in the autumn. Wein means winte and is self-explanatory, the month where the harvest in the vinyards started.
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* You can also have a look under my labels Artist: Frank Koebsch and Artist: Hanka Koebsch where you can find all my posts about the two artists.
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I do really like your explanation of German words. There seem to be an endless supply of interesting ones! One for *every* occasion I think... [grin]
ReplyDeleteWhen I was shunted into German back in 2007 (the Spanish classes being full), I was disappointed, but grew to enjoy the language. I'm afraid I've only maintained the classroom basics instead of developing fluency, though.
DeleteThanks, Kitten. I'm sure you are aware of Susie Dent, I love her explanations of English words and idioms. I won't attempt to do the same for German but I guess one word a month is better than none.
Delete@Stephen. I highly recommend Duolingo to get back into the subject, they are very good. And it's free.
Ooh, I like that schmökern word! I read the bookshop diary earlier in the year and have begun following him on facebook as a consequence.
ReplyDeleteYou and me both, Stephen. He is absolutely hilarous.
DeleteSchmokern is a great word! And I love that bird watercolor, too. :D Happy October!
ReplyDeleteThanks, Lark. Both artists are great in capturing the little details in their nature pictures.
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