The picture of the beer drinking Germans is well used abroad. Indeed the cliche of a nation of beer drinkers is based on real facts. With a consumption of more than 110 liters per head Germany holds the second position in Europe. Only Czech people drink more. But not only the consumption of beer in Germany is high, but also is the assortment of different kinds. Estimations say there are more than 5000 different beers. Of course you won’t find all of them on the shelves in the supermarkets. Many beers come from small breweries which sell their products regional or direct to the customers. Nevertheless there is an impressive assortment in a German drinks cash-and-carry. In addition to regional and national kinds of beer you will find... Show more

One common mistake made by beginning language learners is to assume that expressions can be translated word-for-word from one language into another (see German vs. English vocabulary). They’ll take an expression such as “to bite the dust” and render it into something like “zu beissen den Staub.” Besides its word order problems (the phrase would go “den Staub beissen” in German), this literal translation makes absolutely no sense to a German-speaker. In the German language, when one “bites the dust,” one actually “bites into the grass” (ins Gras beissen), perhaps because Germany is much greener than the wild West associated with this expression in English, although the German expression goes all the way back to the 16th century. German... Show more