Wonderful German Words and Games

Some of you may know that I love playing games so it was lovely to start the weekend on Friday with a games night with good friends. We were playing Wizard (a highly recommendable game where you have to predict the number of tricks you will get) when my friend suddenly used the word ‘Nichtvorhersagefähigkeit’ to demonstrate her skills (or perceived lack of them) 😊.

What a wonderful word I thought (even if we weren’t sure it actually exists) and we considered how to translate it into English. ‘Inability to predict’ is probably the closest we got, a typical example of how the English language just does not lend itself to long words …

However, this could be a good fun way to practise your English skills. Think up a long German word and try and translate it … To practise this, I cheated and asked ChatGPT who came up with ‘Zahnfleischbürstchenknabberer’ as someone who nibbles on toothbrushes. Being in a creative mood, it then gave me ‘Schlüsselbeinbruchversicherung’ for collar bone fracture insurance and I’m sure it would have been happy to continue …

But on the topic of games, try explaining your favourite game in English. I remember a wonderful lesson many years ago when we played Mahjong, one of my favourite games, in a lesson as one student loved playing it and his two colleagues wanted to learn it … so why not do it in English?