Category Archives: landeskunde

landeskunde, teachers

Landeskunde – facts about Germany, Austria & Switzerland

If you are learning or teaching German, you will certainly wish to familiarise yourself with facts about Germany, Switzerland and Austria. We are talking here about Landeskunde which includes culture, lifestyle and many other information on land and people. There are many web pages that enable you to do so.

Wind turbines – so typical for Germany, Pixabay

GERMANY

There is a portal with up-to-date statistics, facts and information about Germany: Tatsachen über Deutschland. You can read it in numerous languages (including Turkish, Chinese etc.) and you can choose to find out more about the German history, society, life-style, culture, media, education, politics etc. There is also a version of this site for young people: Tatsachen über Deutschland für Jugend which is also available in several foreign languages. A PDF version of both sites is available which is very convenient.

Also up-to-date facts and news about Germany can be found at deutschland.de. The site is available in several languages.

There are also some other materials about Germany – for kids and teenagers – however, they are available only in English, like germany.info for teens and germany.info for kids

The Young Germany portal  provides many useful information in English. This is the right place for you if you plan to study or work in Germany.

Goethe Institute also has also created an interesting material – in as many languages as you can imagine: In Deutschland leben This site prepares you for living in Germany.

If you prefer videos about the every day life in Germany, feel free to use the episodes Das Deutschlandlabor producedby DW (Deutsche Welle).

Chocolate – a typically Swiss product, Pixabay

SWITZERLAND

The swissinfo.com portal provides you in 10 different languages with latest news from Switzerland. Facts about different aspetcs of Swiss everyday life can be found in the Menu. Feel free to explore! However, if you would like to find out anything that you are interested in with just one click, then this is the right choice for you: Klick auf die Schweiz

A Hunderwasser house in Vienna, Pixabay

AUSTRIA

Everything that you would like to know about Austria can be found here: austria.info Information is available in different languages.

Since you now have several different sources for getting to know Landeskunde i.e. facts about German speaking countries (Germany, Austria and Switzerland), you can spend some time reading! Enjoy!

landeskunde

German quizes

1. Think of as many German words as combinations of these letters:

D  E  U  T  S  C  H  L  A  N  D

2. Think of things that can found themselves in a bag (bellow letters can also be somewhere in the middle of the word):

…T…
…A…
…S…
…C…
…H…
…E…

3. How many people speak German as mother tongue in Europe?
A 132 million people
B 105 million people
C 95 million people

4. How many Nobel prize winners does Germany have?
A 82
B 78
C 38

5. Which German speaking town in the best place for living in the world for the 7th time in a row?
A Zurich
B Munich
C Vienna

6. How many companies in Germany have been founded by women?
A 13 %
B 25 %
C 43 %

7. In how many different ways can you say “money” in German?
A 20
B 15
C 10

8. In which European country is German the most popular foreign language after English?
A Hungary
B Netherlands
C Poland

9. Which of these things is a German invention?
A plastic
B printing
C contact lenses

10. What else can the word “Junge” (boy) mean?
A brother
B boyfriend
C offspring

11. What else can the word “faul” (lazy) mean?
A rotten
B slow
C laying

12. How do you say “very small amount of money” in German?
A wenig Geld
B Kleingeld
C Wechselgeld

13. Most of the nouns in German are…
A masculine
B feminine
C neuter

14. Germany has the world’s largest number of amateur and professional soccer clubs. How many German clubs are members of the German Football Association?

A 26,000
B 7,500
C 630

15. What is the meaning of the word “Audi” (car brand)?
A drive fast!
B do it!
C listen!

Want more? Do another quiz.

In order to find out some other interesting facts about Germany click here (for kids) or here (for adults).

1. more than 30 words: an, na, es, alt, aus, das, des, und, neu, Hut, tun, euch, auch, acht, echt, laut, halt, Tuch, nach,
Nase, Haus, Dach, Land, Lust, Dunst, Sand, Hase, Haut, Sache, Schule, Stuhl, Schade, Schande, Schund, Stand, Stunde,
Tasche, Dusche, duschen, Suche, suchen, halten, lachen, lausen, tauchen, Deutsch, autsch, tausend, schalten. 2. For example:
Taschentuch, Handy, Sonnenbrille, Regenschirm, Uhr, Feuerzeug. 3. 132 4.78 5. Vienna 6. 13 % 7. 15 different words for
“money”: Kohle (coal), Mäuse (mice), Knete (dough), Kröten (frogs), Kies (grit), Moos, (moss), Marie, Zaster, Flöhe (fleas),
Pinkiepinkie, Pulver (powder), Lappen (cloths), Piepen, Koks, Schotter (broken rocks).8. Netherlands (71 %),
Denmark (47 %), Sweden (26 %), Belgium (22 %), Poland (19 %) and Hungary (18 %) 9. printing: Johannes Gutenberg, 1440
10. das Junge = offspring 11. rotten 12. Kleingeld. 13. masculine: 41%, feminine: 35 %, neuter: 24 % 14. 26,000 15. listen!

Other quizes:

How well do you know German culture?

Kinder Quiz: Bundesländer Deutschlands

German contemporary state  (this one is a harder one)

facts & news, landeskunde, teachers

German inventions

The bellow list of German inventions is ideal for German classes. This topic is definitely going to intrigue the students. They will have 101 reason why you are wrong when you claim that Germans invented telephone, computer or beer. However, the students will still be able to improve their vocabulary with these words.

Here is the list of (some) German inventions:

der Teebeutel – teabag (Adolf Rambold, 1929)

die Glühbirne – light bulb (Heinrich Goebel, 1854)

“Mensch, ärgere dich nicht” (Josef Schmidt, 1907 / 08)

das Telefon (Philipp Reis, 1859)

die Zahnpasta – toothpaste (Ottomar H. von Mayenburg, 1907)

das Fernsehen – television (Manfred von Ardenne, 1930)

die Anti-Baby-Pille (Schering AG, 1961)

das Auto (Karl Benz, Gottlieb Daimler, 1886)

der Computer (Konrad Zuse, 1941)

die Chipkarte (Jürgen Dethloff, Helmut Gröttrup, 1969)

der Kühlschrank ohne FCKW – refrigerator (Firma Foron, 1993)

die Currywurst (Herta Heuwer, 1949)

das MP3-Format (Fraunhofer Institut, 1987)

das Bier – beer (Herzog Wilhelm IV, von Bayern, 1516)

der Buchdruck – letterpress (Johannes Gutenberg, 1440)

der Hubschrauber – helicopter (Heinrich Focke, 1936)

die Jeans (Lewi Strauss, 1873)

der Motorrad – motorcycle (Gottlieb Daimler, 1885)

der Plattenspieler – record player (Emil Berliner, 1887)

die Straßenbahn – tramway (Werner von Siemens, 1881)

die Thermosflasche (Reinhold Burger, 1903)

der Dieselmotor (Rudolf Diesel, 1890)

der Gummibär (Hans Riegel, 1922)

Source: Tatsachen über Deutschland (Societäts-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main, in Zusammenarbeit mit dem Auswärtigen Amt, Berlin)

For TEACHERS: If you have no idea how you could go through this topic with your students, click here: CREATE YOUR OWN EXERCISES. 

There is a PDF file with detailed information in German provided by Partner fur Innovation and it can be downloaded here. A shorter version of this document can be found here.

When I was looking for the above document in the Internet, I stumbled upon a card game that can be useful here. The cards can be downloaded here.

There is also a quiz provided by Goethe Institute and you can access it here.