Vocabulary Module 16: feiern
In this module, you will learn some vocabulary to talk about celebrating (feiern) using Das Digitale Wörterbuch der Deutschen Sprache (DWDS), a large electronic collection of German texts known as a corpus. Let’s explore what words German speakers use to talk about celebrating. Go to the DWDS homepage and type feiern in the search box. You will be taken to a page that gives you a lot of information about this word, but we will focus on the so-called ‘word cloud’ which is available in the Typische Verbindungen section.
This word cloud shows the words that commonly occur with the word feiern; such words are known as collocates. The larger the word in the image is, the more often it co-occurs with feiern. You can also see a numerical representation of the frequency of co-occurrence by looking at the Überblick table for feiern accessible through the Detailliertere Informationen link above the word cloud.
Activity 1
A.
First, let’s review the meaning of some German nouns which are frequently used with the verb feiern by matching them with their English equivalents. If needed, you can consult the online dictionary LEO.
B.
It is important to learn the German nouns together with their articles. Look at the 16 nouns that you learned in Activity 1A in the list below and identify 10 nouns that go with der, 3 nouns that go with die, and 3 nouns that go with das.
Activity 2
Let’s explore more the noun Party, a collocate of feiern. What other verbs frequently co-occur with Party? Read the sentences from the DWDS corpus below and click on one verb in each sentence that is associated with Party.
Based on these sentences, what is the English translation of each expression? Eine Party… = to… a party
Activity 3
A.
The noun Hochzeit is another collocate of feiern. Click on the word Hochzeit in the word cloud for feiern (or you can search for Hochzeit from the main DWDS page). Scroll down to the word cloud. You can see many different adjectives that are frequently used to describe Hochzeit. Some of these adjectives are listed below; match them with their English equivalents. If needed, you can consult the online dictionary LEO.
B.
Now, what do silberne, goldene, diamantene, and eiserne Hochzeit actually mean? Click on the correct number of years of marriage below.
Activity 4
Now, let’s explore another collocate of feiern: Jubiläum. Search for Jubiläum and scroll down to the word cloud. Read the examples below with some of these words and click on one noun that is associated with Jubiläum in each sentence.
A.
B.
Can you figure out the meaning of the nouns from 4A? Choose the correct definitions.
C.
Now, read the examples in A more closely. Look at the year of the jubilee for each event and the year of each cited newspaper article and decide when each celebrated event happened or started.
D.
It is important to learn the German nouns with their articles.
Activity 5
On your own. Using the word clouds from this module, write 4-5 sentences about feiern and your favorite holiday. Pay attention to adjective endings.
For example:
Ich schmeiße eine große Party.
Weihnachten ist mein Lieblingsfeiertag.
2019 feierten Lawrence und Eutin das 30. Jubiläum ihrer Städtepartnerschaft.
Schirin Kourehpaz & Nina Vyatkina
