Der Spiegel: Geschichte (1)

Every so often I'm fortunate to find an issue of Der Spiegel: Geschichte at an international newspaper and magazine store on the corner of E. 86th and 2nd Avenue. It's pretty pricey (around $10 or $11), but I get it to not only practice my reading comprehension, but since I plan to do a Masters in History conducted entirely in German, I also like to learn new history-related words. A lot of them are things I wouldn't normally come across in conversation, or even from watching the news (and you know how fancy the vocabulary of German news reports can be).


In my typical fashion, I'm going to share what I find interesting, and maybe you can learn something too! Any learner and lover of languages knows it's fun to discover new and fancy-sounding words, regardless of how often you actually use them in conversation!


Just as a side note, I use Leo, a very reliable online German-English/English-German dictionary for my translations.


I found these in the March 2012 issue which is all about Venice, or auf Deutsch, "Venedig."


der Kreuzzug - the crusade
die Zügellosigkeit - anarchy (literally, "loss of the reins")

verwirklicht - realized (as in, come to fruition)

urteilen - to deliver or render judgment

die Kriegslist - cunning ruse, stratagem (litereally, "war cunning" or "war craftiness")

aufstrebend - ambitious, aspiring, upcoming

überliefern - to hand or pass down

bedrohen - to threaten someone or something, to menace

der Söldnerführer - the mercenary leader

die Festlandspolitik - mainland policy

der Kitzel - the titillation

I found "der Kitzel" in an article about Casanova...natürlich!