'toll' is what a German says when something is great. It hasn't always been a compliment. Its closest relative in English is a word nobody would use to praise anything.
German still uses both meanings. The older one survives inside a couple of longer words, one of them written on a drawer in an old apothecary's cabinet.
The oldest meaning. A scene showing the earliest sense of the word that scholars can reconstruct.
One line across the map. Why German says the word with a /t/ when its neighbours say it with a /d/.
The English cousin. The everyday English word that shares its origin, and what it came to mean instead.
A sources page and a short guide for the adult.
For personal use in home education and tutoring only.
KS3 and KS4 German learners
Home-educated children doing German
Anyone curious about why German words mean what they mean
Specialist tuition students, including dyslexic learners
Parents learning German next to their child
Adults coming back to German
The documentl assumes the learner already knows that German nouns are 'der', 'die' or 'das'. Without that, the history still works, but the endings won't make sense.
A learner is told that 'toll' means 'great', then meets it in words and phrases where 'great' makes no sense. The word's history explains those uses, so they don't have to be learnt one by one.
Originally created for my dyslexic son.
You can print this PDF in two ways. The first is a set of large cards, one idea to each. Laminated and punched onto a ring, they make a deck for a bag or the dinner table. You laminate and bind the deck yourself, so it doesn't arrive ready to use. The second is a single sheet at the end, which needs nothing more once it's printed. You'll need a printer, plus a laminator and a binder ring for the deck.
Available now as a PDF download.
'toll' is what a German says when something is great. It hasn't always been a compliment. Its closest relative in English is a word nobody would use to praise anything.
German still uses both meanings. The older one survives inside a couple of longer words, one of them written on a drawer in an old apothecary's cabinet.
The oldest meaning. A scene showing the earliest sense of the word that scholars can reconstruct.
One line across the map. Why German says the word with a /t/ when its neighbours say it with a /d/.
The English cousin. The everyday English word that shares its origin, and what it came to mean instead.
A sources page and a short guide for the adult.
For personal use in home education and tutoring only.
KS3 and KS4 German learners
Home-educated children doing German
Anyone curious about why German words mean what they mean
Specialist tuition students, including dyslexic learners
Parents learning German next to their child
Adults coming back to German
The documentl assumes the learner already knows that German nouns are 'der', 'die' or 'das'. Without that, the history still works, but the endings won't make sense.
A learner is told that 'toll' means 'great', then meets it in words and phrases where 'great' makes no sense. The word's history explains those uses, so they don't have to be learnt one by one.
Originally created for my dyslexic son.
You can print this PDF in two ways. The first is a set of large cards, one idea to each. Laminated and punched onto a ring, they make a deck for a bag or the dinner table. You laminate and bind the deck yourself, so it doesn't arrive ready to use. The second is a single sheet at the end, which needs nothing more once it's printed. You'll need a printer, plus a laminator and a binder ring for the deck.
Available now as a PDF download.
