I’ve already spoken about six English words that have made their way into the German language, but take on a completely different meaning.

Today I’d like to look at three more: messie, showmaster and city.

A desk or a room might be ‘messy’. Yes, even a person might be ‘messy’. But someone who can’t help but collect things is a ‘hoarder‘—perhaps even a ‘compulsive hoarder‘.

Germans call the famous Dutch entertainer Rudi Carrell a ‘Showmaster’. In English that would be a ‘presenter‘ or a ‘TV host‘.

A German ‘Talkmaster’ is a ‘talk show host’ and a German ‘Quizmaster’ is the ‘host of a quiz show’.

I’ve often heard people say they’re going into the ‘City’, meaning they’re going into the central district. In English we have towns (like Heinsberg, Gummersbach, Goslar) and cities (like Berlin, Cologne, Hamburg), and town and city ‘centres‘.

Yes, we native speakers of English who have been living in Germany for a long time will probably understand you (we might even be making the same mistakes!). But other native speakers might be confused.

The biggest mistake is to try avoiding making mistakes.

Does this sound strange to your ears?

Of course, we don’t like making mistakes and getting things wrong, do we?

However, nobody is perfect, and some mistakes are to be expected and are understandable.

Making mistakes is one of the best ways to learn and to grow.

If we never step out of our comfort zone and make mistakes, we’ll never learn new things.

It’s good to be reminded from time to time!

It’s fairly easy to change our behaviours for a short period of time. But how can we make permanent changes?

Keynote speaker and best-selling author Andy Bounds has a wonderful technique of asking the same question again and again.

Andy recommends that we find something we want to improve at. We then ask someone we respect to relentlessly (unerbittlich) ask us whether we’ve improved at it, and to keep doing this until our new habit has become permanent.

Of course, we can do the same with our customers. And that’s exactly what Andy does.

Perhaps you have a habit you would like to change? Or can you see yourself using this strategy with your own customers? If so, I’d love to hear from you.

“The Me You Can’t See” is a new five-part docuseries co-created by Oprah Winfrey and Prince Harry about mental-health awareness, with stories from celebrities (like Lady Gaga, basketball player DeMar DeRozan and Robin Williams’ son, Zak) and from ordinary people.

You might like to watch the trailer on YouTube here, and share this with someone who needs to see this! 

If you’re like me and are optimistic when it comes to how much you can get done in a day, you might like to give the “Pomodoro Technique” a try.

It’s a popular time management method that can help us beat procrastination and improve our focus. And it works!

The only challenge is actually doing it on a regular basis!

So how does it work?

1. Prepare a list of your tasks.
2. Choose one task on the list.
3. Set a timer for 25 minutes.
4. Work on your task until the timer rings. (Keep a check on a sheet of paper.)
5. Take a 5 minute break. (You’ve just completed your first Pomodoro.)
6. Repeat steps 1-4 three times, and then take a longer 15 – 30 minute break.

And that’s it.

(This technique was developed by Francesco Cirillo in the late 1980s. If you want to know more about this technique, take a look here.)