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| Ihre 10 Minuten Englisch pro Woche |
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Dear email,
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I don’t know about you, but I am a private person. At parties – and there are plenty of those now, in the holiday season – I am usually the slightly pathetic figure sitting on the sidelines while most everyone else is engaged in conversation. Why? It’s because I find small talk difficult, especially in larger groups or with people I don’t know yet at work or in meetings. So, if you feel the same way, we have a great audio clip for you, below.
And, speaking of the holiday season, we tell you all about how Americans go all out decorating their trees and their homes with Christmas lights. It can be beautiful, it can be tacky (and energy-intensive), but it’s always a sight to see. And there’s no better place in the U.S. to see it than in New York City. You can also read below about what it costs to live there (it’s no Christmas bargain!).
Next week, my colleague Inez Sharp and I will be back with a Christmas special.
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Judith Gilbert
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Editor-in-chief, Business Spotlight
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holiday season: Festtage, Weihnachtsfeiertage | pathetic: hier: armselig | on the sidelines: am Rande, abseits | engaged: be ∼ in sth.: mit etw. beschäftigt sein | tacky: kitschig, geschmacklos | bargain: Schnäppchen
Note: Judith's editorial is written in US English.
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Word of the Week
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snowclone
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Did you know...? A snowclone is a cliché that is reused and adapted by swapping out certain words while keeping the original structure. “X is the new Y” (like “orange is the new black”) is one popular snowclone, as is “it was the mother of all...”.
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© Illustration: Georg Lechner
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Christmas
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Christmas lights
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Decorating for some holidays is like a sport to many Americans. In the weeks leading up to Halloween, you’ll see large skeletons and spiders crawling all over people’s lawns. And during the Christmas season, many houses are covered in intricate light displays.
Several American Christmas customs have their origins in Germany, such as putting up a tree. However, while the German tradition is to light candles on the tree, Americans chose to use light bulbs instead, starting in the late 1800s.
American businessman Thomas Edison invented the light bulb in 1879. Around Christmas 1882, one of his associates, Edward Hibberd Johnson, realized that a string of lights on Christmas trees was less of a fire risk than burning candles.
By 1894, The New York Times had reported on Johnson’s display. A decade later, President Grover Cleveland used light bulbs to decorate the White House Christmas tree for the first time. And, in 1903, the company General Electric began selling specially packaged Christmas lights.
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holiday (N. Am.,): hier: Fest, auch: Weihnachts- | intricate: anspruchsvoll | light bulb: Glühbirne
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© Image: Juliana Malta / Unsplash.com
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Quiz
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Rockefeller Center
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1) The famous Christmas tree in Rockefeller Center in New York City has lots of lights! How many?
A) 5,000
B) 50,000
C) 500,000
2) The star on top of the tree is made of Swarovski crystals and was designed by the famous architect Daniel Libeskind. How much does the star weigh?
A) 80 kg
B) 180 kg
C) 400 kg
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© Illustration: Georg Lechner
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Ihr Gutschein für Business Spotlight
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Sie erhalten die erste Ausgabe unseres Abonnements gratis
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Good to know
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A slice of New York
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The rent freeze promised by New York’s mayor, Zohran Mamdani, won’t be much help to anyone hoping for an apartment in the city’s newly renovated Flatiron Building. Built in 1902, this singular piece of New York architecture has been renovated after years of semi-neglect, and 38 apartments are now for sale. Unique in many ways, the Flatiron Building originally had a restaurant and bar in the basement; this was one of the first places in the city where women could visit on their own, where gay men could feel comfortable, and where Black musicians were allowed to play. Later, though, many of the apartments in the Fifth Avenue building were turned into offices and interior design details were covered over or destroyed. A newly renovated three-bedroom apartment will cost you around $10 million.
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rent freeze: Mietendeckel | mayor: Bürgermeister(in) | semi-neglect: teilweise Vernachlässigung | basement: Keller, Untergeschoss
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© Image: iStock.com
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Communication
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Small talk
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What are your plans for the weekend? Listen to Business Spotlight editors chat about small talk and find out what they like to talk about when waiting for the kettle to boil.
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kettle: Wasserkocher
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© Image: Georg Lechner
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Anzeige
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Grüezi! … and hello world!
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The ZEIT Switzerland newsletter keeps you up to date with what's going on in Switzerland and how the rest of the world views this small, lovely country. Published every Friday from the ZEIT office in Zurich, the newsletter is written in German and translated into English.
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© Bild: Henrique Terreira / Unsplash.com
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Profile
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Bryan Stevenson: the death-row lawyer
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Nearly two million people are currently in prison in America. The US has the highest incarceration rate of any democratic society. Whether putting so many people in prison is right or not is debatable, particularly as experts say between six per cent and 15.4 per cent of prisoners should not be there at all.
American lawyer and social-justice activist Bryan Stevenson has saved more than 130 wrongly convicted prisoners from “death row”, referring to prisoners who have been given the death penalty. In 2021, the White House called Stevenson an “advocate fighting tirelessly for the poor, incarcerated and condemned”, giving him the National Humanities Medal.
Activists like Stevenson are concerned not just about the number of executions, which according to Amnesty International is rising worldwide, but also about attitudes to the death penalty and understanding of the past. He speaks of a “narrative struggle”, referring to Donald Trump’s plans to remove certain historical memorials. “We can no longer rely on the rule of law alone,” Stevenson told The New York Times. “We have to engage in the storytelling, the teaching that helps this country recognize why we are still in a struggle for equality and justice.”
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incarceration: Inhaftierung | debatable: umstritten | convicted: verurteilt | death row (US): Todestrakt | penalty: Strafe | tirelessly: unermüdlich | incarcerated: inhaftiert | condemned: verurteilt | attitude: Einstellung, Haltung | rule of law: Rechtsstaatlichkeit | engage in sth.: sich eingehend mit etw. beschäftigen, sich in etw. engagieren
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© Image: Agaton Strom / Redux / laif
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Im aktuellen Magazin
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Small talk
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Break the ice, not social norms! | Keeping quiet about crimes at work | Does artificial intelligence reflect you? | Aldi: the rock star of supermarkets in the US
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Quiz
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Christmas around the world
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In Germany, presents are often opened on Christmas Eve. That’s not the case in many other parts of the world. Test your knowledge on Christmas traditions around the globe and get into the festive spirit!
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festive: weihnachtlich
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© Image: Annie Spratt / Unsplash.com
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From the ZEIT SPRACHEN App
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Let it snow...
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Yesterday (18 December) was “Snowflake Day”, celebrated by snow enthusiasts around the world. Here's some rather frosty vocabulary to get you in the winter mood!
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© Image: Theresa Hering
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Mitarbeit: Dennis Draber, Judith Gilbert, Susanne Krause, Nadia Lawrence, Mae McCreary, Richard Mote, Rachel Preece, Inez Sharp.
Sie haben diesen Newsletter zurzeit an die Adresse subs@emailshot.io bestellt. Eine Abmeldung ist jederzeit über Newsletter-Abmeldung möglich. Bitte antworten Sie nicht auf diese E-Mail. Bitte wenden Sie sich an abo@zeit-sprachen.de.
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USt-IdNr.: DE -265 -973 -410 Datenschutz | AGB | Impressum | Kontakt © ZEIT SPRACHEN GmbH 2025
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