Carnival: Ordering carnival pastries like Berliner or Galani

🇩🇪 Galani are thin fried pastry strips dusted with icing sugar, an Italian Carnival treat. Many German bakeries sell them in bags in the weeks before Lent.

💬 die here means "them", not "the". In speech, Germans often use der, die or das to mean "it" or "them".

💬 Euro doesn't add an s for more than one: drei Euro, never drei Euros.

💬 German needs no word for "of" here: eine Tüte Galani. Same with ein Glas Wasser "a glass of water".

💬 noch means "another" or "one more" when you're adding to an order: noch einen Kaffee, bitte.

🇩🇪 Staff say Gerne when they take your order or hand something over. It works like "sure" or "my pleasure".

💬 Prices are read euros first, then cents, with no word for "cents": fünf Euro sechzig = €5.60.

💬 Das macht "that makes" is the standard way to give a total: Das macht zwölf Euro.

💬 German says mit Karte "with card" where English says "by card". Paying in cash is bar zahlen.

🇩🇪 Small bakeries and Carnival stalls are sometimes cash-only, so it's worth asking before you order.

💬 dran is a short form of daran "on/against it". It's very common in casual speech.

💬 einfach usually means "simple", but here it softens an instruction like "just": Kommen Sie einfach rein "Just come in".

💬 noch here means "for the rest of": the shopkeeper is wishing you a good rest of the day. Same with Schönen Abend noch "Have a nice evening".

💬 Ihnen is the polite "you" that goes with wishes and thanks. With a friend, you'd say dir auch.

🇩🇪 This is the automatic reply when someone wishes you a nice day at the till. Use Ihnen with staff you don't know.

🇩🇪 Helau! is the carnival cry in Mainz, Düsseldorf and many other places, but in Cologne it's Alaaf!. Shouting the wrong one in Cologne or Düsseldorf will get you teased, since the two cities are friendly rivals.