Oktoberfest: Proposing toast to table

💬 This verb splits in a normal sentence: Wir stoßen an "We're toasting", with an moving to the end.

💬 Put whoever you're toasting after auf: auf euch for a group of friends, auf dich "to you" for one friend, auf uns "to us".

💬 After möchte, the verb anstoßen goes to the very end and stays in one piece. It doesn't split here.

🇩🇪 A relaxed way to get a group's attention among friends or table mates. Too casual for a work speech.

💬 mal and kurz soften the command, so it sounds friendly rather than bossy. The verb is herhören, and her goes to the end.

💬 On its own this would be ein schöner Abend. After auf in a toast, it changes to einen schönen Abend.

🇩🇪 Whoever gives the toast says this. Then everyone raises their glass, answers Prost!, and clinks.

🇩🇪 Look the other person in the eye as you clink; avoiding eye contact is considered bad form, and superstition says it brings seven years of bad luck. With heavy Maß mugs, clink the bodies rather than the rims to avoid chipping the glass.

💬 German says 'look to me into the eyes': mir marks the person, and the eyes get die, not 'my'. Same pattern: Er hat mir die Hand gegeben "He shook my hand".

🇩🇪 Germans expect eye contact with each person while clinking glasses. Looking away or at the glass is noticed and often teased.

🇩🇪 The popular saying is seven years of bad luck, often joked about as seven years of bad sex. It's said with a grin, but people do take the eye contact seriously.

💬 When the voice falls, it means 'oh, I see'. Said with a rising, questioning tone, Ach so? means 'oh really?'.

💬 also doesn't mean 'also'. It means 'so' or 'well then'. The German for 'also' is auch.

🇩🇪 Prost is the beer-tent toast. With wine, people more often say Zum Wohl "to your health".

💬 dass pushes the verb to the end: du bist becomes dass du da bist. To a group, it becomes Schön, dass ihr da seid.

💬 gefallen works backwards from English: the place does the pleasing, and mir "to me" is the person. Swap it: Dir gefällt's hier "You like it here".

🇩🇪 Servus is a friendly Bavarian and Austrian word for both hello and goodbye. It fits perfectly at Oktoberfest but sounds regional up north.