Hobbies in German: Comprehensive Guide with 200+ German Hobbies Vocabulary
You had enough of boring German conversations? We totally understand!
That’s why we made this blog post for you: hobbies in German! Learn how to ask about hobbies, talk about your hobbies and explain everything about your favorite free time activities with the best chunks available.
Spring German (a project I co-founded) made a great video about this topic. This is how you talk about your hobbies in German:
What’s next? Explore the different hobbies in German!
1. How to ask about hobbies in German?
First of all, it’s quite important to learn how you ask about other people’s interests in a natural way – like a German native speaker would.
You might already know this much about the German culture , but local people like simple, direct questions.
Here’s a table with some of the most common chunks for asking about hobbies in German:
2. How to talk about hobbies in German?
Alright, now let’s talk about how you can share your own enthusiasm with others about your hobbies.
You can use these phrases to sound natural when chatting about what you like to do. Just remember, Germans appreciate directness, so don’t be shy about sharing your interests!
Here’s a table with some handy chunks and phrases you can use to talk about your own hobbies:
You can easily combine these phrases with specific hobbies or activities. So, more about this in the next sections!
3. The most popular hobbies in Germany
Germans love going out in the nature after a long working day and on the weekends. If you want to talk about planning ahead for group activities, you first have to learn the days of the week in German . It’s also a good idea to know the months in German , so you’re up-to-date with seasonal activities.
Hiking, listening to German music, traveling and playing football in German speaking countries are just some of the most popular hobbies.
We made a complete list with chunks (and their English translations), so you won’t ever get lost for words when talking about your hobbies.
Hiking (Wandern)
Want to go on a hike? Make sure to use clear phrases for directions in German, so you don’t get lost!
Cycling (Radfahren)
Germans love cycling and cycling sports. If you want to make a bit of a small talk in German, cycling is one of your go-to topics.
Football (Fußball)
Who doesn’t like football? You can talk about it, play it, or analyze it with your friends.
Use these chunks for football in German .
Gardening (Gärtnern)
An amazing method to relax yourself is to do some gardening. And now, you know how to talk about it in German.
Reading (Lesen)
If you’re going for the best way to immerse yourself in a language, reading is the best solution.
We can even recommend you some easy German books !
Cooking (Kochen)
Let’s make some magic in the kitchen together!
Traveling (Reisen)
If you’re ready for a true language learning adventure, visit one German-speaking country!
Watching TV/movies (Fernsehen/Filme schauen)
Watching the best TV shows or best German movies is another useful hobby – just don’t go overboard! (You can even try Lingopie for the best experience.)
Listening to music (Musik hören)
We probably don’t think about music as a language learning tool, but in reality, songs can get stuck in our heads. Then you find the lyrics, explore the meaning, aaaand you’re well on your way to learn German.
Photography (Fotografie)
Take beautiful photos and share it with your friends. Here’s how you can talk about this hobby in German.
Board games (Brettspiele)
What’s better than getting together and playing board games?!
Skiing (Ski fahren)
You can explore the German sports vocabulary, and you have to know, they are pretty good at winter sports.
Swimming (Schwimmen)
Maybe you’re not the runner type. Maybe you’re the swimmer!
DIY projects (Heimwerken)
There comes a time, when you turn into a true master, and you fix things yourself.
Fitness/going to the gym (Fitness/ins Fitnessstudio gehen)
Stay healthy by going to the gym/doing some fitness!
4. Practice speaking about your hobbies in German
Practice speaking about your hobbies with our flashcard-based worksheets!
This was just a sneak peek: if you click this button below, you’ll get access to our Full Practice Worksheet Library.
5. Learn German hobbies vocabulary with Conversation Based Chunking
Throughout this article, we mentioned “chunks”. And maybe, you’re not familiar with them.
Lexical chunks are the natural building blocks of the language. You use them in your native language, too, and you don’t even realize it. It’s not different in German either.
That’s why we teach our students with the Conversation Based Chunking method. It’s a method that focuses on these chunks, instead of giving you the boring vocabulary lists and the explaining everything with grammar definitions.
If you sign up now, you’ll get your first FREE German Chunking Kit with essential chunking lists, practice exercises and other resources to learn German. With the help of this method, you’ll talk about your hobbies in German in no time!
Lukas is the founder of Effortless Conversations and the creator of the Conversation Based Chunking™ method for learning languages. He's a linguist and wrote a popular book about learning languages through "chunks". He also co-founded the language education company Spring Languages, which creates online language courses and YouTube content.
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Hobbies in German [How to Talk About Your Interests]
In order to talk about your hobbies in German, you not only need to learn what the German word for your hobby or interest is, but also how to correctly use it in a sentence. After reading this post you will know:
- Verbs used to describe hobbies in German
- German translations for common hobbies
- How to create sentences to describe your hobbies
Why Learn About Hobbies in German?
People love talking about their hobbies and interests. Talking about your hobbies in German is a great ice-breaker when meeting new people.
Perhaps you’ve started talking to a new language partner on Tandem . One of my first questions is hast du Hobbys? (do you have any hobbies?)
Talking about hobbies in German can give you a great idea of what someone is like, and if you have similar interests that’s fantastic because you’ll have plenty to talk about. If not, you’ll learn about something new.
German Verbs for Hobbies
Just like in English, for certain hobbies we need to use a verb to describe the action. For example, in English we don’t say ‘I football’, we say ‘I play football’. And it’s the same in German.
Let’s take a look at some common verbs used with hobbies:
These verbs are all similar to their English counterparts, apart from treiben (to drive or push). This is a tricky verb for English speakers, because it translates roughly as ‘to do’ and is used for the noun Sport .
Think of it this way, if you ‘do’ sport, you normally need to push yourself and there is some physical effort involved. However you can also use machen (to do) but you will see treiben used a lot as well.
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Hobbies in German & Their Verbs
You’ve seen how we need to use certain verbs to describe hobbies. You can’t simply ‘basketball’ you ‘play basketball’. This is because Basketball, Fußball, Tennis etc. are nouns.
However some hobbies are verbs themselves. For example you can say ich schwimme (I swim) and because schwimmen is a verb, it doesn’t need an additional verb to describe it.
The only exception in the list below is spazieren gehen (to go for a walk) where both spazieren (to walk / stroll) and gehen (to go) are verbs.
Top Tip : It’s quite easy to tell nouns and verbs apart in German: nouns are always C apitalised & verbs are not c apitalised, usually end -en and have to be conjugated depending on the subject.
So you know that some hobbies need to use verbs to describe them. But which hobbies pair with which verbs? Mostly these are similar to their English counterparts.
To make things clearer, you’ll see the nouns in purple and the verbs in orange :
If you’re not into playing sports yourself, but would rather watch them live or on TV, you can change the verb to gucken or schauen (to look / watch) so we have Basketball gucken (to watch basketball) instead of Basketball spielen (to play basketball).
German Phrases to Talk About Hobbies in Sentences
So now we have all the nouns and verbs we need to talk about our hobbies and interests. But how to we actually build a sentence?
Well first of all there are some standard questions you can learn to ask others about their hobbies:
Asking About Hobbies
Of course with the last question you can swap out Fußball for any other hobby noun.
These examples are all in the informal du form, because it’s likely you’ll been using this form if you’re chatting to someone about their interests. But you can always change this to the formal Sie form: Haben Sie Hobbys? etc.
Talking About Your Hobbies & Interests
Whenever you want to talk about a hobby that uses a verb (remember verbs are shown in orange in the table above) we need to remember to conjugate it depending on the subject:
To talk about enjoying a hobby in German, I need to introduce you to a useful little word , gern(e) (gladly). You can say both gern or gerne as they both mean the same thing and you can just say whichever sounds better to you.
If you want to add further information, you can add it after gerne :
If you are talking about a noun hobby (Eishockey) that requires a verb (spielen) , you don’t have to use gerne, but you can if you want to say that you ‘like’ doing it. Let’s take a look:
If we are using a noun hobby that requires a verb , we need to follow a certain word order. Let’s break it down with Rad fahren (to cycle / ride a bike):
We can see that the subject always takes position 1, the verb always takes position 2 and the noun goes to the end. Any other information goes after the verb, into position 3.
When we use gerne , that always goes after the verb so we have:
Subject + Verb + ‘Gerne’ + Other info + Noun
So now you know how to say common hobbies in German, and how to correctly use them in sentences. Leave a comment below and tell me what your hobbies are in German.
Read next : German Sentence Structure Explained
How would you say you like painting watercolors or I like drawing and painting.
Hallo Barb, to say you like painting with watercolours, we need to use the verb ‘malen’ (to paint) and the verb ‘das Aquarell’ (the watercolour). So we end up with ‘ich male gern Aquarell’ (I like to paint watercolour).
The verb for ‘to draw’ is ‘zeichnen’ so you can say ‘ich zeichne gern’ (I like drawing) or ‘ich male und zeichne gern’ (I like painting and drawing).
Meine LieblingsSteckenpferd ist die deutsche Sprache !! Vielen lieben Dank ! Gruß, Otto
Es tut mir sehr Leid ! Mein Lieblingssteckenpferd ! Danke wieder einmal 😊 Gruß, Otto
Mein liebstes Hobby ist das Lernen von Deutsch
Mein Hobby ist das Studieren und Lernen der deutschen Grammatik mit Frau Emmas hilfreichem Unterricht, für den ich ihr sehr dankbar bin.
Nice post. This wasn’t what I was searching for but I still enjoyed reading it.
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