Mäin Doheem – learn to talk about your home

IN Level A1, Sproochentest

In this lesson I will concentrate on the vocabulary around our homes. You will learn how to talk in more detail about your home, but especially how to speak confidently and fluently on this topic.

By the way did you know that the topic mäin Doheem / meng Wunneng is a topic of the oral part of the Sproochentest?

So, I’m here to help you be best prepared for this exam and get a higher score.

Let’s get started. Now do you know the difference between Doheem, Haus & Wunneng?

Doheem – Haus – Wunneng

home – house – accommodation

In some languages it is the same word but in Luxembourgish there is a difference.

En Haus – neutral noun – is a building, it’s a physical place where you live.

En Doheem – neutral noun – is much more than that, it’s a place you often associate with a family, feelings and emotions.

So en Doheem is en Haus and everything else around it.

Eng Wunneng – feminine noun – is the general term for a housing, residence or accommodation.

It can be an apartment, a studio, a house, a villa but also your parent’s home (if you still live with them). Now I’m curious:

A wat fir enger Zort/Aart Wunneng wunnt Dir?

What kind of accommodation do you live in?

I will use the formal form of you so Dir (nominative & accusative) or Iech (dative) in this lesson just like in a speaking exam.

There are different kind of houses:

en Eefamiljenhaus ouni Noperen – detached single-family house
e Reienhaus – a terraced house (where the houses are all joined together in a row) very common in a lot of areas in Luxembourg
e Bungalow – a house that only has one floor
e renovéiert Bauerenhaus – a refurbished farm house

False friend: Stadhaus is not like in English a townhouse but it is the word for town hall!

Now you may live in a flat or an apartment in which case the building you live in is called either

en Appartementshaus or eng Residence – a block of flats
en Héichhaus – a high-rise building (tower block) with 15, 20 or more floors.

And inside you will have

en Appartement (neutral noun)- a flat / apartment and to be more precise you can add
eng zwee-Zëmmer-Wunneng – a two-room flat
eng Wunngemeinschaft – shared flat
e Studio – a small flat with only one room

Let’s now practice with 2 answers to the question:

A wat fir enger Zort Wunneng wunnt Dir?

1. Ech wunnen an enger Dräi-Zëmmer-Wunneng um 3. Stack vun enger klenger Residence.

Notice that we have to use the dative case because saying where you live conveys the idea of a position: ech wunnen an enger Wunneng. And the preposition vun always requires the dative case: vun enger klenger Residence.

As you can see the feminine article eng changes to enger and the adjective kleng to klenger in the dative.

To say that you live on the first, or 2. floor you will say:

um éischte Stack, um 2. Stack or if you live on the ground floor you’ll say
ech wunnen um Rez-de-Chaussée

2. Ech wunne mat menger Famill an engem Eefamilljenhaus ouni direkt Noperen.

Ech wunne mat menger Famill an engem Eefamilljenhaus a mir hunn een

direkten Noper.

Wéi fannt Dir Är Wunneng?/Wéi gefält Iech Är Wunneng?

How do you like your accommodation?

To answer this question you should use adjectives to describe where you live. Speaking positively you could say:

Meng Wunneng ass …

bequeem / confortabel – comfortable
grouss / geraimeg – big / spacious
gemittlech – cosy
hell – bright

You can say:

Meng Wunneng ass bequeem an hell. – My flat is cosy and bright.
Ech wunnen an engem groussen a gemittlechen Appartement. – I live in a spacious and cosy apartment.

On the contrary if the flat is small and uncomfortable we would say:

et ass zimmlech kleng an ongemittlech – notice that we add here zimmlech to make it more natural so you might say to your friends or in a speaking test:

Et ass e grousst Appartement, et ass um leschte Stack, mee et ass zimmlech ongemittlech. – It’s a spacious apartment, it’s on the last floor, but it’s quite uncomfortable.

It is funny, I’ve noticed with students, when I asked them wéi gefält iech är Wunneng. Usually their answer is majo meng Wunneng huet eng Kichen, eng Stuff …and they start listing the rooms in their house. Well that’s nice, to show that you know that vocabulary but it is not really telling me what you like about the house. It would be much better to say: What I really like is ….:

Wat mir wierklech gefält ass d’Stuff, se ass grouss, hell a gemittlech. – What I really like is the living room, it is spacious, bright and comfortable.

Verschidden Zëmmeren am Haus

Different rooms of the house

eng Stuff – the living room
en Zëmmer (neutral) / Zëmmeren (plural) – a room / rooms
e Buedzëmmer – a bathroom
e Schlofzëmmer – a bedroom
en Iesszëmmer – a dining room
eng separat Toilette – a separate toilet

Moving on to the kitchen – d’Kichen you may have eng oppe Kichen – an open plan kitchen. So if you like your kitchen you could say:

Wat mir wierklech a menger Wunneng gefält, ass d’Kichen. Se ass oppen, grouss, hell a modern. – What I really like in my flat is the kitchen. It’s open plan, spacious, bright and modern.

You can watch this lesson on Youtube to practice your listening & pronunciation.

Säit wéini wunnt Dir do? Wou hutt Dir virdru gewunnt?

How long have you lived there? Where have you lived before?

Majo ech wunnen elo säit / zanter 5 Joer hei. Virdrun hunn ech zu {Stad} an engem Appartement um Rez-de-Chaussée gewunnt. Hei wunnen ech um leschte Stack a meng Wunneng ass immens hell, gemittlech an ech hunn zwou grouss Terrassen mat Vue op de Park. Wat mir wierklech gefält ass …….

Use comparisons:

et ass méi modern – it’s more modern
et ass vill méi hell wéi déi viregt Wunneng– it’s much brighter than the previous flat
mir hu vill méi Plaz wéi virdrun – we have far more room /space than before

Wou ech elo wunnen ass net esou grouss wéi virdrun mee fir éierlech ze sinn, gefält et mir hei besser

Where I live now is not as spacious as before but to be honest I like it better here

This is how you can talk about Mäin Doheem, meng Wunneng, mäin Appartement, mäin Haus. You’ve just learned a new bunch of new vocabulary and chunks that you can use to describe your home you in Luxembourgish which is awesome.

What about you?

Wéi gefält dir deng Wunneng? Wat fir en Zëmmer gefält dir am beschten? Share it in the comments section below.

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