Talk About Your Life in Luxembourgish: Birth, School and more – Part 1

IN Level A1

Today’s episode is part one of a series, where we’re diving into Luxembourgish for life.

What do I mean by that? Well, think about the big milestones we all go through — being born, going to school, starting work, getting married, having a family, retiring, and yes… even the end of life. Each of these stages has its own important expressions and words in Luxembourgish.

So, here’s the plan:
👉 We’ll begin today with vocabulary for birth and being born
👉 Then in a next episode, we’ll move on to school and education.
👉 After that, I’ll walk you through key words for work and professional life.
👉 We’ll also explore expressions for marriage and family.
👉 And finally, in the last episode we’ll wrap up with words for retirement and, sensitively, for when people pass away.

By the end of this series of episodes, you’ll have a set of expressions that follow the journey of life itself — from the very beginning, all the way to the end.”

Many of us are at different stages in life, so whether you’re talking about yourself or someone else, these words come up all the time. And from my experience, a lot of learners make mistakes with exactly these kinds of words especially when talking about birth.

And so we will start today with vocabulary for birth and being born.

We’ll start with birth words. Many learners don’t know how to talk about birth.

They have trouble with the word birth – d’Gebuert – fem noun, and born – gebuer ginn / op d’Welt kommen.

Let me put you to the test: which of the following 3 sentences is correct?

Ech gebuer an Italien.
Ech sinn an Italien gebuer.
Ech war an Italien gebuer.

If you said answer number 2, you are correct. The way we talk about birth and being born is:

Ech sinn an Italien gebuer.

We need to use the verb sinn to be with the past participle gebuer which comes at the end of the sentence: ech sinn ….. gebuer. Very important: we say I am born and not like in English: I was born. Ech sinn … gebuer.

There is another way you can say this: Ech sinn an Italien op d’Welt komm. Literally this translates to: I came onto the world in Italy. Ech sinn an Italien op d’Welt komm.

Did you notice that here we use the preposition “an” before the country. Ech sinn an Italien gebuer. Ech sinn an Italien op d’Welt komm.

Or may be you want to say that your child was born in England:

Mäi Kand ass an England gebuer. Ass is the conjugated form of sinn – 3rd person singular: Mäi Kand ass gebuer, Hien ass gebuer, Hatt ass gebuer

How to use this in a conversation?

We often ask people questions about their birth, right? So we might ask someone:

Where were you born?

Wou bass du gebuer? (informal)
Wou sidd Dir gebuer? (formal)

So we have the question word Wou meaning Where followed by the verb sinn (conjugated): bass is the conjugated form of sinn – 2nd person singular (you) – wou bass du …. and sidd the conjugated form of you formal – wou sidd Dir …. and we put again gebuer at the end of the sentence: Wou bass du gebuer? Wou sidd Dir gebuer?

How to best answer this question? Wou bass du gebuer?

Ech sinn an Indien gebuer / Ech sinn an Indien op d’Welt komm. – I was born in India.

Ech sinn an England op d’Welt komm.

Now you might ask someone:

When were you born?

Wéini bass du / sidd Dir gebuer?

Here we have the question word Wéini meaning Where

Or we might ask about someone else:

Wéini ass hie gebuer? Wéini ass hatt gebuer? When was he born? When was she born?
Wéini ass däi Meedchen gebuer? When was your daughter born?
Wéini sinn deng Kanner gebuer? When were your children born?

How to best answer this question: Wéini bass du gebuer?

Let’s see possible answers:

Ech sinn 1980 an Italien gebuer. – I was born in Italy in 1980

Notice that in Luxembourgish we don’t use any preposition before the year. While in English you say in 1980 we just say Ech sinn 1980 gebuer. Mäi Jong ass 2020 gebuer. Or you might want to be more precise by adding the month:

Ech sinn am Mee 1980 gebuer – I was born in May 1980. Use here the preposition am before the month: am Januar, am August, am Dezember: Ech sinn am August 1980 gebuer.

But if we are using it for a specific birthday, we skip am before month and we need to use the definitie masc. article den before the date. Let’s practice

How would you say: I was born on January 1st, 1980?

Ech sinn den 1. Januar 1980 gebuer.
Mäi Jong ass de 15. Mee 2020 op d’Welt komm. – My son was born on May 15th, 2020.

Here I said de and not den because of our n-rule. If are not familiar with the n-rule then I invite you to read the lesson on my blog: The N-Rule Explained: https://luxembourgishwithanne.lu/2017/06/25/know-luxembourgish-n-rule/

The birth is: d’Gebuert. I was born is ……. Ech sinn … gebuer

How to ask someone: Where were you born (formal)?:

Wou sidd Dir gebuer? And informal is: Wou bass du gebuer?

Do you remember how to say I was born in England:

Ech sinn an England gebuer.

Next you learned to ask someone When were you born (formal)?:

Wéini sidd Dir gebuer?

And a possible answer could be: I was born on May 1, 1990.

Ech sinn den 1. Mee 1990 gebuer.

Over to you: Try to answer the following 2 questions aloud: