Zu Ostzeiten

Another thing I've been thinking about: the phrase "zu Ostzeiten," heard most recently between two women on a tram, talking in Berlin dialect.

Literally, I guess you'd have to translate this as "in East times," but what it really means is "in the days of East Germany" or "back in East Germany" – a country that doesn't exist anymore, so it's simultaneously become a time period.

I love these words that reflect the specific ties between a culture and a language. Perhaps the most classic example in German would be "die Wende," literally just "the change" or "the turning point." But when you say it in German, it's always understood to mean one particular turning point: the span of time between the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and German reunification in 1990.

There are lots of ways you could translate "die Wende" comprehensively and in context. Pretty much the only inaccurate translation, in fact, would be to translate it literally as nothing more than "the change."