One of my goals in making Dirty Deutsch was to provide students of German with the cultural shibboleth known as swear words. They can be difficult to learn. It's hard to figure out how offensive they are. Many people are reluctant to teach them, as academic settings are not casual. Teachers and professors are right to avoid swear words in their classes.

But why would you want to learn how to swear in German?

Because all native German speakers know how to swear, and most of them do. For comprehension of fluent speech, to be able to express yourself in the full spectrum of the German language, and at the very least to know where in the spectrum your words are. Becoming familiar with swear words is another important lesson in your mastery of the German language and understanding of German culture.

I've had two experiences where knowing the seedier side of a language would have made life easier, and probably safer.

1) During college, I was in a bar in Munich with a few people from my school group. None of us were really fluent in German yet. Some young men were sitting at the table next to ours talking loudly. And sometimes it seemed they were talking to us, or at least a couple of the women in our group. Just then, our professor arrived (a native German speaker). He turned to the guys and said something rather sharp, and they were quiet thereafter. Turns out they were spouting gems like "Hej, schluckst du oder spuckst du?" ("Hey, do you spit or swallow?")

2) I was living in South Korea, teaching English. One of my classes (a group of 12 year olds) on a particular afternoon was very unresponsive and unruly. One of the kids left to go to the bathroom, but came back with the principal. Turns out one of the boys had been tossing around Korean swear words the whole hour. Had I at least been able to understand the swear words he was saying, and how offensive they were, the class period would not have been wasted.

It's hard to find the right teacher and the right situation, where learning swear words is appropriate and where their relative offensiveness is apparent. Swear words are good to know, even if you don't intend on using them. But now there's Dirty Deutsch. You can play with your friends. The color coding makes it easy to tell which words are the most offensive. Just playing the game provides reading, speaking and listening practice. Dirty Deutsch is a fantastic solution for the taboo, and I hope you enjoy playing it.

--Stuart Gorman