I recently took up padel - one of the fastest-growing sports in the world, with six million players in Spain alone. After my first session on the court I was hooked, and within a few days I'd picked up about twenty new German words without even trying, just from reading and watching things about padel.
No word lists to memorise - the words stuck because they were part of something I actually cared about. Here's my padel vocabulary:
der Schläger (die Pala) - the stringless racket with a perforated surface
das Netz - the net dividing the court in half
die Wand / das Glas - the glass wall: the ball is allowed to bounce off it, that's part of the game
der Aufschlag - the serve, played underhand, no higher than hip level
der Doppelfehler - a double fault on the serve
die Grundlinie - the baseline at the back of the court
der Lob - a high defensive shot over the opponents
der Smash - a powerful overhead winning shot
der Satz, das Match - set and match, scored just like tennis
der Doppelpartner - your doubles partner (padel is always played in pairs)
Pick whatever you're actually into right now - a show, a hobby, anything - and read or watch something about it in German. The 15-20 words that come up most often will stick without any drilling, especially if you say them out loud or talk them through with a teacher.
In lessons, I always pick materials based on what the student is into - German just sticks faster that way. If you'd like the same, book a free consultation.
