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Zebrastreifen

Learn a funny, quirky German word each week with DW's Word of the Week feature. This week: Zebrastreifen.

https://p.dw.com/p/Rlha
Image: picture-alliance / dpa/dpaweb

Why did the chicken cross the road? As everyone knows: to get to the other side. But what you may not know is that, in Germany, the law-abiding chicken is helped by the zebra when crossing the road. Well, not by a whole zebra, but at least by its stripes. "Zebra stripes" - or, "Zebrastreifen" - is, in fact, the German word for cross-walk. When in Germany, the chicken should, by the way, take particular care to walk across the zebra stripes only when the pedestrian light is green - otherwise it may be slapped with a hefty fine.

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