*-chen*

"-chen"

is a postfix that you add to words to make them little or cute, like "-ette" in "kitchenette" or "-y" in "Jenny" or "cutesy." It is pronounced a little like the English word "hen" with more of a bite on the H and a slip of a Y before the E, kind of like "(c)hyen."

Here are some examples of it in action:

Häuschen (little house) = Haus (house) + ¨+ -chen (little)

Mädchen (girl) = Mädel (maiden) - -el + -chen (little)

So, after a month of living in Germany, when I ran across the word

Löschen

I mistook it for "Lös-chen," though I didn't know what a "Los" might be. The friend I was talking to didn't know what I meant at first and then laughed as he told me that in this case, the S, C, and H are all taken together ("lösch-en") to form the word "löschen," a verb that means

to delete

Bwa ha ha. Silly foreigner.