Essential German phrases

'Florence on the Elbe' — an eighteenth-century nickname the city still uses about itself, and a reasonable description of the river bend and the baroque skyline.

Saxon for a slice of bread with something on it. Not a sandwich, not toast — the open slice you take to work. You will hear it daily and find it in no textbook.

The three-layered Saxon cake of base, quark and an egg-cream top. Every bakery has its own and locals have firm views about which.

The 'new town' — which is the old-looking one. It largely escaped the 1945 firestorm, so its nineteenth-century streets survived while the baroque Altstadt across the river had to be rebuilt.

Flood. The Elbe reached record levels in 2002 and again in 2013, and high-water marks are painted on walls all over the riverside districts. It is a live question when renting a ground floor.

Modernised versus untouched. The single most useful word in an eastern German property advert — it predicts your heating bill, your windows and whether the bathroom was retrofitted into a pantry.

Registering your address within two weeks of moving in. It produces the certificate that the tax office, your bank, your insurer and the immigration office all require.

Cold versus warm rent. Adverts quote cold; the warm figure adds heating, water, rubbish and building costs and is what actually leaves your account.

The credit reference agency. Corporate landlords here screen on it almost automatically, and a newcomer arrives with an empty file rather than a bad one.

The microelectronics cluster north of the city — Europe's largest by employment. If someone says they work 'at the fab', this is what they mean.

112 for ambulance and fire, 110 for police. 112 works across the EU from any phone.