Learn about some German-English false friends
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Intro |
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| Michael: What are some German-English false friends? |
| Igor: And some English words the Germans use wrongly? |
| Michael: At GermanPod101.com, we hear these questions a lot. To help address these questions, let's imagine the following situation: Ben Lee tells his classmate, Hanna Hanselmann, about his dad's birthday. He says, |
| "I gave my dad poison for his birthday." |
| Ben Lee: Ich habe meinem Vater Gift zum Geburtstag gegeben. |
| Dialogue |
| Ben Lee: Ich habe meinem Vater Gift zum Geburtstag gegeben. |
| Karla König: Meinst du ein Geschenk? |
| Michael: Once more with the English translation. |
| Ben Lee: Ich habe meinem Vater Gift zum Geburtstag gegeben. |
| Michael: "I gave my dad poison for his birthday." |
| Karla König: Meinst du ein Geschenk? |
| Michael: "You mean a gift?" |
Lesson focus |
| Michael: In this lesson, we will talk about False Friends. But don't worry, we won't give you a lecture on who you should hang out with or not. The term False Friends or in German, |
| Igor: Falsche Freunde |
| Michael: is an informal term in linguistics used to describe a pair of words between two different languages that seem to be identical but convey two different meanings. The term itself is actually an abbreviation of the longer phrase "False Friends of the translator" used by linguists for the first time in 1928. False friends are also known as false cognates, where cognates are words with the same origin. The actual origin of those words is difficult to track, but most of them started as loanwords from a third language and due to cultural influences developed different meanings in each language. |
| But how do false friends work? |
| [Recall 1] |
| Michael: Let's take a closer look at the dialogue. |
| Do you remember how Ben says "I gave my dad poison for his birthday." |
| (pause 4 seconds) |
| Igor: Ich habe meinem Vater Gift zum Geburtstag gegeben. |
| Michael: literally meaning "I gave my father toxic for his birthday." What Ben intended to say was that he gave his father a present for his birthday. He used the word |
| Igor: Gift [SLOW] Gift |
| Michael: as it sounds like the English word "gift" meaning a present. Both of these words have the same origin, which is a word meaning "something that is given." It also has a second meaning, which is "a dose of medicine given." While English took the first meaning, German took the second, which transformed from "a dose of medicine given," to "a dose of poison given" to finally just "poison." |
| The same word also exists in Norwegian and means marriage. Coincidence? Not really,, if we think of marriage as something given by God, from a religious point of view. |
| [Summary] |
| Michael: In this lesson, you've learned that hearing a familiar word in German doesn't mean that you will understand the meaning of it, due to the phenomenon of the so-called "false friends."—words that may be written or sound the same way as their English counterparts, but have a completely different meaning. |
| Now, let's look at some examples. Our first example is |
| Igor: Gymnasium |
| Michael: meaning "High School," while the same word "gymnasium" means a large room used for various indoor sports and usually equipped with gymnastic apparatuses in English. |
| Igor: [SLOW] Gymnasium |
| Michael: Our next false friend is the word |
| Igor: Hut |
| Michael: Meaning a "hat" in German. In English "hut" is written the same way, but means a small house. |
| Igor: [SLOW] Hut |
| Michael: Just imagine Germans buying pizzas in one of the big chains and wearing them as hats. |
| Igor: Do you mean a Pizza Hut? |
| Michael: Yes! The name remains the same, but the meaning and thus the image would be different. |
| However, German also has a similar word meaning the same as the English term "hut," meaning a small house, which is |
| Igor: Hütte [SLOW] Hütte |
| Michael: The next false friend is |
| Igor: Eventuell |
| Michael: This means "possibly," but for an English speaker this might sound like "eventually," which means "in the end," or "finally" in English. |
| Igor: [SLOW] Eventuell |
| Michael: The next word is |
| Igor: Stadium |
| Michael: Meaning a "stage" in German. The English "Stadium" is more of a field for playing sports. |
| Igor: [SLOW] Stadium |
| Michael: The next example is |
| Igor: aktuell |
| Michael: meaning "current" or "up-to-date." In English "actual" means "the right one." or "in fact" |
| Igor: [SLOW] aktuell |
| Michael: The next example is |
| Igor: Korn |
| Michael: Meaning "grain," while English uses "corn" to describe a vegetable. |
| Igor: [SLOW] Korn |
| Michael: and the last example is |
| Igor: Ambulanz |
| Michael: meaning an "emergency room." In English, if we talk about an "ambulance," we are talking about the car which brings patients to the hospital. |
| Igor: [SLOW] Ambulanz |
| Michael: What we call an "ambulance" in English is actually called a |
| Igor: Krankenwagen |
| Michael: in German. |
| Igor: [SLOW] Krankenwagen |
| Expansion/Contrast |
| Michael: Besides false friends, we can notice one more thing in German. You will hear many words that definitely have a modern English origin, but they either might not make sense for you or have no meaning at all. This is because German adapted many English loanwords changing the meaning of the original words. |
| Let's have a look at these words and their meanings! The first is |
| Igor: Handy |
| Michael: meaning "cellphone." This word is a little bit outdated today, since Germans refer to the newest inventions in the mobile market as "smartphones." However, back in the days when mobile phones still had keys, Germans would call them |
| Igor: [SLOW] Handy |
| Michael: The next word is |
| Igor: Casting Show |
| Michael: meaning a talent show in Germany. For English speakers, this word makes no sense at all. |
| Igor: [SLOW] Casting Show |
| Michael: The next word is |
| Igor: Wellness |
| Michael: While in English this word refers to being well, Germans would call their spa and massage places "wellness resorts." |
| Igor: [SLOW] Wellness |
| Michael: Let's continue with |
| Igor: Public Viewing |
| Michael: which is a term describing watching something in Public. In Germany, it's common to watch, for example, the World Cup as "public viewing" events, while English speakers hope to never be invited to a "public viewing." |
| Igor: [SLOW] Public Viewing |
| Michael: and the last word is |
| Igor: Smoking |
| Michael: Meaning a "tuxedo." That's right, "wearing a smoking" is not a slang term for smoking tobacco in Germany, it's a tuxedo and a pretty common way to dress on formal occasions. |
| Igor: [SLOW] Smoking |
| Cultural Insight/Expansion |
| Michael: Sometimes, the communication between two German speakers might even get difficult because of false friends existing between dialects of the same language. You might have noticed already that, even in English, words like "pants" or "football" may have a different meaning in Britain and the States. The same thing applies to German. If someone from the North talks to someone from the South, due to different dialects, some words may be misunderstood. Let's have a look at some examples. If you ask someone in Cologne for |
| Igor: Kies |
| Michael: you might get offered cheese, while, in most parts of Germany, this word means "gravel." Next, we have |
| Igor: komisch |
| Michael: meaning "funny" in German, but in |
| Igor: Rheinland |
| Michael: in the western part of Germany, this word means "strange." If you ask someone in the German speaking part of Switzerland to show you his |
| Igor: Personalausweis, |
| Michael: he might take out his company ID card, while people in Germany would show you their identification card. And if you ask for |
| Igor: Speck |
| Michael: from an Austrian Butcher, you will get some ham, while Germans would give you bacon. |
Outro |
| Michael: Do you have any more questions? We're here to answer them! |
| Igor: Tschüsschen! |
| Michael: See you soon! |
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