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With similar linguistic origins, there exist many German words that either are, or sound, the same in English. Likewise, you will find many English loanwords that have been assimilated into the German language - this is called lexical borrowing - and overall, German and English appear to thrive off a somewhat symbiotic relationship.
Some of the most common vowel and consonant changes you’ll see between German and English include: English C becomes K in German. English ITY becomes TÄT in German. German verbs use an – en ending in the base form. English TH becomes D in German. English S becomes SCH in German.
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- Similarities in common vocabulary. Much of our modern English vocabulary comes from Latin. The French-speaking Normans invaded England in 1066 led by William the Conqueror, bringing a slew of French and Latin words with them to England.
- Sentence structure and word order. The strange grammar and sentence structure put a lot of people off Shakespeare in school. It’s as if he couldn’t decide what he was actually saying, throwing words anywhere he wanted.
- Pronunciation. Words from German and English are often incredibly similar in their pronunciations. There were periods where consonant sounds changed slightly between German and English.
- Inflection. Sometimes it seems like the biggest gulf between German and English is caused by those darn articles and word endings. We don’t have anything so arbitrary and complicated like that in English, do we?
Nov 18, 2022 · It shouldn’t come as any surprise that a lot of the English words that are actually German refer to food and beer. Even if you know that, though, there might be a few on this list you weren’t expecting. pretzel — from Brezel. noodle — from Nudel. sauerkraut — sauer (“sour”) + Kraut (“cabbage”)
- Iceberg. Yes, you read that right – the English word “iceberg” comes from the German word Eisberg, or “ice mountain.”
- Kindergarten. What if we called a Kindergarten a “childrens’ garden”? That’s what this German loanword literally means, being made up of Kinder and Garten.
- Kitsch. One of my favorite German loanwords, “kitsch” is the perfect way to describe something just the right mix of tacky and outdated. Where would we be without this word?
- Gesundheit. Gesundheit, the German word for “health,” is also used in the German-speaking world for “bless you.” In English, however, particularly in North America, there are also people who use Gesundheit after someone sneezes.
Aug 30, 2018 · A cognate is a word that has the same root as a similar word in another language and looks and sounds similar. True cognates will have the same or similar definitions in both languages. Since English has some Germanic roots, there are a fair number of English-German cognates. While the words may look slightly different due to the German ...
There are a lot of German words derived from English or vice versa. We call them English-German Cognates. As a matter of fact these two languages are linguistic siblings. They have a lot in common because they have the same roots.
