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German Speaking Lesson 3

In our today’s German speaking lesson, we will learn to utter correctly German words and phrases look like English and learn some German slang words which are call “Denglisch”.

German and English words that are similar

German and English are both supposed Germanic languages, therefore they have some common characteristics:

hallo!

hello!

gut

good

der Film

movie/film

der Freund

boyfriend

das Restaurant

restaurant

 

German words and their totally different meanings

We have to be careful when speaking these German words. Because these words are not what they appear to be:

 

Sounds like

Actually means

groß

Gross; disgusting

Big

fahrt

Fart (teehee!)

Drive; ride

das Handy

Handy; useful

Cellphone / mobile

der Chef

Chef; someone who cooks

Boss. (Think of it like "chief")

Hell

Hell. The pit of fire and brimstone.

Bright!

das Gift

Gift; present

Poison!

 

So, please watch out when a strange German offers you a “gift”… At that time, you must run away as fast as possible!

If you are unfortunately involved in this situation, you must know these 2 German words to call the police for help:

die Polizei

Police

hilfe!

help!

Actually, those words sound like their English equivalents too!

How English becomes Denglishch in Germany                                                  

Every generation has its own slang words, but to the surprise of the grandmother, the boy is starting to adopt English slang! (Gasp!) This is something happening all around Germany.

We call this kind of slang “Denglisch” because it is usually mixed with English words, phrases, and sentence structures.

Deutsch (German) + Englisch (English) = Denglisch

Here are some German words that you might hear but it’s actually Denglishch:

babysitten

babysit

showmaster

TV host

der Computer

computer

das Camping

camping

 

Furthermore, many Denglisch words are complicated because they don’t make much sense at all via its utterance.

der Beamer

projector

das Mobbing

bullying; harassment

der Smoking

tuxedo — a bunch of well-dressed Germans

Beamer in German is a projector

A Beamer in the Uk means a BMW (a type of a car) but in German Beamer is a projector

So the good news is that when you learn German, a good chunk of the language will look familiar.

So be careful to check your word meanings to avoid a tragedy.

This is the end of our today's German speaking practice. We hope that you can know how to speak these above German words correctly. And don’t forget to follow us in the next German lesson.

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