Hello everyone,
and welcome to a brand new mini series. Or should I say YET another mini series… seriously, I feel like, we got quite a few seriesseses here :).
Anyway, the new one is all about
false friends
There are a lot of false friends between German and English and some of them can actually lead to real misunderstandings. So I thought, let’s have a look at some of them every once in a while. But of course we’ll not just check what they mean, what the misunderstanding is and how to avoid it. We’ll also explore WHY they became false friends to begin with – or in other words:
Who screwed up?
German or English? Who’s the true meaning mangler? Yeah, I hear many are screaming “German”… but who knows. So what do you say… does it sound rad? Great, then let’s roll ;).
And the first pair is…
eventual(ly) – eventuell
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Will Durant in his 1926 “The Story of Philosophy” writes (about Bacon’s Essays)
> no man in english literature is so fertile in pregnant and pithy comparisons
So at least some time in the past English and German went hand in hand :)
False friends are actually one of my favorite parts of learning German! Since your audience is typically not a group of 8 year olds on this blog, I don’t recommend doing an article on the following words. However these pairs have given me more than one good chuckle:
Dick vs. Dick (there is a candy you can buy called Super Dickmanns…ooh boy!)
Gross vs. Gross
Fahrt vs. Fart
Boot vs. Boot
Potti vs. Potty (I discovered this one while trying to diagnose a problem with a microphone system. In English we shorten the word “potentiometer” to “pot”, and we use the word “potty” to refer to a toilet. In German, Potti refers to a potentiometer. Probably this is not that funny for most people but I really had to hold back a laugh when my friend was talking about testing out the Potti in my microphone system.)
Gang vs. Gang
Damit vs. Dammit
There are so many similar-sounding, or same words in German and English, it reminds me of watching the surface of a wind-swept lake, trying to figure out if the flash of color that you’re looking at is a reflection on the surface, or something under the water. I like it that you are choosing to focus on examples which resist contextual disambiguation.
Oh yeah, not to forget “Rathaus” vs. Rat house…
You’re really good at finding these :)
I love “gross”. When I first heard Americans use it, I was REALLY confused. There was this one situation involving a toilet… but I’m probably gonna talk about this next, so I’ll save the story for then.
Oh and I didn’t know about English “potty” but I do know German Potti since I have somewhat of a musical background (computer music, anyway). I always found the word stupid. Why not just freaking “Knopf”. I even like “Drehregler” better. Potti doesn’t even feel German to me. And then there’s “der Pott” which is a baby toilet and “das Pott” which is weed and “die Potte” which is slang for money.
Ziemlich sicher dass das was regionales ist, aber bei uns bedeutet “der Pott” auch “der Topf” und wird generell für Toilette benutzt (nicht nur speziell für Babys).
Und “die Potte” war mir neu, hab’ ich noch nie gehört.
Ja, stimmt, es gibt bei Aldi eine Dosenmarke namens Pottkieker. Also auch Topf. Obwohl… wenn man so eine Dose Linsensuppe aufmacht und reinguckt, dann ist der Unterschied zum Babypott nicht so groß.
When my dad was visiting he bought a box of Super Dickmanns and while we were walking around I kept making comments about how proud he was about his Super Dickmanns until he hid them in a bag.
Do you giggle at “Einfahrt” too? (Good thing it’s not “Zweifahrt”!)
*Not 13, I swear.
“Absolvieren” confused me. (You can get a priest to absolve you of school, too??)
Einfahrt… that made me giggle, too.
As for “absolvieren”, the only one can “absolve” you from school or anything is yourself – by going through it and finishing it. Then you’re free.
That was great! As some people already noted, in English pregnant also has a secondary meaning which is “to be full of meaning; significant or suggestive” similar to the French meaning; e.g. a pregnant pause.
If you do more false friends here are some that have caught me while I’ve been learning German.
aktuell vs actual
also vs also
Fabrik vs fabric (this one never confused me, but I think the etymology is interesting because English also has the word fabricate which seems closer to the German Fabrik than the English fabric).
Great suggestions, thank you!
That was really interesting! French is my first language and your post made me realise for the first time that “eventually” and “éventuellement” are false friends. I didn’t understand your explanations at first, because I misunderstood the meaning of “eventually” all this time… Thank you!
False friends are great, especially when trying to imagine if German or English is at fault :-) Another great one:
Gestern war ich mit meiner Freundin sprechen und sie hat ‘sensibel’ benutzt. Ich dachte sie meinte ‘vernünftig’, aber… Es macht für ein bisschen Verwirrung bei mir..
Ha, yeah, “sensibel/sensible” is a good one.
Yeah, this one has taken me a while too. Small correction:
– it makes for…
that structure doesn’t work in German. In the context of confusion I would say this:
– Das hat für ein bisschen Verwirrung bei mir gesorgt.
But that doesn’t always work.
What about “Du bist ein Ass” ?
Better than “Du bist ein Aas”…
Nice post! In Norwegian, we use both ‘eventuelt’ and ‘pregnant’ like they do in German. ‘Eventuelt’ means ‘maybe’, and ‘pregnant’ means ‘clear’ / “to the point”. Our word for ‘pregnant’ is ‘gravid’ (but we also use ‘svanger’, a la the German ‘schwanger’). We also use ‘svanger’ for “filled with something”:
“Å gå svanger med en plan” => “To have a plan” (lit.: “To be filled with a plan”)
Skjebnesvanger => Fateful
‘Gravida’ is also the word used in portuguese for ‘pregnant’. I wouldn’t have expected such a coincidence :)
Is that related to gravity by any chance? Like… alluding to the woman’s increased mass? Or is it like English “grave” as in “serious”
“Gravid” exists in English too – it means “pregnant” but as far as I can tell applies only to animals, and it’s definitely not an everyday or layman’s word. Might be antiquated, or just technical. And if dictionary.com is to be trusted, it is indeed related to “gravity” – referring to being heavy with babies or eggs or whatever.
Also, just out of curiosity… would Portuguese people understand me if I used a Portuguese sounding version of “embarazada” or “pregnant” or “enceinte” or would that be just funny.
I just checked ‘grávida’ in Spanish (my mother language) and it also means ‘pregnant’, but I have never heard anyone use that word, ’embarazada’ and ‘preñada’ being by far and large more common. The first mean of ‘grávida’ in Spanish is ‘something that weights’ so I guess that as you said the meaning has to be related to ‘gravity’. In Portuguese there’s ’embaraçoso’ (’embarazoso’ in Spanish, a loan from Portuguese), but they mean ’embarrasing’. ‘Prenhe/prenha’ also means ‘pregnant’ but I don’t know if it’s only for animals or for women as well. I’m not a native Portuguese speaker, and even though dictionaries have ‘gravida/prenhe’ as synonims, reading forums it seems it would be quite impolite to say that a woman is ‘prenhe’. Finally, there’s ‘encinta’ in Spanish, which means ‘pregnant’, but there’s no equivalent in Portuguese
In German, there’s “bedeutungsschwanger” and you can say that you’re “schwanger” with an idea, too. But I think it’s more common in Norwegian. Danke übrigens für dein Spende!!
Great idea about series. It’s stickiness increase the rate of retention.
Keep thinking out of the square pls for some of us this method is a useful aid
Brightstar
Hallo, toller Artikel wie immer.
Ich wollte dich nur kurz darauf hinweisen, dass “means as much as” nicht so gut auf Englisch funktioniert als “bedeutet so viel wie” auf Deutsch. Da würde ich eher “basically means” oder einfach “means” benutzen. Ich kann mir jetzt im Moment keine Situation ausdenken, wo “means as much as” komplett natürlich klingt, das heißt aber nicht, dass es keine gibt. Aber so wie du es im Artikel benutzt hast, klingt’s nicht genau richtig.
Gut zu wissen, danke !! Ich benutze das in Deutsch sehr oft und dachte es geht in Englisch auch. Ich glaube ich nehme dann einfach “means”… ich sage eh schon zu oft “basically”
Brilliant! How about also and also?
This is a good one too, but I kind of did that in the post on “so”. I don’t remember how detailed though. I’ll have to re-read it.
Sehr interessant. Ich würde gerne weitere solche Artikel lesen. Diese Wörter sind gute Wahlen.
Wenn ich kurzlich in Deutschland zu Besuch war, meine deutschen Verwandten haben mir etwas lustig davon erzählt. Nach dem zweiten Weltkrieg kamen Lastwagen mit Lebensmittel, Kleidung usw. Auf der Lastwagen standen “Gift from America.” Die armen Amerikaner könnten nicht verstehen, warum niemand Gift wollten!
Vielen Dank, noch einmal. Bei diesem Blog wird mein Deutschlernen interessanter.
Eric
oops…auf DEN Lastwagen.
meine deutschen Verwandten oder soll es deutsche? Arrrgh die Grammatik!
“deutschen” ist richtig, da Plural
“Gift” ist ein gutes Wort für die Serie. Schöne Geschichte :)
Hier mal ein paar Korrekturen:
– Wenn ich neulich in D war…
Hier brauchst du “als”, nicht “wenn”
– …, meine deutschen Verwandten haben…
Hier muss erst “haben” kommen, denn der “als”-Satz ist Position 1. Danach Verb.
– … mir etwas lustig davon…
Du brauchst “lustiges”, zumindest mach ein “e” ran. Ohne “e” ist immer falsch.
– Auf der Lastwagen…
Ja, genau. Wie du gesagt hast… “den Lastwagen”.
– … Amerikaner könnten nicht verstehen…
Hier musst du “konnten” nehmen… ist einfach Vergangenheit, “könnten” ist Konditional.
– …, warum niemand Gift wollten.
“wollte” nicht “wollten”. Niemand ist Einzahl.
Vielen Dank. Was habe ich gedacht!??
Hi Emanuel, finished reading. Thanks again for the post. One more question, are “Eventuell” and “Vielleicht” interchangeable?
Good question… I think “eventuell” sounds a little more positive. And it sounds a bit more technical so in a conversation that is full of emotions, I think vielleicht is more likely. But that’s just my impression, other native speakers might have a different one. Oh thanks for the info about Spanish “eventualmente”, btw!
Hi Emanuel. Thanks for your post. I haven’t finished reading, but I saw something that really caught my eye. Spanish and English are both my first languages (geography had a lot to do with that), and “Eventually” and “Eventualmente” mean exactly the same thing in both languages. “I will eventually have enought money to get a car”, means the exact same thing as “Eventualmente tendré el dinero para comprarme un auto”. In Spanish it doesn’t mean “perhaps” or “maybe” at all.
Anyway, gonna keep reading now. Thanks again :)
Where did you learn Spanish? At least in Spanish spoken in Spain ‘eventually’ has the same meaning as in German, something like maybe/uncertain/at some unpredictable moment. I wouldn’t be surprised if in Spanish spoken in South America ‘eventually’ shared the meaning with English. There are some huge vocabulary differences after all
I’d totally be in for a false friends series. Out the the top of my head I can only think of become/bekommen. By the way, there’s another word for pregnant in spanish besides ’embarazada’, it’s ‘preñada’. Also coming from praegnare, but with the typical gn->ñ change. And it can also mean “including untold meaning”
We’ll definitely talk about the “bekommen-become” pair, too. I have mentioned that somewhere on the blog before, but I’m not sure where and it wasn’t all too detailed.
Funny! The french word “prégnant” is not commonly used at all, and even its pronounciation is unusual. In fact, in French, “gn” usually sounds like the spanish “ñ”, but not here where both letters are pronounced separately. And according to Le Petit Robert dictionary, “une idée prégnante” is an idea that imposes itself to the mind. French is quite close to German on this one!
Keep up the good work. This blog is awesome!
Merci beaucoup!
This is great! Eventuell caught me out for a while too. It also took me a while to work out aktuell, which I thought never seemed to really fit until I realised it is more along the lines of current/latest.
One I cam across recently was (sich) blamieren, which I thought “must be ‘to blame’ right?” Appears ironically it is not! Hab’ ich mich blamiert?…Actually don’t answer that.
Sehr nett.
Ich mag auch ‘fast’ auf Englisch gegen ‘fast’ auf Deutsch.
Oh stimmt, das ist gut, da hab ich garnicht dran gedacht.
Auch Der Mist vs. The mist :)
Ohhhh, das ist schön, danke für den Tip :)
Am I right to think that schwanger applies only to humans? Any animal that bears live young can be pregnant, even, I think, live bearing sharks and gastric-brooding frogs. …….Perhaps circumstances where English has only one word but German has one for most animals and another for the human ones could be a topic for a future post or two. (Should check that you haven’t already done it.)
Pregnant is now sometimes applied to couples and to fathers. Does the same happen with schwanger (From der Schwangere’s entry in your vocabulary list, it seems not.) or are other expressions used?
Apparently English usage of the meaningful meaning of pregnant is recorded earlier than the incubating young meaning, so English seems to have gone round in a circle. While the German may now seem messed, up at least it was decisive.
I did some spot checks with Kuh, Katze and Hai (shark) and no, “schwanger” is definitely not limited to humans. Even newspapers use it:
https://www.spiegel.de/wissenschaft/natur/schwangere-weisse-haie-meiden-kuestennaehe-und-die-maennchen-a-892483.html
There is another word that applies only to animals though:
“trächtig”
which literally means as much as “carrying” (“bearing” if you will).
People sometimes use “trächtig” for humans but only in informal settings and with people who take it the right way.
I would think that people have also used “schwanger” for men, but again, this is only as a joke. It’s nowhere near being an accepted word for “soon-to-be-dad”.
Is that common in English? Like… “Have you heard? Thomas is pregnant?”
Not common, but the example you suggest could definitely be used among people who know only Thomas and not the woman involved. Once, any reference to a man being pregnant would have been obviously intended as a joke, but it’s harder to tell now.
It is becoming more common for a man to say “we’re pregnant”, rather than “whatever-her-name-is is pregnant” or “we are expecting a baby”, perhaps as a short way of both stating the fact and declaring an intention to be involved… and maybe half joking. Support services are talking of pregnant fathers, too.
I think I’ve even heard “we’re pregnant” meaning my pet is!
Hmm… I just checked again and I found like 50,000 hits for the phrase “wir sind schwanger”… there’s even a domain with that. So I guess it’s more common that I thought. But English is definitely ahead.
https://www.google.de/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#safe=active&q=schwangere%20auster
:D
Der Name wird sogar im Radio verwendet
I like this blog. Just to add, to me it also helps to consider that the German word “praegnant” might share some common root with the English “pragmatism”, which meaning they also share.
On “eventually” I think the meaning in its Latin version makes sense if you have a Mediterranean concept of time. If in Spain you say “I will do it eventually” it is commonly understood as “Maybe, one day, perhaps I will do it” (which in the end might be never) :)
They do look similar but I don’t think they’re related. I looked up “pragmatism” and apparently it comes from a Greek word that meant “to do, to full off, to finish”. It might be that this is ultimately related to the root of the “gene”-family, but I couldn’t find anything on that.
“Pragmatic” is from the Greek πρᾶγμα (“pragma”), meaning “deed, act, matter, business,” etc. It comes from the verb πράττειν (“prattein”), which means “to do,” and ultimately from the same Indo-European root which yielded πέρα (“pera”), which meant “beyond”, and which also lead to the English word “far”. The Romans also borrowed the Greek word to get their Latin word “practicus”, from which English gets “practical”. The “gene” family is unrelated.
So it’s ultimately related to “ver-“. Nice. Thanks for the insights.
“Maria makes a pregnancy test.”
Takes, right? She’s not manufacturing it or something is she?
“die Schwangerschaftsstreifen – striae (pregnacy striae)”
Do you mean stretch marks?
I agree with Jo’s note that “impregnate” means something soaked into something, rather than coated.
I can’t think of any other false friends besides “quasi.” But there’s a good chance I haven’t realized they’re different words yet (I actually just found about about “eventuell” a couple weeks ago.
I wasn’t sure about “make/take”… “take” sounded like taking a test in school, so it didn’t feel right. Changed it now. Oh and yes, I meant stretch marks… striae was straight from the dictionary.
“Take a test” works for any kind of test in English – in school, driver’s licence test, drug test, etc.
How about a false friends pair on machen and make? I mean they half mean the same thing, but they often don’t translate to each other, because “machen” can mean “tun” but “make” is not synonymous with “do”.
So my impression is that German “machen” often translates to “do” in English – as Krasser Typ indicates, “make” really does mean create or manufacture. Ok except when it doesn’t (e.g. “make you do something”, “make the grade”, “make the bed”, etc*). But that’s language for you… “Do” is a real go-to word for English: it should generally work where German “machen” is a synonym for “tun”. So in your example, “does the test” is fine too – but “takes the test” is more idiomatic.
*OMG so many other meanings: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/make#Verb
…Though the idiomaticity of “The ship could make 20 knots an hour” may depend on dialect – I’d actually find “do” more idiomatic; “make” sounds rather quaint to me. “My car can do 160 km/hr” is fine, “My car can make 160 km/hr” is odd.
Nice suggestion actually. They’re not really false friends but definitely worth a look. I think “machen” is more consistent over all. English “to make” is a two way ve… but I’m gonna stop right here before I spoil the article.
Ja, nachdem ich meinen Kommentar gepostet hat, habe ich gedacht, sie sind nicht “falsche Freunde”. Aber die Übersetzung ist schwierig.
Holy cow, that finally clarifies for me why we say, “a pregnant pause.” It’s a pause full of (unspoken) meaning! Honestly, I’ve never really questioned it before, but after reading this, I have no idea why I didn’t! Thanks for this post–very helpful!
Oh wow, so this notion DOES exist in English. Thanks for adding this!!
In English, …a comment, sentence, movie, book or a post (such as yours) may be …pregnant with meaning. It suggests devoting more attention to the subject at hand.