Hello everyone,
and welcome to a new episode of the most neglected series ever: False Friends Explained.
And the words we’ll talk about today look so incredibly similar, that they look identical.
bald vs bald
Now, I’m not trying to find drama where there is none – even though they look identical, German bald and English bald are used in so vastly different domains that they don’t really cause confusion or misunderstanding.
Still, I thought it could be fun to take a look at where these two words come from and also take the chance and talk a bit about the world of going bald in German. A world I know nothing about. My golden surfer locks are as full and curly as when I was 23 last year… ish.
Anyways, let’s jump right in…
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I got the wrong answer for the last question (multiple answers). I missed the verb glänzen. I thought the bald head does shine because of the sunshine (the example from article)?
True!! I actually marked that the wrong way. It’s fixed now, thank you!
Hi Emanuel! I wanted to let you know that the answer “die Glatze” is being flagged as incorrect for the question “What is the word for bald head in German?” From a reader who is going bald, this was a fun lesson! ;)
Whops, thanks :)!! I fixed it now! Sometimes, I forget to mark the right answer and the software doesn’t give me a warning.
Probably related to this, in the last question “kriegen/bekommen” are marked as verbs that do NOT make sense with the noun “die Glatze”, but one of the examples is “Thomas hatte lange Angst, dass er eine Glatze kriegt.”
Is this an issue with the exercise? Otherwise, I would be confused…
Dang it! Yes, you’re right of course. That was another mistake in the quiz… uh… these interns!!! It’s their fault!
Ps. I love your articles. Such fun. My german is poor but you really make stuff memorable.
Danke dir :)
I don’t think in English you would describe trees in winter as bleak: a better example from nature would be hills or moors, although trees, for sure, are bare in winter, so that adjective works. Also bleak has connotations of desolation and wildness and hostility which fits more aptly with open, treeless places and spaces. To go further – I am an English teacher! – it’s a “pathetic fallacy, “ type of word, best exemplified in the novels of Thomas Hardy where landscape is used to emphasise the emotional state of the characters in the books. Read “Tess of the D’’urbervilles”. .
What’s a “pathetic fallacy” :)?
I would also suggest the trees and fields could be “barren” in this case :)
Hallo!
I just wanted to say thank you to the German Is Easy website and to the community. I have learned that my lessons are being financed by some of the members here and I want to express my deep sincere gratitude for your generosity. I’m very excited for this opportunity!
Thank you so much!
-Amanda
I just have to say thank you, thank you so much, to those who donate a little extra to this website so that people with not as many opportunities (like myself) can learn German as well. You all are honestly some amazing people. Again, with all of my heart, thank you so much. :)
Hey just wanted to thank all the members who donate money to this website! This gives such hopeless people as I am a chance to learn my favourite language as well.
I’m starting to dive into the articles – 364 more ahead!
Actually, this week I’ll post number 500. Some are really short though :). And you’re not hopeless :D
Whaa.. ? Number 500? Why then in my profile I see only 364? Where are the other 13.. something? :))
Oh, I didn’t tag the advent calendar posts and a few others as “completable”. I have 499 published posts as of today :)
Wow thats a huge number! How can I make sure I read all of them? I have a strong love for completing stuff :DD
The “by date” archive lists all of them in sequence… even the ones that are just announcements. I wouldn’t read in sequence but there you can check what you have been missing.
Oh! Alright, thanks!
just some trivia: kahl relates to the Latin “calvitium”= bald headed (also “calvo” in Italian and Spanish)
Glosary is a great idea
Not related to the article, but I’m having trouble figuring out the meaning of a line from Hindemith’s Das Nusch-Nuschi:
“da Wildheit du und Aufruhr in mein Herz gebracht hast.” It’s got me really confused, and I would really appreciate an explanation. The whole sentence is “Grausame, nun, da Wildheit du und Aufruhr in mein Herz gebracht hast, sitzest du ruhig vor der Tür and richtest lächelnd deiner Haare Locken.”
I guess you’re confused about the sentence structure :).
That’s a stylistic feature you can find in older works of drama and poetry… a switch of subject and object.
The normal sentence would be
– Grausame, nun [that’s who you appear to be], da (weil) du Wildheit und …. gebracht hast.”
So both “Wildheit” and “Aufruhr” are accusative? I was thinking Wildheit was the object and “du und Aufruhr” was the subject, which made very little sense to me. Thanks!
Yup, both are the direct object. I noticed one thing just now… this weird switch only works to me if there’s no article.
– Da Wein du und Bier mir gebracht hast.
Works.
– Da den Wein du und das Bier mir gebracht hast.
Sounds super odd.
Thank you for the explanation and exercises. Bis Bald
I don’t think Bis bald is an appropriate thing to say.
Why would you think that?
Thema:
Why aren’t facts bald and lies bare??
VORSCHLAG-
Vielleicht irgend wann ein “Gespräch über “ur”? (Wenn nicht schon getan)
Ursprung – Ursache -Urwald -Urmensch & ein möglicher Zusammenhang mit Ur-Stadt “Ur” ?
Woher stammt -Ur____? Verwendet andere Sprachen “ur”? Oder so eine “Quelle” Bezeichnung?
——————————————————————–
”Another one connects bald to a equally ancient root that was about shiny, white. Which would also make sense, because a bald head is shiny.”
it doesn’t really matter, after all.”
“History is only fun and helpful as long as it(‘)s fun and helpful. ”
–ahh -okay
“It’s like deja-vu, all over again.” – Yogi Berra
Hmm, Ab wann ist die Geschichte nicht mehr nützlich?
Geschichte kann aber, sehr peinlich sein.
Heute fällt mir gerade etwas zutreffendes ein.
Aus der deutschen Geschichte kommt der unterhaltsamer Vorname:
”Baldur” – ein Unikat (mit ur am Ende)
Jetzt ist der Name wahrscheinlich nicht mehr so salonfähig im deutschen Sprachraum. ??
Baldur ist ein männlicher Vorname.
Herkunft und Bedeutung des Namens
Baldur ist eine Namensvariante von Balder, der bei den Asen der Gott der Sonne, des reinen Lichtes, des Frühlings, des Guten und der Gerechtigkeit war.
Baldur von Schirach eine peinliche Geschichte.
Love the check box at the top. To teach something it’s best to say it at the start, during the lesson and summarise at the end again (assume we are all slow!).
Well, there’s always a trade off because it’s the internet. If I summarize too much people will only read that or rely on the summaries and not pay attention during the article.
In the beginning, I wouldn’t even add headlines in between the text, just so people wouldn’t skim read. And my summaries at the end are generally very very concise (if there is one at all).
Anyway… a longer summary for each article is on the to do list at the moment so yeah… it’ll get better :)
Thema : Missing out on a lot of obvious Thaipos while ”editing”.
Verdammt der Akku ist gleich
leer!
If you wanna see a Nackedei,
you fly to Thailand.
Google EAV Samurai (original Musikvideo)
Herr Meier fährt in Urlaub nur
nur nach Bangkok oder Singapur.
Doch nicht wegen Landschaft,
wegen weiblicher Bekanntschaft
Zahlst du mi cash,
hupf i aus der Wäsch’,
Text: Thomas Spitzer
——————————————————————————————
Bald und Bald
sind gleich genannt
doch –
mit einander kaum bekannt.
German Bald soll Zeit Begriff
English Bald sei ein-Leb wohl !!
dem Haar Abschliff!
AbG Werke & Trunkenbold Tratscherei VEB
Helooooo,
Oh, I got beat today by a few other readers ;)
Typhoes:
“The German version would not fit if you’re about to see the person within the next few days” – this is not really a typo but a kind of misuse of the word fit (probably influenced by the German “passen”?). A better term would be “work”, as in “The German version would not work if you’re about to see the person within the next few days”
“Thomas was scared of going bald (getting a bold head)” – you do mean a bald head, don’t you?
Your questions about English words have already been very satisfactorily answered!
I got all your test questions right :)))))
And I think the summary box is a great addition, as you can make your mid up immediately as to whether you want to read about that particular topic now or leave for later!
I think that’s all and let me know if you need any advice on good hair products for your golden surfer locks!
Bis bold!
Very good use of the English: bare trees in winter; joker, jokester is correct. The only mistake was calling your hair “them“. In english, when speaking of your hair as a whole entity it is always singular. Very common mistake for a German speaker. My hair is thick and blonde and I need to go comb it. Reminds me of the use of the :“ I have an apple in the hand, “ = direct German to english translation. BUT, we say we have an apple in our hand, my hand etc. Some stuff does not directly translate, we all found that out~!!
Ah, I didn’t that bit about the hair :). IN German, it used to be the same but now using “Haar” for the entire hair can easily sound a bit high brow. You can find it in ads and old texts, but you wouldn’t say
– Mein Haar ist fettig.
if you have greasy hair. Then it would be “meine Haare”
Wait a second… I just wanted to correct the mistake and I found that “them” actually refers to “surfer locks”. I can leave it in plural then, right?
Yup.
The to
Fields and woods are bare in winter. They are other things too but bare is spot on.
PS I’m noticing that I am learning two languages in these posts, American as well as English (my last two books were translated into American for the US market!). I am half Scots half English with an English degree so if anyone is interested, my contributions are in English ( English English if we are going to be pedantic.)
Wag, joker, comedian.
Agree, bare is right.
I think any Brit would gladly verify that (we) Yanks don’t speak English at all. Our inability so speak English is even mentioned in, “My Fair Lady”. While the language spoken stateside is called “English” I feel calling it “American” is more appropriate. Like I said, any Brit would gladly agree.
Is it really that different though? Like, apart from those 10 differences that everyone always mentions (spelling included).
Then again, I guess it’s a bit like German and Austrian. Very similar and yet different enough to be two languages.
I think that’s pretty much how it is. American Standard and Queen’s English are totally mutually intelligible, even with the differences that always get brought up. The relationship is complex, since (at least some) American dialects have sometimes preserved older forms of expression, while at the same time incorporating influences from other languages than came into play east of the Atlantic. At the same time, historically there’s been a sense that “real” English is preserved in England, so that in the U.S. it was long considered a mark of good breeding/education to speak with an English-sounding accent (you see/hear this in older movies). Then you’ve got the fun dynamic that Brits just sort of generally despise Americans for all sorts of historical and cultural reasons. It’s messy.
There really are quite a lot of markers – a lot more than 10 – of where your English comes from (even leaving aside the millions of native speakers from Canada, Australia, New Zealand, African countries, the Indian subcontinent…), and it would just sort of be strange to use the forms that come from the “other side.” My wife, for instance, is the daughter of American Southerners who went to boarding school in Pakistan where a more British English was the common language. She sounds perfectly American in general, but she pronounces “shone” (past participle of “shine”) as rhyming with “gone.” It’s always a little jarring to hear. It’s not bad, or wrong – it’s just not how *we* say it.
We’ve got a fair number of BE children’s books at home, and I tend to “translate” some bits into AE idiom sometimes, because they’re just not our words. Eventually, our kids will read on their own, and they’ll need to sort out the differences, but for now, it just feels strange to read aloud phrases or words I wouldn’t use. There are exceptions to that – if I’m reading a real classic, where it’s important that they get exposed to the sound of good writing, I wouldn’t make those kinds of edits.
In some ways, it’s similar having moved from Prussia to Bavaria – I learned my German up north, and I just can’t bring myself to say “servus” yet, even though it’s not like I really culturally identify with one dialect more than the other, necessarily.
I dunno, language is weird.
I would like to thank you all for helping me to become a member of yourdailygerman.
Secondly, I have a question, can I use ”Glatzkopf”’ instead? What would be the difference?
I think you say “bold” instead of “bald” several times – e.g. “It’s the noun die Glatze and you getting one and having one are the most common ways to say going bold and being bold.” and “For a long time, Thomas was scared of going bold (getting a bold head).”
‘Bald’ is correct, but since many people pronounce it more like ‘bold’, they also tend to misspell it accordingly.
For a teller of jokes “joker” is a very fine word of course but my go-to in these circs would be “card”. “Oh yeah, he’s a real card that one” (adjust sardonic tone depending on how unfunny his jokes are, but to be described a “card” is more to do with one’s enthusiasm for jokes (usually ribald ones) – not whether someone will be selling out at the Comedy Store any day soon).
“Bleak” and “bare” are both fine words to describe the state of vegetation in November but there are loads more. “Exposed”, “windswept”, “desolate” and “barren” are acceptable variations although with differences in meaning. On top of “bald” I think I’ve reached my depressing-word-limit for the day right there.