Hello everyone,
And welcome to your German Word of the Day, today, with the epic return of the series that everyone has forgotten:
False
Friends
EXPLAINED
Hell yeah, let’s go!!!
In this series, we take a pair of false friends in German and English and explore the differences, how to actually translate the words and of course, which language is to blame.
And the pair we have today is:
die Rente vs. the rent
It’s not really something that gets in the way of daily conversations, but both words are indeed part of many people’s everyday life and while both words are about money, they’re very very different.
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“Kapitalistenarsch, Kapitalistenärschin” — Buchstäblich LOL! Toll!
When record, my score is NaN% with a red X. That doesn’t sound good. What’s going on?
Did you give the site permission to access the mic? You can check that when you click on the little lock symbol next to the URL in the address bar. There, you can allow and disallow camera and mic for websites.
Hi Emmanuel,
Thanks for your reply. I managed to get permission. When record, the words from the sentence appear in red blocks, with my score being 0% (followed by the encouraging AWESOME!). Now, while I’m not fluent, I’m fairly confident my accent isn’t 0! Could there be another explanation? I’d love to use this tool. And, by the way, I think your site is terrific.
Did you try to listen to your playback? I suspect nothing is recorded. Also, could you tell me what device you’re using and what browser?
Hi Emmanuel, I appreciate you helping me out on this. I don’t hear any playback, and for that matter, I’m not sure how to activate it unless it’s supposed to be automatic. As far as my device, I use an iPad and the browser is Safari.
UGG. I just read further on your FAQ on this. Since I’m using an Apple device, I guess I am screwed! Bummer. It looks like an awesome tool.
Yeah, I’m really sorry for this apple issues and it’s still on my list. I take a jab at solving it every now and then, but I always stop as soon as I get stuck and so far, no luck.
toller Artikel wie immer Emanuel. Dankeschön.
Very enjoyable thank-you
Danke!!
My first 100% on try 1. Yea! Thanks as always.
Danke schön!
Not completely on topic, but once a colleague. co-worker actually, was asked at a party we both were attending what he does for a living. He replied “I am undertaker here in Berlin.” He meant “entrepreneur” (Unternehmer = word for word translation “undertaker”) instead of what in German would translate as “Leichenbestatter”.
Needless to say, he was red-faced with embarrassment!
Ops, that’s a funny mess up indeed :).
Such faux pas happen constantly. A common error when I was first learning English in school was to use German words in a false context when attempting to communicate with English native speakers, for example, “Oh, you fahrt a lot to Germany?” or “Yes, I think we have a nice shmuck shop along the Ku’damm.” etc.
Haha, nice one. DId you really say “you fahrt to Germany”? My inner child would love to hear this from someone some day.
Indeed and this time I was red-faced with embarrassment LOL
Classic corpse-related one was a friend of a friend who went into a Späti and asked for a “Tote” instead of a “Tüte”
Glorious!!
German tourist to an English bookseller upon finding the establishment less than clean:
“Excuse me, but how often you putz your shop, please?”
Hallo,
Just one typo!
which is about an invest paying off” (which is about an investment paying off)
Useful article, as usual with this false friends series :)
Aced the quiz!
Bis bald!
I just wanted to say a big thank you for giving me a complimentary subscription to your articles. Your site has so many great resources, and having full access is really awesome. I really appreciate your generosity and the chance to dive into all these. I’m really passionate about learning German right now, and your content is helping me a lot.
Thanks again for this amazing gesture. I’m excited to make the most of it and keep enjoying all the fantastic content you offer.
“Mieterverein” would be a good one for all those living in germany to know (if they don’t already). I can recommend anyone who is renting to look into membership. You pay a relatively small monthly subscription and If you ever have any rent related problems e.g. your landlord wants to put your rent up you can speak to a lawyer for free. I’ve you need to go to court to fight your landlord they will also get a lawyer on it. Well worth looking into.
I’m not a member of “Mieterverein”, but I do recommend it!!
“Das ist schon die halbe Miete” is a great way of saying “that’s half the battle.”
There are “buy nothing” groups over here where people give away all kinds of things for free, even leftover food. I hadn’t heard of it until a friend used it to give away a half-eaten pie after a party. Posted at night, gone the next morning. The person who came by was really happy to have it.
Bit of a drive-by, as I’m heading off for some dreaded manual labour at my sister’s house :-/
“English apperantly has the word ‘meed’ as a relative” I can happily confirm that that’s one I’ve never tripped across, so if it’s out there it’s either (relatively) rare, or used in particular contexts that I’ve not encountered. Seems it might still be used in poetry (very occasionally), but let’s be honest, that doesn’t really count ;-)
It might also be worth noting that English happily kicks along with the word “render” meaning “produces/extracts (eg, via melting)” or “give back” or even “makes” (“renders xyz redundant…”, “render an image”), or covers a wall in plaster(!). Gack, too many meanings! But the core notion is definitely there in spades.
A few quick corrections…
==================
return from investements, => return from invest**ments,
English apperantly has => English app*a*r*e*ntly has
Marias sagt, ihr neuer => Maria** sagt, ihr neuer
Has she developped a crush => Has she develop**ed a crush
yes, I don’t recall coming across meed. My dictionary lists it as “archaic” and has a citation from Milton that uses it i.e from the 1600s.
Meed may have gone out of style, but I mete out both rewards and punishment regularly. I suspect they are related… Or 2 seconds with Google says mete comes from a word for measuring (messen…)
I didn’t think of “mete out” and “meed” but i can totally see why they might be suspected of having a connection. I checked DWDS which confirmed the connection between mete and messen you mentioned but there I couldn’t find a connection between mete and meed…
If “mieten” and “meed” were related to the family of “messen”, this would certainly be mentioned in DWDS and Etymonline.com. I think the “mieten”-family really isn’t a thing in English (with the exception of “meed”)
Agreed, never ever heard of meed in all my life. Only ‘mead’ the medieval drink
One correction near the beginning:
“Only that in German, the word shifted toward money you get regularly GET from insurance or government”
Extra ‘get’ in there