And let's not get started about the term "Handy".
Being offered a cheap Handy was very disappointing.
this post was submitted on 10 Jun 2025
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Laittakaa meemejä tänne.
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😁 Wait til u learn the glorious wonders that are capitalization:
Sich brüsten und anderem zuwenden.
Sich Brüsten und anderem zuwenden.
Sie konnte geschickt Blasen und Glieder behandeln.
Sie konnte geschickt blasen und Glieder behandeln.
Er hatte liebe Genossen.
Er hatte Liebe genossen.
Have fun 😁
No need for capitalization even to fuck with people, wrong emphasis is enough:
Da steht eine Frau auf der Straße. Ich werde sie umfahren.
(To my non German speaking friends, this can mean two things depending on how you pronounce "umfahren": Either "There's a woman on the street. I will drive around her." or "There's a woman on the street. I will run her over.")
At least, you pronounciate the umfahrens differently... The longer the "a", the better for the woman on the street.
Of course you realize that English is a Germanic language? Therefore it is you who have strayed from the proper words. 😉
German is not the same as Germanic. Both German and English evolved from a common ancestor, which we call Proto-Germanic.
'Who' and 'Where' are '*hwaz' and '*hwar' in Proto-Germanic.
I would say that in this case German strayed more than English.
Wat?
Who = hwaz = wer
Where = hwar = Wo
We added a bunch of French. It's not a romance language by any stretch but it's kind of a Francish one. Francish being a Celtic word, because we added a bunch of those too.
And lots of straight up Latin, yeah.
I just looked it up, German isn't even the biggest influence. French and Latin are. German is 3rd
OUI OUI BON BON LE PETITE CROISSANT EIFFEL TOWER I AM LE FRENCH NOW MOTHERFUCKER
The vast majority of the 100 most common words in English are still inherited Germanic words.
Well yeah that stands to reason, our grammar structure is still Germanic, which is why they still call it a Germanic language. The 100 most common words are almost entirely basic grammar, like to, be, it, for, etc. Words used to reference other words.
The first non grammar based word, the first actual noun, is Time, which is a French word.
We are speaking French with German sentence structure and referencing everything in Latin.
We're speaking German after French aristocrats gave us the names for all the fancy things we couldn't afford when we were all peasants.
Don't worry, it's the other way around for Germans learning English.
I had this problem learning Norwegian.
- "And" is "og"
- "Or" is "eller"
Everytime I see "og" in a Norwegian sentence, I immediately want to translate as "or." It keeps tripping me up! "Eller" feels like too many letters to be "or," so I keep translating it as "and" instead.
You would also get the same problem as the op in Norweigan.
Hvor = Where
Hvem = Who
(Hvorfor = Why / Wherefore)
English is the odd one out here, it seems. (Also why I would rather be learning German from Norwegian than English, but oh well.)
Just remember that whomst = wemst and it'll all make sense.
Wem wemst du was? Ich wem dir gleich eine!
It's actually really easy to remember when considering the Proto-West Germanic etymology, one comes from *hwār, the othe from *hwaʀ. Just apply regular sound changes to find the modern form!
W A R U M ?
spoiler
D A R U M !
W I E S O?
D A S O. ah ne, geht nicht :(
LIRUM
LARUM
LÖFFELSTIEL
Nur für den Kick, für den Augenblick?
"Push" sounds exactly the same as the word for "Pull" in Portuguese (Puxe)
Nicht, "why" ist "warum."
Und dann es gibt wann und wenn.
I'm a native French speaker that learned English in school, and we had to get used to words spelt the same but with a different pronunciation and sometimes a slightly different meaning.
Don't worry, you'll probably get used to it.
And then you listen to the Frysian song "Wer Bisto" by Dutch Frysian duo Twarres, where "wer" means "where".
Isn't English partially based on German
English shares a common Germanic ancestor with German. German and English are sisters.
Just memorize and then internalize the lyrics to "Wo Bist Du" by Rammstein and then never get confused again!
Trust me, pretty much everything about German is easier than English (I'm a native English speaker who learned German). The only difficult thing is learning all the verb cases.
Not the genus of nouns? It makes so little sense I couldn't explain it to anyone.
Edit: That's why we argue whether it is der, die or das Nutella. When of course it is obviously die Nutella.
Compromise:
"*nuschel* gibs'ma'Nutella?"
Rheinischer Universalartikel. Dat Nutella. Oder ens Nutella.
Well yes, that too.. They are petty intertwined.
It's been a long while though - I was fluent by the end of 2003 (except for those things, but I got by), but if let it slip a lot since then