Das Boot, D*ck, Billion: 15 FALSE COGNATES in German and English! [Timekettle Translator Earbuds]

Sdílet
Vložit
  • čas přidán 30. 05. 2024
  • shrsl.com/47ppj *👈 Overcome language barriers with the Timekettle WT2 Edge/W3 Real-time Translator Earbuds and use my code FELIGERMANY for 10% off! Or shop on Amazon▸amzn.to/3THTVJk *!
    ➡️ Is Jeff Bezos really a BILLIONAIRE? What does "das Boot" mean? And is DICK a dirty word or not?? These 15 words exist both in German and in English but even though they look super similar they DO NOT mean the same! ⚠️
    17 FALSE FRIEND WORDS in German and English (video from 2020)▸ • 17 FALSE FRIEND WORDS ...
    Get your Bavarian beer mug or Servus t-shirt ▸felifromgermany.com/
    Check out my PODCAST (with Josh)▸ / understandingtrainstation or linktr.ee/Understandingtrains...
    FOLLOW ME ON SOCIAL MEDIA: Facebook▸ / felifromgermany (Feli from Germany) Support me on Patreon▸ / felifromgermany Instagram▸@felifromgermany▸ / felifromgermany Buy me a coffee▸www.ko-fi.com/felifromgermany
    ▸Mailing address:
    PO Box 19521
    Cincinnati, OH 45219
    USA
    -------------------------
    0:00 False Cognates
    2:58 # 1
    4:20 # 2
    5:30 # 3
    6:08 # 4
    7:22 # 5
    8:10 # 6
    8:49 # 7
    12:43 # 8
    13:32 # 9
    14:09 # 10
    15:08 # 11
    15:58 # 12
    17:15 # 13
    17:51 # 14
    19:04 # 15
    21:07 More false cognates?
    -------------------------
    ABOUT ME: Hallo, Servus, and welcome to my channel! My name is Felicia (Feli), I'm 30 years old, and I'm a German living in the USA! I was born and raised in Munich, Germany but have been living in Cincinnati, Ohio off and on since 2016. I first came here for an exchange semester during my undergrad at LMU Munich, then I returned for an internship, and then I got my master's degree in Cincinnati. I was lucky enough to win the Green Card lottery and have been a permanent resident since 2019! In my videos, I talk about cultural differences between America and Germany, things I like and dislike about living here, and other topics I come across in my everyday life in the States. Let me know what YOU would like to hear about in the comments below. DANKE :)
    *These links are Affiliate links. If you buy the product through that link, I'll receive a small provision while the price for you stays the same! Thanks for your support! :)

Komentáře • 1,7K

  • @FelifromGermany
    @FelifromGermany  Před 2 měsíci +36

    *Which of these false cognates surprised you the most?? 🤔Can you think of more words that fall under this category?*
    shrsl.com/47ppj 👉Overcome language barriers with the Timekettle WT2 Edge/W3 Real-time Translator Earbuds and use my code FELIGERMANY for 10% off! Or shop on Amazon▸amzn.to/3THTVJk

    • @user-lk2cj2qs1d
      @user-lk2cj2qs1d Před 2 měsíci +2

      Frohe Ostern

    • @sandmehlig
      @sandmehlig Před 2 měsíci +5

      Seeing Brits/Americans cringe while they have to pronounce Fuchs is always funny.

    • @RikaMagic-px6bk
      @RikaMagic-px6bk Před 2 měsíci +1

      ​@@sandmehlig Eichhörnchen

    • @user-lk2cj2qs1d
      @user-lk2cj2qs1d Před 2 měsíci +1

      @@sandmehlig We think the German fart is

    • @wheeliebeast7679
      @wheeliebeast7679 Před 2 měsíci +1

      Feli you were correct about the name for these similar words! - at first. 😁 They are indeed 'false friends.'
      'False cognates' are similar words with similar meanings across 2 (usually related) languages, but come from completely different roots. These are rare, but a good example pair of false cognates would be English 'day' and Spanish 'día.' Another is English 'bad' and Persian 'بد,' said identically to 'bad' as pronounced in most American accents.
      By comparison, English "gift" & German "Gift' share the same ultimate linguistic root despite their very different meanings. They are thus 'false friends' but still cognate words.
      P.S. My hunch is that the German meaning arose from what was initially sarcasm. My dad had a tendency to fart on the way out of enclosed rooms, then immediately say to me, "I left you a Gift."

  • @beaverhurl
    @beaverhurl Před 2 měsíci +269

    As an American looking for apartments in Germany, I have learned my wohnung needs to be hell and gross.

    • @WolfgangManichl
      @WolfgangManichl Před měsícem +17

      And my American colleague specifically chose the Hotel Hell in the ski resort in nothern Italy, so that he can say, that he is in hell now :D (hell=bright)

    • @florkgagga
      @florkgagga Před měsícem +5

      😂😂

    • @FLScrabbler
      @FLScrabbler Před měsícem +23

      An American colleague of mine here in Germany, who can't pronounce the CH in, for example, "J.S.Bach" but instead makes a K-sound, wrote a note advising the flat/apartment he was moving out of stating that the bathroom was "voll gekackelt" 🙈 ("Kacke" is a word for shit...)

    • @LexusLFA554
      @LexusLFA554 Před měsícem +1

      That's how its gotta be!

    • @Gutschein12345
      @Gutschein12345 Před měsícem +3

      that's a good one =D

  • @page8301
    @page8301 Před 2 měsíci +306

    Fun fact about the word "gift", it is also used in Swedish for either poison or, hilariously, being married.

    • @tiberius8390
      @tiberius8390 Před 2 měsíci +29

      It's kind of interesting this one. I'm no language scientist, but I really like to know where this word originates from.
      In German there is also the word "Mitgift", which means "dowry". So also a connection to marriage and "giving someone something" here.

    • @AleaumeAnders
      @AleaumeAnders Před 2 měsíci +8

      Well, for some it's a gift at gifta sig, for others it turns out to be a slowly killing Gift. ;)

    • @adamadamadam83
      @adamadamadam83 Před 2 měsíci +16

      Reminds being of being "committed" which either means being in a serious relationship or being put in an insane asylum.

    • @karlbauer4616
      @karlbauer4616 Před 2 měsíci +2

      reminds mem of french lesson at school: Fische ohnr etwas zu Trinken sind Gift

    • @matthiaskeller947
      @matthiaskeller947 Před 2 měsíci +6

      Gift komt von Gabe

  • @rdbjr77
    @rdbjr77 Před měsícem +66

    I once told a group of German soldiers “Ich bin warm” when asking to open the window because the room was stuffy. After a great deal of laughter, they helpfully explained that I had just declared that I was gay and that I should have said “Mir ist warm” and that I should be very careful in describing the weather. I was just starting my German studies at the time and learned that several other weather related expressions can have alternate, sexual meanings when not used with the right case in German. I’ve never forgotten that lesson! 🇩🇪

    • @flowingafterglow629
      @flowingafterglow629 Před měsícem +9

      We were taught that you don't say things like "Ich bin kalt" or "Ich bin heiss" as they refer more to sexual feelings. Didn't hear about warm, though.
      Of course, being high schoolers, we used that to our advantage.

    • @caligo7918
      @caligo7918 Před měsícem +9

      @@flowingafterglow629 I think, it was back in the 80s when "Warmer Bruder" (warm brother) was slang for a gay dude

    •  Před měsícem +4

      Da fällt mir mein Vater ein (hatte in seiner Schulzeit nie Englisch gehabt und es so ein bisschen "lernte" - im Leben halt), der einen GI fragte (der zitterte vor Kälte): "Are you frozen?". Der Blick des jungen Mannes - unbezahlbar. 😳😂

    • @HappyBeezerStudios
      @HappyBeezerStudios Před měsícem

      And the difference between being something and having something isn't just with temperature. A lot of it obviously depends on the language in question, but for example there are languages where you don't say that you "are x years", but "have x years" when referring to your age.

    • @garycamara9955
      @garycamara9955 Před měsícem +1

      Spending is not donating. He is speaking english.

  • @awren6743
    @awren6743 Před měsícem +4

    I often get confused by "Notausgang". My first attempt at translation is usually “not an exit” before I remember it means “emergency exit”.

    • @GETOBA
      @GETOBA Před měsícem

      This actually might be tricky because the short german word is replaced by a long english word - and vice versa

  • @nicehedgehog
    @nicehedgehog Před 2 měsíci +190

    In accounting: I received a message from a German supplier "your VAT ID is not guilty". (From the context it was obvious, that the author had "gültig"/valid in mind).Replied: "This is absolutely true, out VAT ID is innocent, but had to be changed".

    • @Alpha-Cephei
      @Alpha-Cephei Před 2 měsíci +21

      I actually overheard a conversation at a car rental in Germany when the lady behind the counter tried to tell the customer that his driving license was not "guilty"... 😆

    • @SireyDaRockaa
      @SireyDaRockaa Před 2 měsíci +4

      😂😂😂 👍👍👍

    • @garycamara9955
      @garycamara9955 Před měsícem +2

      We don't have VAT!

    • @gsittly
      @gsittly Před 23 dny

      ​@@garycamara9955 it exists. In Germany it's called Mehrwertsteuer-Identifikationsnummer or just Umsatzsteuer-Identifikationsnummer

    • @LaserKatze
      @LaserKatze Před 18 dny

      @@garycamara9955Mehrwertsteuer

  • @guzziwheeler
    @guzziwheeler Před 2 měsíci +136

    Feli, "Gift" hieß früher auch in (Mittelhoch)-Deutsch Geschenk bzw. Gabe. In dem Wort "Mitgift" wird es heute noch in dieser Bedeutung verwendet. Da die "Gabe" aber gerne mal in einer Dosis einer tödlichen Substanz (Erbschaftspulver) bestand, wandelte sich die Bedeutung des Wortes von "Gabe" zu "Gift. eine bizarre Geschichte, aber wahr.
    Feli, "Gift" used to mean present or gift in (Middle High) German. In the word “Mitgift" (dowry) it is still used in this meaning today. Since the "gift" often consisted of a dose of a deadly substance (inheritance powder), the meaning of the word changed from "gift" to "poison". A bizarre story, but true.

    • @NormanF62
      @NormanF62 Před 2 měsíci +2

      In the Middle Ages, the meaning was common. The meaning changed later to what it is today, poison! That’s why gift is unwanted in Geman! 😊

    • @TheJasonBorn
      @TheJasonBorn Před 2 měsíci +3

      Fascinating.
      Faszinierend.

    • @chrisrudolf9839
      @chrisrudolf9839 Před 2 měsíci

      A bizarre story that is also completle untrue, a fabrication from some 20th century layman who wanted a shocking medieval fun fact. The modern word gift didn't evolve from Mitgift because people would poison wedding presents (if that were the case, what do you think people called poison in German in the middle ages before the term allegedly evolved from Mitgift?!). The truth is simply that Gift is an old form of "Gabe", something that is "given", and poison has to be "given" to someone to be ingested or injected to have an effect.

    • @noname-xw4uk
      @noname-xw4uk Před měsícem +3

      Erbschaftspulver 😂😂😂

    • @laszlokristo5383
      @laszlokristo5383 Před měsícem +7

      Great :) Such - at first sight shocking - meaning shifts are all around the place. The English adjective "silly" (variant, mostly obsolete, form: "sely") used to mean (in Old English) 'happy, lucky, fortunate', hence 'blessed'. The meaning then shifted to 'pious, innocent' to 'simple, unsophisticated' to 'naive', then to 'foolish'. These stages of the meaning shift can be traced back for a millennium. Needless to say, the English word is cognate with German "selig", i.e. 'happy, joyful, tranquil, blessed, beatified'.

  • @MrLordcaptain
    @MrLordcaptain Před 2 měsíci +37

    Happened on a family meeting (british and german family). "I am very afraid to see you". He tried to pronounce "erfreut" (happy/delighted) english :D.

    • @calvin9436
      @calvin9436 Před měsícem +1

      hahaha

    • @TonyZoster
      @TonyZoster Před měsícem +1

      Ich habe große Angst, dich zu sehen. afraid, fear. I would say " Ich freue mich dich zu sehen." If you keep it simple you are better off and you will make fewer mistakes.

    • @calvin9436
      @calvin9436 Před měsícem

      @@TonyZoster They didn't make a mistake to begin with

  • @brianlewis5692
    @brianlewis5692 Před 2 měsíci +34

    English 'gift' and German 'Gift' are not false cognates, they are true cognates, but false friends. The basic meaning of both words is "something given", which is still apparent in English, but in German it shifted to something meaning "dose, dosage" and then to "lethal dosage" then "poison". Same with 'become' and 'bekommen', they are true cognates. The original sense in Proto-West Germanic was "to come close to, come near to" which in English morphed into meaning "to come to, come to be" and in German "to come by, obtain". You can still say in English "How did you *come by* that?" and mean what in German is "Wie hast du das *bekommen* ?"

    • @Kristina_S-O
      @Kristina_S-O Před 2 měsíci +8

      An der Nordseeküste gibt es bis heute "Giftbuden", das sind Imbissbuden oder Kioske. Da wird man nicht vergiftet, da "gift es wat", da gibt es etwas. 😊

    • @chrisrudolf9839
      @chrisrudolf9839 Před 2 měsíci +7

      It's because Feli isn't a linguist and fell for a "false friend" herself when she initially stated that "false friends" were internationally more commonly referred to as "false cognates". She basically thought "false cognates" was just a less colloquial technical term for "false friends". Actually, those two terms of course aren't the same, "false friends" are words in different languages that look and/or sound alike without meaning the same whereas false cognates would be words that look/sound as if they were etymologically related when they actually aren't. The vast majority of "false friends" between English and German would actually be true cognates that share a common origin but drifted apart in meaning.

    • @jrgptr935
      @jrgptr935 Před měsícem

      ​@@Kristina_S-OKlingt wie in gewissen moselfränkischen Gegenden des Saarlands oder Frankreichs, also nördlich der dat/das Linie

    • @MarcLeonbacher-lb2oe
      @MarcLeonbacher-lb2oe Před měsícem +1

      ​@@chrisrudolf9839And "where/wo" and "who/wer" are indeed cognates that funnily look as though they had exchanged their vowels.

    • @TonyZoster
      @TonyZoster Před měsícem

      "How did you come by that? = "Wie sind Sie darauf gekommen? "Wie kommen Sie darauf?" Woher wissen Sie das? ; become = werden ; bekommen = get, obtain, receive ;
      gift = Geschenk;

  • @Nurichiri
    @Nurichiri Před 2 měsíci +181

    So, the Babel Fish from Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy actually exists now.

  • @stefanteucher
    @stefanteucher Před 2 měsíci +74

    Just had the discussion about actual and current at work. Took me soo long to convince my colleague that it is not a good idea to present a lot of numbers and then leading into the next section with the phrase: And now I give you the actual numbers....

  • @tbolt2948
    @tbolt2948 Před 2 měsíci +10

    At last! A Federation Universal Translator! 🖖

  • @nikossolomou9507
    @nikossolomou9507 Před 2 měsíci +23

    "Das Boot" was a fantastic series, shown on British television in German with English subtitles back in about 1982. Normally I can't be bothered to read subtitles, but this was done so well, I was hooked from the first few minutes. I was in the Royal Navy at the time and the feel and atmosphere of a conventional submarine was so familiar and acurate it was incredible. Great story - highly recommended. In the Royal Navy a 'boat' is a submarine and a surface vessel is a 'ship'. I think it must be the same in the German Navy - Das Boot = Unterseeboot.... I love the way German words are constructed like that - Under Sea Boat (Submarine).

    • @markrossow6303
      @markrossow6303 Před 2 měsíci +1

      ( U.S. Army kid here -- in West Germany for K, 1st, 3rd, 4th + college Christmas 1988 & Summer '89 -- got into East Berlin + French Officers Club -- had a steak from Limousin... )

    • @wandilismus8726
      @wandilismus8726 Před 2 měsíci +2

      Subway Untergrundbahn/ Under the Ground Train

    • @WelshRabbit
      @WelshRabbit Před 2 měsíci +4

      Nik, how about that "good old English" word, "flak" -- as in "I caught a lot of flak from my boss because of my screw up." FLAK -- from Fliegerabwehrkanone -- flier (or flyer) -- or Flugzeug- [aircraft]) defense cannon. That's the thing I love about English -- when we find a good word or phrase (zut alors! a bon mot!!) lying about, we'll quickly snap it up and claim it as our own, unlike French, which will try to give non-native words the old heave ho, tout suite (or if they're feeling particularly pedantic, tout de suite, or if not toot sweet), n'est-ce pas, mon ami? Jawohl!! You betcha! That's why English has become the lingua franca for much of the world. The English language is sort of like a linguistic Venus fly trap -- any interesting foreign words can get caught and absorbed into English. Oh? As for the French, oy vey! Uff da! Mann, Mann, Mann! Maybe one day our Froggy Friends will chill out and stop kvetching about foreign language intrusion into their pure Francophone tongue and enjoy a little linguistic spicy seasoning.

    • @seegee7728
      @seegee7728 Před 2 měsíci +4

      There is a new series of Das Boot made from 2020 onwards. It's a fantastic show with top acting and amazing scenes. Highly recommended.

    • @holger_p
      @holger_p Před měsícem +1

      It's a movie and got an 6 academy award nominations, hasn't won any. Maybe TV has shown it in parts, but it's a movie.

  • @conlon4332
    @conlon4332 Před 2 měsíci +115

    7:48 Engaged can definitely mean very interested in or occupied by something - like "She's very engaged in what she's doing" or "She's finding that very engaging".

    • @chitlitlah
      @chitlitlah Před 2 měsíci +9

      You could even say, "She's engaged in school activities." I'll admit, the way she says it in the video does make me think of marriage initially, but I think an anglophone would figure it out pretty quickly and you barely need to change the wording for the word 'engage' to be proper.

    • @felixgaede6754
      @felixgaede6754 Před měsícem +7

      Engaging the enemy
      One year later they are all pregnant.

    • @EddieReischl
      @EddieReischl Před měsícem +6

      Yeah, or "Warp factor 2, Number One. Engage."

    • @Sanchez77020
      @Sanchez77020 Před měsícem +1

      Exactly what I was thinking

    • @netgnostic1627
      @netgnostic1627 Před měsícem +2

      "Engagement" has also become a business buzzword.
      "How can we drive engagement in the new Mentorship program?"

  • @Tinkerbe11
    @Tinkerbe11 Před 2 měsíci +40

    I used to live in the UK, as a German, and I had 2 instances where I used one of these "false friends".
    1) The English "decent" and German "dezent" sound very similar. But the English version means "anständig" and the German means "plain, discereet, unobstrusive". I knew the word "decent" existed, but in the context that I heard this word being used, I thought it meant the same as in German. Now I like to wear very coulourful clothes - anything but "dezent" in German, quite the opposite. And when I wanted to tell this my English frinds I said "I love to wear indecent clothes!" 🤣
    2) "to undertake" in English and "unternehmen" in German are not just a literal translation, but also mean the same. I knew that. But in German, the noun for that "Unternehmer" means somebody who untertakes things, in other words a businessman. When I was studying in the UK, a friend of my Mum, who was a "Unternehmer" said, that I may be able to work for him after I finished my studies. When I told that my supervisor in the UK, I said: "A friend of my Mum's, who is an undertaker, may have a job for me." My supervisor gave me a strange look. So I looked up "undertaker" - as I had seen that word, and since "to undertake" was the same as "unternehmen", I assumed that "undertaker" was also the same as "Unternehmer". Well, in a way, an undertaker is also a businessman, but he does only one business... to bury the dead. No, I didn't end up working for an undertaker. 🤣🤣🤣

    • @Tinkerbe11
      @Tinkerbe11 Před 2 měsíci +6

      Oh, and by the way, in British English "boot" also means the trunk of a car. ("Kofferrraum" in German). And "car boot sales" are fea markets (Flohmärkte).

    • @3catsn1dog
      @3catsn1dog Před 2 měsíci +4

      @@Tinkerbe11 And Booty means something entirely different in American slang.

    • @salamanders6969
      @salamanders6969 Před 2 měsíci

      An entrepreneur would be the word in English for Unternehmer

    • @KGTiberius
      @KGTiberius Před 2 měsíci +2

      Reminds me of the joke where a guy got a job working over 800 people, but the company only had 2 part-time people working at the cemetery.

  • @luffegasen7711
    @luffegasen7711 Před 2 měsíci +13

    There is a story in my family, where my great grandmother was in Germany at a restaurant and she wanted to speak to the owner. In Danish owner is called "ejer" ... Which pronunciation wise sounds like the German "Eier" (Egg). My great grandmother asked the waiter in German: "Darf Ich mit der Eier sprechen?" (Can I talk to the Egg?). We are playing around a lot with words in my family ... Being in Danish, English, German (or in my case) also Finnish and Russian! My niece and nephews is CONSTANTLY asking my sister whether or not this phrase or word is something OTHER people use or if it is a family heirloom! ^^
    And don't get me started on my grandmother on my father's side ... Once she was at a plant nursery (Looking at plants) and had brought along my (then) teenager cousin (F). And to my cousin's great horror my grandmother walked around and said "WOW look these nice clitoris'" while pointing out Clematis flowers! And Oh, yeah! She KNEW the difference! That was SO intentional! I don'r think my cousin could be more red in the face from embarrassment! (BTW ... My cousin is now 66, so it's a year or two ago) ... ^^

    • @Ithirahad
      @Ithirahad Před měsícem

      I AM THE EGGMAN
      ...Also, dialectical English in Britain, once upon a time, used to have this same word "eyre" for an egg, but somehow it got standardized to egg everywhere and nobody calls them eyren any more.

    • @juavi6987
      @juavi6987 Před měsícem

      "Der Eigner" would be the German cognate.
      Although it's not that often used as "Besitzer" anymore

    • @juavi6987
      @juavi6987 Před měsícem

      And, well, the flower kind if exists actually: en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clitoria

    • @MoritzGruber7
      @MoritzGruber7 Před 25 dny

      This one requires the German to be somewhat Bavarian/Austrian, though: "In English, I [ee/ich] means I (aye), Ei means egg, Eck means corner and koaner means nobody." (With the fun being of course that English I pronounces as German Ei, etc.)

  • @lisakommik7323
    @lisakommik7323 Před 2 měsíci +6

    Damals als Ich Exchange student war in Louisiana, hab ich auf deutsch Tagebuch geschrieben neben einem meiner amerikanischen Mitschüler. Ich schrieb sowas wie „Die Mrs. Mueller hatte…“
    Der Schüler neben mir war völlig entsetzt, weil er dachte ich wünschte der Lehrerin den Tod 😢 bis ich ihm erklärt hab, dass die in englisch und die in Deutsch was ganz anderes ist… 🙈

  • @guidonthief
    @guidonthief Před 2 měsíci +102

    Most of these false cognates have shared etymologies and their meanings only diverged relatively recently.

    • @Skyfighter94
      @Skyfighter94 Před 2 měsíci +16

      Exactly, even the seemingly very different meanings actually are related.
      Ordinary / ordinär come from Latin 'ordinarius' meaning 'common' or 'normal'. The 'vulgar' meaning in German derives from commoners speaking vulgar in comparison to the upper class.
      The German adjective 'dick' also has an English cognate: 'thick'. The etymological rule here is that German uses a 'd' where English uses a 'th'. The most obivous example being the articles like 'der, die, das' and 'the'.

    • @michaelmedlinger6399
      @michaelmedlinger6399 Před 2 měsíci +15

      @@Skyfighter94 Exactly. The "Great Consonant Shift" that took place in English. "d" at the beginning changed to "th" and "b" at the end changed to "f". A fun example is German "Dieb" to English "thief".
      "will" and "wollen" are also closely related. I would even argue that the "will" in "Will you marry me?" is a throwback to this original meaning and is correctly translated as "Willst du mich heiraten?" and not "Wirst du mich heiraten?" But who would know that?
      My favorite cognates are "horse" and "Ross". You would never think of that until you learn the Old English was "hross" and the "r" has simply moved (something that happens rather frequently). A comment attributed to Voltaire (don't know if correct): "Linguistics is the science in which consonants count for very little and vowels for nothing."
      😆

    • @KaiHenningsen
      @KaiHenningsen Před 2 měsíci +2

      @@Skyfighter94 Interestingly enough, in English, "common" can also be used in the meaning of "vulgar". I think this goes back to how the nobility felt about the "common folk". And this also works in German with "gewöhnlich" (the German word corresponding to "common").

    • @fsinjin60
      @fsinjin60 Před 2 měsíci

      My French studies helped with the will, want, wish, need verbs that are similar .
      Espère will/wish
      A Besoin want/need
      Peut will/want
      There is more to it but I have become less fluent

    • @Cherodar
      @Cherodar Před měsícem +2

      @@michaelmedlinger6399 Isn't it the English consonants that are older, and the German ones that are the product of a shift? You can see that in the th (or ð or þ) being present in those same words in Old English and Old Norse and modern Icelandic, with that sound having fallen out of German and become a D somewhere along the way.

  • @sachakorell
    @sachakorell Před 2 měsíci +86

    I’ve been living in the US for about 30 years (born and raised in Kiel, Germany) and I’m a fluent English speaker, but “rent” and “Rente” still gets me sometimes, especially when I speak German to friends and family. I may say “Die Rente für die Wohnung ist sehr hoch.” 😂

    • @FelifromGermany
      @FelifromGermany  Před 2 měsíci +17

      Same! I mentioned this in my first video on the topic. I say "Rente" all the time in German when I mean "Miete" 🙈

    • @cmartin_ok
      @cmartin_ok Před 2 měsíci +9

      Ah yes... mietewagon isn't the butcher's van but a rental car. Very confusing to some of us

    • @scottbivins4758
      @scottbivins4758 Před 2 měsíci +1

      Hold on now I'm a American I don't understand what you're saying. 🤣🤣Rente I feel like you're talking shit about us 🤣🤣 and I don't like it someone that speaks German please fill me in 🤣🤣

    • @sachakorell
      @sachakorell Před 2 měsíci +1

      @@scottbivins4758 the German word “Rente” means pension or retirement in English. The English word “rent” is “Miete” in German, so native German speakers often use the wrong word in either language since “rent” and “Rente” are so similar, but actually have totally different meanings. Watch Feli’s first video on the same topic and you’ll understand 😂

    • @scottbivins4758
      @scottbivins4758 Před 2 měsíci +2

      @@sachakorell 🤣🤣🤣 I just feel like when people speak in a different language than me I just feel like they talking trash or something and I know I definitely can't be the only one that feels that way appreciate ya letting me know that wont going down 🤣🤣 i can count on you

  • @pigoff123
    @pigoff123 Před měsícem +7

    When we lived in Germany there was a house that had an ad on it. It was a family named Fucker advertising rooms to rent. Very big sign. Americans loved taking pictures of it.

    • @GETOBA
      @GETOBA Před měsícem +2

      There's a small hotel near Cologne that is named after it's former owners "Fuck" - actually that name has made a long way to get there. You may have heard of the famous merchand family "Fugger" - in the late middle ages their name was spelled "Fucker", but that changed over times passing. However, in post-medieval Cologne, “Fuck” was a derogatory term for someone who worked for the mega-rich Fucker/Fugger family - which was not that well regarded.

    • @Ithirahad
      @Ithirahad Před měsícem

      @@GETOBA So nobody really liked those rich Fuckers, nor the poor Fucks working for these Fuckers at all :D

    • @pigoff123
      @pigoff123 Před měsícem +1

      My mother told me that Fucker was a name like Smith. It was every where

    • @TonyZoster
      @TonyZoster Před měsícem

      The f word in English is essentially slang and no one would write it with a capital F.

    • @GETOBA
      @GETOBA Před měsícem

      @@TonyZoster - now that's Bullshit - many people do write it with a capital F

  • @feandil1713
    @feandil1713 Před měsícem +18

    As a Polish person I find this video exceptionally interesting. Whenever there is a Polish word similar to those English-German false cognates, it ALWAYS has the same meaning as the German word. I'm actually quite fluent in all those three languages, and it always keeps surprising me, how - in a way - Polish is much more similar to German than to English. If I translate something literally from one language to another, it works way better when it's Polish to German than Polish to English. But at the end of the day, Poland is geographically closer to Germany than to England, so I think, da liegt der Hund begraben - tu jest pies pogrzebany (that’s where the dog lies buried - that makes no sense. Meaning: that's the clue, that's what explains it all).
    Personally, it keeps confusing me what the word "eventually" means. In Polish we have a word "ewentualnie", and it has pretty much the same meaning as German "eventuell" = "possibly", "alternatively", "exceptionally".

    • @laszlokristo5383
      @laszlokristo5383 Před měsícem +1

      Yeah, that's hardly surprising - the same in Hungarian. Such international words typically entered Central European languages via German, or even if not, their meaning might have been influenced by their German meaning. As for German, many such words (while ultimately of Latin origin) came from French - "aktuell" is a nice example, check the "e" in the last syllable. Polish "aktualnie" is closer to Latin, Hungarian "aktuális" (Adjective) is strikingly like Latin "actualis", but it translates as "aktuell" into German.

    • @olevanman3825
      @olevanman3825 Před měsícem +1

      Yeah, it's the same in Denmark! So imagine my surprise, that number 10, ordinary in English and in Danish ordinær, has a totally different meaning in German! I mean, it even sounds the same in Danish and German!

    • @elmercy4968
      @elmercy4968 Před měsícem

      @@olevanman3825 The meaning is not totally different. The meaning shifted from normal towards rude. But you can still use it in the old way. An "ordinäre Stubenfliege" would be a "common housefly". Ein "ordinärer Bürger" is an "ordinary citizen". Like the word "vulgar" in English can mean normal or rude.

    • @phoebus007
      @phoebus007 Před měsícem

      Unsurprising given Poland's proximity to German speaking countries and, although English is classed as a Germanic language, a great many of its words are derived from particularly French but also other areas colonised by Britain, such as India.

    • @raempftl
      @raempftl Před měsícem

      ​@@martinfurtner2136Ich glaube nicht, das es zoologisch gemeint, sondern im Sinne von "gewöhnlich".

  • @GerrySchulze72204
    @GerrySchulze72204 Před 2 měsíci +62

    I have always been impressed with your native-sounding English. You don't seem to have a German accent at all. I was even more impressed when you were able to do a "German" accent in English in the skits. You sounded like a non-native speaker of English. You must have a very good ear.

    • @Phiyedough
      @Phiyedough Před měsícem +2

      I just wish she could reduce the decibel level but in USA that probably sounds normal.

    • @johns1009
      @johns1009 Před měsícem

      Zz

    • @AKayfabe
      @AKayfabe Před měsícem +1

      @@Phiyedoughno I’m in the USA and it’s way loud. Sehr laut

    • @jerrygelder8373
      @jerrygelder8373 Před měsícem

      What decibel level?​@@Phiyedough

  • @Where2bub
    @Where2bub Před 2 měsíci +70

    I mean, engaged does also mean to be involved in English as well, although it is more often used in the context of marriage. But yes, you can be engaged in studies, or have another engagement (to be busy).

    • @Sadisstik
      @Sadisstik Před 2 měsíci +2

      I'm a Midwestern American and that example Feli used made perfect sense to me. It's not a common use of the word, but if someone used engaged in that manner I think most people would understand it without confusion.

    • @DougVanDorn
      @DougVanDorn Před 2 měsíci +3

      Yeah, "engage" can mean a number of things in English. I've often heard or read that a book or film is "very engaging," meaning it captures and keeps your interest. One can also be quitting one job to move on to a different work engagement, and if one designs gears and cams and such, one might also optimize how well one gear engages another gear. All similar concepts. In fact, I'd say that the "getting married" context is most often determined by context, in English. If I were to say "I currently have an engagement, so I must decline your job offer," you'd know I meant something different than if I walked in with a girlfriend and announced that we just got engaged. Also, since "engaged" can mean "meshed" or "interlocked," in English you can always have the joke of a ship's Captain walking in on a couple of his crew having sex in a broom closet, have them say "It's OK, Captain, we're engaged!" To which the Captain could respond "Well, disengage and get back to your posts!"

    • @juliegreen7604
      @juliegreen7604 Před 2 měsíci +1

      In that sentence "she is engaged at school" sort of thing - there is no way a native English speaker would think it is related to marriage!
      Perhaps the USA is different, but in English, engaged would be more often used in the sense of being engaged in an activity or similar, yes it means "engaged to be married" but only in the context where it would be obvious it relates to marriage.
      Engaged merely means "to be involved in" so it could be engaged in a subject; engaged in crime; engaged in/to be...... whatever.

    • @CornedBee
      @CornedBee Před 2 měsíci +2

      The Incredibles uses this for a play on words in the opening sequence - "I have a previous engagement."

    • @Tiger1Tanker
      @Tiger1Tanker Před 2 měsíci +3

      Then there's the military version of engagement basically meaning you're in a firefight.

  • @jongordon7914
    @jongordon7914 Před 2 měsíci +5

    Without speaking a lick or German I kind of guessed "after" correctly (sort of ) as I guessed "behind" since I was thinking "aft" which is a nautical term for the rear of a ship.

  • @wagonwheel9499
    @wagonwheel9499 Před měsícem +2

    I always thought “Hell” = “Bright/Light” was a fun example because some German lite beer cans have “HELL” written very large on them. Meanwhile, Hell in English is usually described as being very dark and not a fun place to be…😂

  • @SeriousAce2kX
    @SeriousAce2kX Před 2 měsíci +34

    If you eat spicy food, you get an afterburner 😂

  • @garymendham
    @garymendham Před 2 měsíci +29

    In English, to a pilot, the "actual" is the current weather report as opposed to the forecast weather.

    • @uliwitness
      @uliwitness Před měsícem

      Isn't that more a military thing? Like, they also use " actual" in radio communications to mean "the team lead is talking". I'd guess that those two are related.

  • @PugalshishOfficial
    @PugalshishOfficial Před měsícem +7

    The word "will" in English, in phrases like "free will" or "the will to live", still has the context of wanting to do something. Like "free will" is the freedom to do what you want and "the will to live" is the wanting to live

    • @drunvert
      @drunvert Před měsícem +1

      Exactly. Strong willed people get what they want

    • @elmercy4968
      @elmercy4968 Před měsícem

      The last will. Not the last want.

  • @donsilsbe6134
    @donsilsbe6134 Před 2 měsíci +14

    An expat friend of mine was pulled over by an Austrian policeman for speeding. The policeman told my friend in English “I become 100 Euros.” Fortunately, my friend knew about the false cognate, and suppressed his laughter.

    • @WolfgangManichl
      @WolfgangManichl Před měsícem

      Eine der besten Karikaturen in einem Reiseführer für Amerika in der Rubrik: Don't say that ... Bestellung im Restaurant: I become a bloody beefsteak (should mean I'd like to have a steak, rare)

    • @missharry5727
      @missharry5727 Před měsícem +2

      I remember a joke about false friends: the German in the English cafe: "I am here since twenty minutes - when do I become a sausage?"

    • @TonyZoster
      @TonyZoster Před měsícem

      “I become 100 Euros.” become = werden . Es werden 100 Euro fuer sie sein. Or Es wird sie 100 Euro kosten. In English "I get 100 euro from you for this speeding..

    • @donsilsbe6134
      @donsilsbe6134 Před měsícem

      @@TonyZoster All ist klar!

  • @AdamNisbett
    @AdamNisbett Před 2 měsíci +20

    As an American I would definitely understand the “engaged” in context as being involved if it’s between a person and something abstract. Using engaged in terms of a pre-marriage relationship would generally only be interpreted if it’s referred to between two people. The context also helps in that the pre-marriage version would typically be “engaged to” while the involved version would be “engaged with”.
    As an American learning German, so far the most annoying example of these false conjugates has been “will” and the similarity of the German “wo” and “wer” to the English “who” and “where” has also been confusing at times.

    • @SO-ym3zs
      @SO-ym3zs Před 2 měsíci +1

      Definitely. It's common in English to speak of someone "engaging" in an activity or being "engaged" with a cause or problem or issue.

    • @Gartenlust
      @Gartenlust Před měsícem

      When I started learning English, my worst false friends were "where = wo", "who = wer", "bekommen = to get", "werden = to become". 🙈
      In my English book, there was a very memorable sentence:
      "There is a train in my room. If I don't become another ceiling, I will undress." 😂 (correct: There is a draught in my room. If I don't get another blanket I will move out.)

  • @xar1234
    @xar1234 Před 2 měsíci +46

    i like “to berate” vs. “beraten”

    • @DavidWilliams-DSW558
      @DavidWilliams-DSW558 Před 2 měsíci +1

      Or how about besiegen vs. besiege?

    • @felixgaede6754
      @felixgaede6754 Před měsícem +2

      ​@@DavidWilliams-DSW558
      The English are still on their way to winning with this one

    • @Tokru86
      @Tokru86 Před měsícem +1

      You could argue that "beraten" (to consult) often involves parts where you (figuratively) have to berate your customer for all his faults or the stupid things he did. In a nice way of course ;-)

  • @Snagprophet
    @Snagprophet Před 2 měsíci +6

    That sponsor was amazing. Probably one of the most interesting I've seen. I wonder if people would get lazy and just use a translator and never learn another language

  • @irish.114
    @irish.114 Před měsícem +1

    A host is someone supposed to be friendly, so I once used the term 'hostility' instead of 'hospitality'. Very embarrassing. "Thank you for your hostility" 🙈

  • @ashextraordinaire
    @ashextraordinaire Před 2 měsíci +21

    Normally I skip ads, but holy crap, those earbuds are real? One of my childhood dreams has come true.

    • @RustyDust101
      @RustyDust101 Před 2 měsíci +2

      Me as well. This was the first time EVER that I actually ordered something from an in-video ad because I have a lot of use for this for my parents and their nurses who assist them in their old age. These may be a godsend for all involved.

    • @lisakommik7323
      @lisakommik7323 Před 2 měsíci +2

      Haha thought the same 😆 if you bought them, let me know if they really work that good! That would be amazing! Then i could finally understand my Brazilian parents in law until i am finally able to be at that level of language learning myself.

    • @DrAndyShick
      @DrAndyShick Před měsícem +2

      I was going to say the same. This video is the prime example of where the advertisements fit very well into the video as a whole. You are almost missing part of the video if you skip the ads

    • @zephram75
      @zephram75 Před měsícem +4

      I’ve been waiting for a universal translator like they had in Star Trek for at least 30 years. This is getting pretty close

    • @ashextraordinaire
      @ashextraordinaire Před měsícem +2

      @@zephram75EXACTLY! My little nerd soul is so happy.

  • @christiank8189
    @christiank8189 Před 2 měsíci +28

    "Pregnant" and "Praegnant" share the same Latin origin, but in German the meaning changed to a figurative sense, meaning "full of information".

    • @sergeyromanov5560
      @sergeyromanov5560 Před 2 měsíci +8

      pregnant with meaning, pregnant silence...

    • @JRyan-dz4fd
      @JRyan-dz4fd Před 2 měsíci

      @@sergeyromanov5560impregnable solace 🙂

    • @CornedBee
      @CornedBee Před 2 měsíci +5

      Pregnant pause

    • @markrossow6303
      @markrossow6303 Před 2 měsíci

      (met the Wife because she was in Latin class with a friend's Future Wife)

    • @TheJasonBorn
      @TheJasonBorn Před 2 měsíci +1

      I never thought of concise as being figurative, it's short and to the point, no allusion about it.

  • @larrykinnard
    @larrykinnard Před měsícem +1

    My mother has a story she tells of my grandfather during the second great war. He served as a Private First Class in Unit 199C. The story goes that when they were training the men were taught how to say, "Halt oder ich schieße!" During the time spent overseas, my grandfather was behind enemy lines and heard some German soldiers approaching. He jumped out and totally forgot what to say and shouted, "Halt, oder ich Scheisse!" They had a great laugh after that.

  • @SO-ym3zs
    @SO-ym3zs Před 2 měsíci +3

    Worth noting that a "boot" in UK English also refers to a car's trunk.

    • @larrykinnard
      @larrykinnard Před měsícem

      Or when your car is being towed, the parking enforcement puts the "boot" on your car.

  • @Crochetedbymichi
    @Crochetedbymichi Před 2 měsíci +15

    Tolles Video Feli!
    Funny Story
    When I was first dating my hubby I was in nursing school. Doing homework I asked him for a “rubber”. His response “now?” 😂
    we were taught Oxford English so an eraser was a rubber which is also lustig in Deutsch - Gummi (Kondom) oder Radiergummi

    • @sawanna508
      @sawanna508 Před 2 měsíci +1

      We acutllay learned that difference in english at some point.

    • @TonyZoster
      @TonyZoster Před měsícem +1

      We use rubber as the common description but on the wrapper around the rubber is Eraser which is the correct term.

  • @pendragon2012
    @pendragon2012 Před 2 měsíci +26

    Yay, an Easter morning surprise! Happy Easter, Feli and Ben! Hope you both are doing well!

    • @FelifromGermany
      @FelifromGermany  Před 2 měsíci +8

      Happy Easter! 😊

    • @rockyracoon3233
      @rockyracoon3233 Před 2 měsíci +6

      ​@@FelifromGermanyFrohe Ostern!

    • @joegoss30
      @joegoss30 Před 2 měsíci +1

      There was an American NBA player named "Ostertag." I always think about him on Easter.

    • @markrossow6303
      @markrossow6303 Před 2 měsíci +1

      gave the Wife + Daughter Polish-made chocolate bunnies,
      and to my Mom a Polish-made chocolate lamb -- very similar to the German ones I got as a Cold War era U.S. Army kid in West Germany
      (got Rugenfisch brand herring + mackeral (ex-East Germany factory on the Baltic from the same "Polish Deli" in Seattle ;-)

  • @davidwise1302
    @davidwise1302 Před 2 měsíci +6

    Kind of similar is using an archaïc word since the vocabulary we're taught in German class can be more than a century old; textbooks tend to be researched from older textbooks instead of from the current state of the language. So when I needed a pen I asked for a Feder, which is what I had always been taught for "pen", but the store clerk didn't understand why I would ask for a quill. That is when I learned the word, "Kugelschreiber".

    • @juwen7908
      @juwen7908 Před 2 měsíci +3

      But the cartridge pen is still called a Füllfederhalter as the long official name. The shorter more common name is just Füller. And the case for pens and that stuff is still called a Federtasche or Federmäppchen.
      So the guy could have guessed it by the context. 🤓
      Greetings from Berlin 😎

    • @femtouser4421
      @femtouser4421 Před měsícem

      I thought it is a ballpen

    • @MoritzGruber7
      @MoritzGruber7 Před měsícem +1

      I had this one teacher who always ended his exams with the command "Feder weg!".

    • @uliwitness
      @uliwitness Před měsícem +1

      @@femtouser4421 ballpen/biro is a Kugelschreiber, yes. But a "pen" with the ink cartridge is called a Füllfederhalter. Literally "fill(able)-quill-holder".

  • @fmaximus
    @fmaximus Před 2 měsíci +12

    One of the most apparent false cognates between German and Dutch:
    Das Mehr: De zee, the sea.
    Der See: het meer, the lake.

    • @berlindude75
      @berlindude75 Před 2 měsíci +10

      The sea in German is also spelled "Meer". The noun "Mehr" would mean "something extra or additional" (from "mehr" = "more").

    • @vrdriver4508
      @vrdriver4508 Před 2 měsíci +2

      "In the late Middle Ages, large lakes were called 'sea' in Low German, and so these names remain. Look "Steinhuder Meer" - a sea in lower saxony

    • @alexamurawski4524
      @alexamurawski4524 Před 2 měsíci +4

      @@vrdriver4508 ...and "das Meer" is also called "die See"

    • @frankmitchell3594
      @frankmitchell3594 Před 2 měsíci +2

      In old English 'Lake' was Mere, as in Windermere

    • @alo5301
      @alo5301 Před 2 měsíci +1

      Das Meer, der See oder die See

  • @America1776.
    @America1776. Před 2 měsíci +17

    Hallo, Ich bin ein deutscher Student, der noch Weile zu lernen hat, aber ich werde immer besser darin und spreche inzwischen recht gut. Ich habe es etwa 3 Jahre lang gelernt und muss inshesamt 5 Jahre machen. Ich spreche inzwischen so fließend Deutsch, dass meine Deutschlehrerin, die in Frankfürt geboren wurde, mich für einen in Deutschland geborenen Menschen hielt. Ich sagte: "Nein, ich bin eigentlich Engländerin, aber ich passe nur auf meinem Sprachunterricht auf".
    Wer Angst vor langen Wörtern hat, sollte nicht Deutsch lernen!🤣

    • @AleaumeAnders
      @AleaumeAnders Před 2 měsíci +5

      Hey, your post is really good (with a few pecularities of course). Though better say "Ich studiere schon eine Weile die deutsche Sprache..." because what you said is "I'm a german student" instead of ""I'm a student of (the) german (language)".

    • @America1776.
      @America1776. Před 2 měsíci +2

      @@AleaumeAnders Entschuldigung, ich habe es so getippt...😅

    • @AleaumeAnders
      @AleaumeAnders Před 2 měsíci +5

      @@America1776. :D No need to be sorry, one of the (dis)advantages of germans is, to love to correct people. Which is very helpful if you want to learn a language, but can be a tad much in many other cases. ;)

    • @hansmeiser32
      @hansmeiser32 Před 2 měsíci +5

      As AleaumeAnders already said "deutscher Student" means German student and the correct term would be "Deutschstudent" even though most people wouldn't use this word and say "Ich studiere Deutsch".
      Another mistake you made is: "ich passe nur auf meinem Sprachunterricht auf" which translates to "I watch out for my language course" instead of "ich passe nur *in* meinem Sprachunterricht auf" (I pay attention to...).
      "auf etwas aufpassen" and "bei/in etwas aufpassen" have a different meaning.

    • @America1776.
      @America1776. Před 2 měsíci +1

      Who wants to be my witness to a lawsuit?! 😁

  • @dragonmac1234
    @dragonmac1234 Před 2 měsíci +15

    I have to thank the Rammstein song Dicke Titten for having an idea what Dick means in this context. As usual they are very clear what they are referring to 😄

    • @joegoss30
      @joegoss30 Před 2 měsíci +1

      I follow a lot of Bundesliga teams on Twitter, which means I see a lot of the same German expressions over and over. I would see "Dicke Chance" constantly.

    • @berlindude75
      @berlindude75 Před 2 měsíci +2

      If it helps: The German word "díck" is cognate with English "thick". When the "th" vanished from continental West Germanic languages, it was typically replaced with a "d" or sometimes also a "t".

    • @californiahiker9616
      @californiahiker9616 Před měsícem

      Ach das klingt so ordinär!

    • @tillneumann406
      @tillneumann406 Před měsícem

      Which reminds me of the English word for the bird we call Kohlmeise... Check on Wikipedia by searching for _parus major_ .

  • @Casltop
    @Casltop Před měsícem +1

    My wife and I were stationed in Munich 1979/81. We had a great chuckle during this video, because we have forgotten so much. Interesting, informative and entertaining.

  • @markusmayer7956
    @markusmayer7956 Před 2 měsíci +3

    Plague / pest vs. Pest / Plage is also a good one. Another two false friends that swapped meaning.

  • @susieqmartin2746
    @susieqmartin2746 Před 2 měsíci +10

    You forgot the British meaning of Boot! That would be what Americans call the trunk of the automobile!

    • @FelifromGermany
      @FelifromGermany  Před 2 měsíci +3

      True!!

    • @thorstenjaspert9394
      @thorstenjaspert9394 Před měsícem +1

      It would be better if "Das Boot" would have translated into "The Boat".

    • @TonyZoster
      @TonyZoster Před měsícem +1

      boat - Boot ( German) . car boot = Kofferraum (Der Kofferraum vom Auto) Kofferraum = sui case space (lit.)

    • @susieqmartin2746
      @susieqmartin2746 Před měsícem

      @@TonyZoster cool thanks

  • @jaimeortega4940
    @jaimeortega4940 Před 2 měsíci +9

    A funny false cognate in Spanish is "embarazado" which curiously looks like "embarrassed" but actually means "pregnant." The other weird one is "Tuna" which is not a fish but the fruit from a Paddle cactus. Tuna the fish is "Atun."

    • @Ithirahad
      @Ithirahad Před měsícem

      Embarazada/embarrassed is a false friend and a true cognate. Both come from word roots that mean "to have weight put onto you" but in English it's more metaphorical.

  • @marylacken4016
    @marylacken4016 Před měsícem +3

    I always get confused with the word 'eventually' vs 'eventuell'. 😊

  • @reuvenlax4635
    @reuvenlax4635 Před 2 měsíci +8

    The use of the word billion has a fascinating story! Until the early 1970s, England also used the "long scale," which meant that American and British speakers would miscommunicate when using the word billion. As American English became more influential (especially in the business world!), the British finally gave in and switched the short scale in 1974. You can still find some elderly British people who use the old meaning for billion.
    The reason for this is because at some point in the past (19th century I believe), France decided to switch to the short scale. At the time the US was more influenced by France (Britian was not our friend in those days), and so the US copied the French and adopted the short scale. France switched back to the long scale in the late 1940s, but the US remained on the short scale.

    • @mumbleweed2729
      @mumbleweed2729 Před 2 měsíci +2

      Almost 60, uk citizen, and although I use the short form, I do recall as a kid that I was taught that a million was a thousand thousand and a billion was a million million.

    • @kst6959
      @kst6959 Před měsícem

      Interesting history lesson!

    • @MusikCassette
      @MusikCassette Před 22 dny

      to be frank, short scale is really dumb. not because thousand is an inherently worse base than a million, but shifting it by one makes it not even be a proper system.

  • @DavidWilliams-DSW558
    @DavidWilliams-DSW558 Před 2 měsíci +15

    When it comes to engaged, it would also be worth mentioning that in British English it also means tgat the phone number you're calling is busy. Not sure if that's the same in the U.S.

    • @FelifromGermany
      @FelifromGermany  Před 2 měsíci +10

      Interesting! I didn't even know that. Probably because I came to the US when landlines weren't really a thing anymore 😅 And nowadays, cellphones usually just redirect you to voicemail if the person you're calling is in another phone call. In German, this is called "besetzt", by the way.

    • @DavidWilliams-DSW558
      @DavidWilliams-DSW558 Před 2 měsíci +4

      @@FelifromGermany thanks for the response! The word engaged also means eingerastet or eingelegt, for instance when driving a shift-stick car or changing into reverse gear.

    • @devenscience8894
      @devenscience8894 Před 2 měsíci +4

      Nice. In the US, the phone was "busy," and you would get the busy signal, meaning they're on a call already. Engaged and busy mean the same thing, really, but that's what we used here.

    • @markrossow6303
      @markrossow6303 Před 2 měsíci +1

      learned the phone-related 'engaged' while listening to BBC 4 radiodramas on CZcams...among other British (or Scottish) phrasings / word usages
      Ironicaly, Linguists tell us the American form is older, preserving the 18th C. usages

    • @markrossow6303
      @markrossow6303 Před 2 měsíci +1

      (saw a landline phone -- maybe a "Princess" phone in a Stained Glass Window today !! near my Mom's house in Yakima -- St. Timothy's Episcopal Church !!!!)

  • @stechuskaktus8318
    @stechuskaktus8318 Před 2 měsíci +5

    I struggle a lot with self-conscious vs selbstbewusst. It's not really that category, but with conscious and bewusst meaning the same, but these words being practically opposites, it always throws me off.

    • @sawanna508
      @sawanna508 Před 2 měsíci +2

      That's a very good example. I struggled with those too.

    • @elmercy4968
      @elmercy4968 Před měsícem

      Selbstbewusst and self-conscious almost mean the same. They are not practically opposites.

    • @stechuskaktus8318
      @stechuskaktus8318 Před měsícem

      @@elmercy4968 Are you sure about that? Then please explain both in other words to me, I wanna know which of these means something completely different to you than it does to me?

    • @elmercy4968
      @elmercy4968 Před měsícem

      @@stechuskaktus8318 Quite sure. Self-conscious means self-awareness. What in German is "Ich-Bewusstsein". "Selbst-Bewusstsein" means I am aware of my positive features not just of my features in generell. It's a difference but not the opposite.

    • @stechuskaktus8318
      @stechuskaktus8318 Před měsícem +3

      @@elmercy4968 Interesting. We seem to disagree on both selbstbewusst and self-conscious. In my world, selbstbewust would better be translated to self-confident. You're selbstbewusst if you're pretty sure of yourself and convinced you got this. People who say they feel self-conscious however are anything but that, they feel unsure, awkward, question themselves etc. Certainly not confident.
      Self-awareness is yet another matter. Saying selbstbewusst and self-conscious mean the same because both are somewhat related to self-aware is quite the stretch.

  • @plutoniumlollie9574
    @plutoniumlollie9574 Před 2 měsíci +2

    Preservatives vs. Präservative

  • @thepurplesmurf
    @thepurplesmurf Před 2 měsíci +3

    A classic that Germans mess up all the time is "sympathisch", that is very often translated to "sympathetic". For the German fellows, "sympathetic" means "mitfühlend" or "verständnisvoll". The correct translation for "sympathisch" is "likeable".

  • @JonaxII
    @JonaxII Před 2 měsíci +2

    Willen/wollen as a verb of want, desire, intent is a very interesting case. It exists in a lot of languages like German, English, Danish, Dutch and more. It's always in a similar corridor of meaning, but German and English are on opposite ends of the corridor, where German only uses it for desires and English almost only uses it in a very grammatical formulaic way as a modal verb for future (note that English, just like German and most germanic languages, doesn't actually HAVE a real future tense. Instead, we all use the base form verb and a modal that indicates future). Danish actually uses it for both.

  • @OzzieLegend
    @OzzieLegend Před 2 měsíci +2

    I watched this channel trying to learn a German accent for a school drama assessment. A+ in the bag so thanks for all the tips!

  • @WolfgangManichl
    @WolfgangManichl Před měsícem +1

    I remember a conversation of my German colleague talking to the Irish colleague about a purchase of a product with which he was not really satisfied. So the German guy started in english: Yesterday I bought a coffin ... (my German colleage was at that time 35 years old and his parents were doing fine). The Irish Lady instantly interrupted him: WHAT did you buy ?!!? ... German guy continued as if the Irish lady just did not understand acustically: Yes, a coffin, and ... Irish Lady: WAIT a moment ... you did not really buy a coffin, did you? My German colleague just took the word coffin as the english word for the german word "Koffer" (english: suitcase). The misunderstanding was quickly resolved, and I was lying on the floor laighing.

  • @conlon4332
    @conlon4332 Před 2 měsíci +6

    9:12 It can also mean a stone tablet, which is probably where the meaning of an electronic tablet comes from.

    • @TWX1138
      @TWX1138 Před 2 měsíci +3

      "...the lord Jehovah has given unto you these fifteen *crash*! ten, ten commandments..."

  • @Dionysos640
    @Dionysos640 Před 2 měsíci +15

    The British English billion value used to be the same as the German one but it was changed to the American value/version at some point because, well, who wears the trousers?

    • @kathrinlancelle3304
      @kathrinlancelle3304 Před 2 měsíci +3

      I thought it was because you can ask Americans only to remember sooo many things. School system here tends to cater to the lowest common denominator.

    • @markrossow6303
      @markrossow6303 Před 2 měsíci

      the continental version is clearly French in wording
      the U.S. stayed consistent; Commonwealth switched to Match, and the French switched to be Contrarian...

    • @mariojakel5544
      @mariojakel5544 Před 2 měsíci +1

      its simple a billion, bi means 2 its a million high 2, trillion ,tri =3 means million high 3 , quadrilion, quad=4 means million high 4 thats the german version of the translation

    • @Dionysos640
      @Dionysos640 Před 2 měsíci +1

      @@mariojakel5544 Yeah very good but my comment wasn't about language or maths, just about history

    • @MusikCassette
      @MusikCassette Před 22 dny

      @@markrossow6303 sorry, but you are wrong

  • @CathyS_Bx
    @CathyS_Bx Před 2 měsíci +2

    This was really entertaining and the best "commercial" I've ever seen on a video. Just a perfect match!

  • @DavidWilliams-DSW558
    @DavidWilliams-DSW558 Před 2 měsíci +2

    Another example is the word "herb", which in German is used either for deodorants or for bitter defeats, i.e. "ein herber Rückschlag", or "das ist echt herb!", whereas in English we're just referring to plants used in cooking.

  • @markadams7046
    @markadams7046 Před 2 měsíci +8

    Karte sounds similar to the English chart, because a map is a type of chart.

    • @NormanF62
      @NormanF62 Před 2 měsíci +1

      Exactly! That was the original meaning common to both languages but it has diverged with time. Now Germans and the English use different words to mean the same thing but Germans are closer to the original sense of Karte 😊

    • @3catsn1dog
      @3catsn1dog Před 2 měsíci +5

      Cartography = maps

    • @uliwitness
      @uliwitness Před měsícem

      All these words descend from Latin "carta", which is also where the word "carton", and by extension "card(board)" come from. So yeah, it's just certain meanings falling out of use, or one meaning becoming dominant.

    • @drunvert
      @drunvert Před měsícem +1

      Cartography

    • @UTU49
      @UTU49 Před měsícem

      I was thinking, "Isn't 'la carte' the word for 'map' in French?"
      I looked it up and the French word "la carte" seems to have a similar set of uses as the German word "karte".
      I'm an English speaker who knows a little French (and perhaps a couple dozen words in German).
      It's interesting to notice that there's a lot of overlap between every pairing of these 3 languages.
      Some of these German words were familiar to me from French, not English.

  • @danielkaufmann15
    @danielkaufmann15 Před 2 měsíci +3

    Feli missed "Übersehen"
    And "oversee".
    Complete different meanings.

  • @Nancy_EnTee
    @Nancy_EnTee Před měsícem +1

    Hi Feli!
    Ein Video über Sprichwörter fänd ich mega spannend! 🤗
    LG Nancy

  • @FracturedScar
    @FracturedScar Před měsícem +1

    I love CZcamsrs like Feli so easy to listen too. Your awesome! 🎉

  • @snoopy1alpha
    @snoopy1alpha Před 2 měsíci +3

    Fun-fact about "actual"/"aktuell": I am a software developer and during my career I encountered a method that was called "actualize". It turned out that it was written by a German colleague. The method updated something. "to update" translates to "aktualisieren" in German. For some reason the colleague did not notice that we Germans made the verb "to update" to our own "updaten" in these cases 😀

    • @elmercy4968
      @elmercy4968 Před měsícem

      If I play games in the German localization it's often hard to understand the menu, because technical terms are translated freely.

  • @conlon4332
    @conlon4332 Před 2 měsíci +5

    I mean, "d" and "th" are pretty similar sounds, so it makes sense. I also remember from the Tongue Twister video that Dickicht means thicket, so it also makes sense based on that.

    • @laszlokristo5383
      @laszlokristo5383 Před měsícem +3

      Yes, in Proto-Germanic - the ancestor of all Germanic tongues - there was a consonant that sounded just like English "th" in "thick", remaining unchanged (sometimes becoming voiced as in "brother") in English. In German - and also Dutch - it turned into "d", compare the E/G cognate pairs "three/drei, think/denken, thin/dünn, thou(OldE thu)/du, then/denn (also than/dann, with a different vowel and altered meanings), this/dies, path/Pfad, both/beide, bath/Bad, thank/Dank, brother/Bruder, and lots of others. Some other Germanic languages (such as Swedish) turned Proto-Gmc "th" into "to". Icelandic, like English, still has the Proto-Gmc "th". (Often, you get "t" in German corresponding to English "th", as in weather/Wetter, mother/Mutter, thousand/Tausend, or archaic E forms like "hath, saith, loveth" = G "hat, sagt, liebt", etc., but there're multiple reasons, so it's a complex issue.

    • @conlon4332
      @conlon4332 Před měsícem +1

      @@laszlokristo5383 Thank you for this, it was really interesting!

    • @laszlokristo5383
      @laszlokristo5383 Před měsícem +2

      Sorry guys, I discovered a typo: Some other Germanic languages (such as Swedish) turned Proto-Gmc "th" into "to" should be: Some other Germanic languages (such as Swedish) turned Proto-Gmc "th" into "t". My apologies.

  • @thortremble2794
    @thortremble2794 Před 2 měsíci +1

    Yes Feli with the skits. I knew they would work so well. Go Feliiiiiiiiiiiiiii! Love the vids.

  • @1pros1t
    @1pros1t Před 2 měsíci +1

    In the early days I sometimes talked about my Chef at Work when i meant to say my Boss or manager. People thought I was working in a restaurant 😂

  • @heiner71
    @heiner71 Před 2 měsíci +3

    Fun video. You two put a lot of effort into this one.

  • @hamishm9213
    @hamishm9213 Před měsícem +3

    As late as 2011 I was taught that 10^9 was a miliard in high school. Outside of America calling 10^9 a billion is a recent phenomena.

    • @TonyZoster
      @TonyZoster Před měsícem

      English billion, German Milliarde , billions = Milliarden. English 2,000.00 , German 2.000,00.
      I have no idea how it is written in US English. I live in Australia and we follow more the UK English format.

    • @MusikCassette
      @MusikCassette Před 22 dny

      @@TonyZoster except, that is not English. It is short scale. the English language has the words milliard, billiard, trilliard and so on. And some English speaker still use long scale.

  • @creepyboy6593
    @creepyboy6593 Před 2 měsíci

    Cool video Feli & Ben! Liked how you worked the sales pitch into it!😊

  • @WW-wf8tu
    @WW-wf8tu Před 2 měsíci +2

    Nice sponsor product plug video. Your sketches and interaction with Ben was fun. Star Trek translators are here. DOS meets user friendly technology. From having to learn the language in question, to bringing a little book with you with basic need to know phrases, to smart phones with written text to type back n forth on to finally, verbal translators. Technology times are so great. Vast leaps in my life time that boggles even my mind at times. Young folk have little to no idea how easy they have it now. Or at the very least, less appreciation and more expectation for this stuff. I am just soaking it up and loving how it makes everything so much friendlier for people. Yes, you lose the skills, but you gain the time spent on learning the skills to use elsewhere. Such as water skiing or rock climbing, etc. Places that you cannot go when you are stuck in a classroom trying to figure out how to say, where is the mountain resort? Thanks for these videos Feli.

  • @TWX1138
    @TWX1138 Před 2 měsíci +15

    A Spanish teacher of mine told us if a problem with false cognates she had as a foreign exchange student. She'd been living with the host family and did something mild like dropping or misplacing something. She said, "yo soy muy embarazada" thinking she was saying something like, "I'm so embarrassed" when in reality this means *I'm so pregnant.*

    • @quintrankid8045
      @quintrankid8045 Před 2 měsíci +1

      I wonder if after she said that there was a pregnant pause.

    • @martensjd
      @martensjd Před 2 měsíci

      Oh, very pregunta.

    • @TWX1138
      @TWX1138 Před 2 měsíci

      @@martensjd Yes, we all had questions.

  • @ernestconnell8087
    @ernestconnell8087 Před 2 měsíci +3

    The most cheery person on CZcams 😆

  • @danielreher1987
    @danielreher1987 Před 2 měsíci

    This video was very informative. Thank you!

  • @PavewayJDAM
    @PavewayJDAM Před 2 měsíci

    Grew up in Cincinnati, and our family is going to Germany this summer. Your videos have helped a lot planning what to expect and tips and ticks we picked up watching! Go Bengals!

  • @karlbauer4616
    @karlbauer4616 Před 2 měsíci +3

    nach dem Besuch des Oktoberfests zu viert im Auto, Fahrer (Us Amerikaner) hatte sich geröstete Nüsse gekauft und die Tüte aufs Armaturenbrett gelegt. Bei der ersten Kurve rutsche die Tüte und er versuchte diese festzuhalten. deutsche Berifahrerin: keep your hands on the wheel - i take care for your nuts...

  • @Gene-dm6pm
    @Gene-dm6pm Před 2 měsíci +4

    In China when I taught English I learned that many words came from other languages. As many Chinese might sometimes say “ I ate cow, pig and a chicken for lunch “! Indeed I realized that English has many similar origins to German, French and other languages. As I remember English need a word for “fish” , but in French the word that meant the same , but, doesn’t look like the word and sound the same is “ Poisson”! So, they couldn’t say “ I ate poisson for lunch today “! 😂 Post Script: I now speak Chinese and my students are speaking English. 😊

    • @Alias_Anybody
      @Alias_Anybody Před 2 měsíci

      That one is specific to English, using the Germanic terms for the animal but the French loanwords for the meats. Most languages just don't do that, and even English doesn't for "fish" for example.

  • @mattkuhn6634
    @mattkuhn6634 Před měsícem +2

    1:25 Oh man Feli, I did the same thing in reverse when I lived in Germany! One of the maxims when I was learning German was "if you don't know what the word is, say the English word in a German way." My first roommates were both native Saarländers, and at one point when I was explaining what I was doing in my NLP class, I didn't know how to say "predict," so I made up the word "prädiktieren" instead of "vorhersagen." My roommate was very confused but he went with it, I apparently said the word with enough confidence that he assumed it was just a word he didn't know. 😅
    Also I always loved how much more common the word "Stoff" is in comparison to the word "stuff" in English. I suppose it's probably due to the Norman conquest like so much else, relegating the word "stuff" to a lower register.
    As for the wollen/will thing, they actually ARE cognates! It's just that English over time has turned "will" into the helper verb that indicates future tense for us. I wouldn't be at all surprised to find out that the German proposal/marriage words date back to before the Saxons and Angles left for the British isles as well, meaning they just carried over, and we English speakers changed the meaning of the words around them.

    • @Ithirahad
      @Ithirahad Před měsícem

      English's "stuff" is a double register word. It can either be extremely low register ("that's some good stuff", "where'd all my stuff go bro!?") OR high register and poetic ("the stuff that dreams are made of", "the stuff of legends", "of sterner stuff than...")

  • @nilsbellack7087
    @nilsbellack7087 Před měsícem +1

    lol, those translating buds are almost like the babelfish from Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy

  • @daphneschuring5810
    @daphneschuring5810 Před 2 měsíci +4

    Dick van Dyke do I have more to say. Or in Dutch Dick van Dijk just a normal name.

    • @UTU49
      @UTU49 Před měsícem

      They bleeped both his first and last name on Family Guy, which I thought was pretty funny.
      Also, I don't think I'm the only wise ass to refer to him as "Penis van Lesbian".

  • @screeny30
    @screeny30 Před 2 měsíci +4

    technically "After" and "after" are not that far away from each other :D
    since the both describe something that is "behind" LOL

    • @FelifromGermany
      @FelifromGermany  Před 2 měsíci +1

      You're not wrong 😂

    • @NormanF62
      @NormanF62 Před 2 měsíci

      The scatological sense is the original one but was softened in English.

  • @stephenwright8824
    @stephenwright8824 Před měsícem +2

    As a fan of Douglas Adams, I see the TimeKettle device as something like an electronic Babel fish. Fellow fans will know what I mean.

  • @lefthandedclogger
    @lefthandedclogger Před měsícem +1

    When I was learning German in school, my teacher definitely called them “falsche Freunde”! We had a lot of fun with these.

  • @tiberius8390
    @tiberius8390 Před 2 měsíci +8

    I see that ordinary / ordinär have the same roots. Take a look from a noble's or city person's perspective in past ages. The common folk so to speak surely sweared a lot, while the nobles didn't. That's why the German "ordinär" in today's day and age is often used as "vulgar", but pretty sure you can also say "Der ordinäre Bürger" = "the ordinary citizen", which basically just means the same in English = "common".

    • @frankj10000
      @frankj10000 Před 2 měsíci +1

      Yes, like when a rich person said "Sie ist ja so gewöhnlich" ("she is so ordinary / vulgar").

    • @wheeliebeast7679
      @wheeliebeast7679 Před 2 měsíci +5

      Kind of like how the "Vulgar" in what's called "Vulgar Latin" actually just means "common," as in how a typical Roman citizen spoke.

    • @feandil1713
      @feandil1713 Před měsícem

      In Polish we have a word "ordynarny" - "vulgar" and "ordynaryjny" - "regular" (but it's very archaic).
      It's really funny how those two meanings are related to - pretty much - a one word.

    • @MoritzGruber7
      @MoritzGruber7 Před měsícem

      In fact, that also seems to be the explanation for both German "gemein" - the word actually means "common" - and the English word it is translated to when referring to behavior (of children for instance), viz. "mean": .. which also seems litterally to be speaking about something right in the middle of the spectrum, judged from a rather self-proclaimedly superior standpoint.

    • @californiahiker9616
      @californiahiker9616 Před měsícem

      @@wheeliebeast7679yup, see vulgaris in the nurseries all the time!

  • @user-lk2cj2qs1d
    @user-lk2cj2qs1d Před 2 měsíci +3

    Learning VULCAN is a toughie :)

  • @airplanechannel9493
    @airplanechannel9493 Před měsícem

    Thank you for the video 😀

  • @AWayne-Heusel
    @AWayne-Heusel Před 2 měsíci +1

    Thank you for posting this. It was very helpful and informative for learning the
    German language.

  • @beorn8988
    @beorn8988 Před měsícem +1

    It doesn't matter which way, but imagine showing up for the wrong kind of after party... 😳Also : Babbelfish!!! Yay! 🤩

  • @glennkeller5171
    @glennkeller5171 Před měsícem

    Hello Feli!! I enjoy your channel very much!! I have a cousin in Zellingen and I was talking to her about her son. She had sent some pictures of him being silly (or goofy, funny). I had said as much and she thought I had called her son stupid. To say I was embarrassed is an understatement! We sorted it out after she did not speak to me for a few days!!!!! Keep up the good work!!

  • @floatswitch
    @floatswitch Před měsícem

    Excellent video! Informative and fun.

  • @conlon4332
    @conlon4332 Před 2 měsíci +3

    3:27 Oh, the robotic voice sounds painfully American! Like, there's American, and then there's that.
    Edit: It also just sounds so done with life, which is such a contrast to how enthusiastic Feli sounds.

    • @californiahiker9616
      @californiahiker9616 Před měsícem

      It’s called factual… one doesn’t really want a lot of emotion in your day to day translations. It’s exhausting!

    • @conlon4332
      @conlon4332 Před měsícem +2

      @@californiahiker9616 I don't know that it does sound completely neutral though, it kind of more sounds bored.

    • @californiahiker9616
      @californiahiker9616 Před měsícem +2

      @@conlon4332 I guess robots bore easily! 😂

  • @pjschmid2251
    @pjschmid2251 Před 2 měsíci +3

    OK, Feli putting on the German accent is killing me 😂. I mean I know she’s German, but she doesn’t speak English with a German accent.

    • @AleaumeAnders
      @AleaumeAnders Před 2 měsíci +2

      Esüecially as she is using a high/standard german accent instead of a bavarian accent as you'd expect from a münchner madl. ;)

    • @alexj9603
      @alexj9603 Před 2 měsíci

      ​​@@AleaumeAnders Most Munich natives her age don't speak the dialect anymore.

    • @AleaumeAnders
      @AleaumeAnders Před 2 měsíci

      @@alexj9603 I know, that's why I used the word accent in an attempt to translate the german "Mundart". Heck even that might be to much for the very small amount of coloration (twang?) that I hear when Feli speaks (almost ;) proper german. But yeah, even in english you sometimes can hear the "bavarian coloration" with some people. It's much worse with swabians though. :D

    • @martinkasper197
      @martinkasper197 Před 2 měsíci

      You can hear the Austrian accent of Arnold Schwarzenegger to this day...🤔

  • @warrendavis9262
    @warrendavis9262 Před měsícem

    I gotta tell ya, Feli, I love the background music to your videos. You should hire a theme band to follow you around playing it...

  • @Luzarioth
    @Luzarioth Před měsícem +1

    My Grandmother had her really thick "Platt Deutsch", which I only started to understand once I learned English, because it was closer to that than actual High German ^^*

  • @reganlandau
    @reganlandau Před 2 měsíci +1

    People probably ask you this all the time, but-- how old were you when you started learning English? Your American accent is excellent!

  • @pluto762
    @pluto762 Před měsícem

    This was sooooo cool, so entertaining and so funny to watch! I've learned quite a few!

  • @johnvonsauers8867
    @johnvonsauers8867 Před 2 měsíci +1

    hi Feli,❤❤💘 its great to hear from you again. yes, those ear plugs are great, I could of use them 60 years ago while in Germany. 👍👍👍

  • @shellnet411
    @shellnet411 Před měsícem +1

    I need these earbuds the perfect for when you're waiting for dub on anime, you can get your anime as soon as it drops before it even comes out on dub

  • @ClintUdy
    @ClintUdy Před měsícem +1

    Richard to Dick came about like cockney slang. It was a rhyme to Rick, shortenedform of Richard. Similar to how we got Bill for William (Will).