It’s a charming story and a good one to convince people of the power of voting, but it’s unfortunately just a myth. And that’s no different when it comes to cursing. stereotypical “American food,” an idea that even many Germans believe, 6.3 million people drank 6.5 million liters of beer, FluentU takes real-world videos—like music videos, commercials, news and inspiring talks—and turns them into German learning experiences, download the FluentU app from the iTunes store, Find a German Tutor Near You with 5 Highly Searchable Tutor Match Websites, Learn German with Movies: 10 Great Movies for Learning Real German, Learn German through Music: 8 Modern Classics to Get Started, Learn German Through TV: 8 Great Shows for German Learners, 10 German Slang Phrases to Sound Like a Native. Warmduscher Even the non-Romance German language follows this similarity; the German word for mother is Mutter. In fact, you may be surprised to learn that even today, the US doesn’t actually have an official language, although English is of course the most widely-spoken language in the country. At this point, it’s probably also worth mentioning in a quick aside that the legend about German nearly becoming the official language of the US, only to lose by one vote, is untrue. Did you know there are many German words in English that we use? German umlauts are highly useful in the language, but for non-native speakers they are difficult sounds to master. There are some things in our language that sound much better in english (especially sexual stuff… you complained about our words for nipple. If you’re one of them, help yourself to a heaping plate of sauerkraut, which means “sour cabbage” in German. 16. bratwurst While Fest is certainly still very common in German, your German friends are probably just as likely to invite you to eine Party. ThoughtCo uses cookies to provide you with a great user experience. In words ending in IG the G is pronounced like (German) ch. You might get a slight buzz even if you’re just watching people drink that much, so you should probably have something in your stomach. These are cognates, and since many of them describe very common things like body parts, people and places, they generally make up some of the most frequently-used words in both languages. Most common in southern Germany, these venues are surprisingly family-friendly. My lips are sealed. 1. More German words for sound. German Words with Sound. Translated literally, this word means something like “damage pleasure,” but it’s usually understood to mean being happy that something bad happened to someone else. It has had notable influence from all over the globe, but especially from Greek, Latin, French and German. The other two, “frankfurter” and “wiener,” refer to their respective cities of origin, Frankfurt and Vienna (Wien in German—see “schnitzel” below). For example: warm, blond, finger, etc. Firstly, the grammar is – uhm – challenging. Another depressing abbreviation, this time for Nationalsozialist. So to be able to learn how to pronounce German umlauts, we have to try and approximate the sounds using existing words. The penis is also called penis in german but there are other english words like ‘dick’ and in german there’s the word … Next time you’re out drinking, consider ending with a spritzer, which comes from the German word spritzen (to spray). These are less common for the most part, but still generally accepted as part of English (but not always, if my spell checker is any indication). (“Quickly! Also, as you probably know, all nouns in German are capitalized, but generally they’ll be in lowercase here, since English doesn’t do that. der Ton noun. This sound does not exist in standard American or British English in isolation. Johann Paul Richter) is also credited with coining another German word that we’ve borrowed into English: doppelgänger. Some German speakers of English confuse the sounds /e/ and /æ/ which can cause words like ‘pet’ and ‘pat’ and ‘met’ and ‘mat’ to sound almost the same. Your poster of dogs playing poker? In English, we use the word "genre" to describe a work of art characterized by a particular style, like horror, romance, comedy, and so on. The words man and woman were obviously key foundational words of the English language. Due to German history, the most common context for these words is in World War II movies or history books. in the word "che") or the sound "a" makes in the English word "chaos" but more closed than either.