Why German rocks!

E92

Heres a list of most of the words in German which I know that are exactly the same or practically the same as those in English. All those who dont do German I pity you. The best thing about German is the amount of words that are the same/similar to English. Hopefully they will help those who will be revising German for the LC. Please point out any mistakes I made, and anyone else who wants to help towards making German that bit easier put down some more words that are same/almost the same in both languages.

telefonieren(verb)
boomen(verb)
das Partygirl/Partyboy
das Chaträum
beginnen(verb)
die Ökonomie(usually called Wirtschaft)
das Airport(normally called der Flughafen, but Germans know what Airport means, wouldnt write it down in the Leaving though, the SEC are a few years behind the most up to date German)
die Idee(more usual to say die Ahnung, but the SEC are obsessed with die Idee even though the Germans would use Ahnung)
online
der Computer
die E-mail
das Information
funktionieren(also means the verb to work as in something working)
die Party
das Baby
reparieren(verb)
die Saison(season)
Englisch, Irisch, Mathe, Biologie, Physik, Chemie
cool(as in a cool car)
super
die Klasse/klasse(same as in English, means both a class(die Klasse) and something is very good(klasse))
kühl(pronounced cool for those who dont do German, & means cool as in cold)
das Internet
organisieren(verb)
organisiert(organised)
das Bier
packen(verb)
hit(as in a song thats a hit)
flop(as in a song thats a flop)
live(as in live on TV)
ticket
die Attacke(as in a heart attack)
der Manager(male)/die Managerin(female)
arrangieren(verb)
die Liste
limit(as in speed limit)
sich relaxen(verb)
sich konzentrieren(verb)(take away the sich bit and one again a word practically the same as English)
trinken(verb)

Patricide

Indeed, If i didnt drop all my 3rd languages in first year i would have deffinatly kept german on. People who think french is easier obviously arent thinking very clearly.

kisaragi

Spanish all the way

Creamy Goodness

der Chef

always bugged me, always thought the obvious - "oh it's a chef", only to be told no it's a manager

JC 2K3

Learning languages is boring and sucks.

To attain a LC level of French/German you simply have to live somewhere they speak it for 3/4 months, hence rendering classroom learning pointless.

Irish Wolf

There is a certain simplicity to German alright - though I never had a brain for languages.. A couple of words that I do remember from German are...

Kopfkissen ("head kisser" i.e. a pillow) and Kunterbunt (Higgle-de-piggildee).. obviously the spelling may very well be atrocious.. but they're fun words.. try working them into your essays or whatever the buck you're asked these days..

wonder-woman

any ideas whats coming up on friday for the LC??
Ive always found german tough probably seeing as i asked to do spanish after 3rd year bt was given german instead.....ive always kinda pretended it wasnt there...so now my teacher wants me to do pass...bt i want to attept honours....bt if i fail i have to repeat.....soooo....ne ideas 'bout the paper??

genericgoon

well english is a germanic language.

;)mackersi;)

mackerski

genericgoon wrote:

well english started as a germanic language.

It's still one to this day.

Enemy Of Fate

JC 2K3 wrote:

Learning languages is boring and sucks.

And yet you were one of the people who kept arguing Irish should be kept mandatory for the leaving.Doesn't make much sense really.

Anyways German rocks.Best language out there 'cept for english.Its easily 10 times better than French (which I did till the JC) and at LEAST 1000000000000000000000000000000 times better than Irish (which I did till the start of this year).

*Waits for angry posts saying ''shut the **** up'' and ''WTF?!IRISH ROXS!!!!''*

nervous_twitch

Firstly, Spanish is the major kick-ass language of today; secondly, although admittedly I have never studied German, I found French a relatively simple language to learn, pronunciation being the only major issue. Thirdly, both of these languages sound ten thousand times more inviting than German, with all its hard unappealing sounds. Fourthly, nearly all of the words in the English language are founded from others, and I could probably write an equally (if not larger) list of similar-sounding words in French.

Finally, eh, German sucks. End of

nervous_twitch

and by the way, shut the **** up, Irish rocks!!!

izzyflusky

I used to do German til i moved to ireland, i´ve always liked it but i cnt remember a ting. I dnt do any languages in school but i´m doin spanish and portuguese for the leaving. So happy cuz i´m fluent at both

JC 2K3

Enemy Of Fate wrote:

And yet you were one of the people who kept arguing Irish should be kept mandatory for the leaving.Doesn't make much sense really.

Just because I think something is boring and sucks doesn't mean it shouldn't be mandatory.

As much as I hate it, learning the basics of a foreign language should be mandatory also.

Enemy Of Fate

nervous_twitch wrote:

Thirdly, both of these languages sound ten thousand times more inviting than German, with all its hard unappealing sounds.
Finally, eh, German sucks. End of

Hahahahahahahahahaha....no.Also why the hell does everyone think German sounds harsh?It doesn't!!**** german sounds a hell of a lot nicer than French....uh French.

spurious

I was also a fan of German at school. French seemed to be a case of just adding on e to the end of words but German required a bit of work.

I used to love those big long words that when translated would read something like 'the apparatus with the long handle for removing the cobwebs from the ceiling' - any other language would just call it a broom or something but German had a mad long word.

We had the dubious pleasure of doing a Friedrich Durrenmatt novel for our Leaving (1980) - there was another option of a short story anthology, but no, we got 'Der Verdacht' with an accompanying vocabulary comprising syringes, concentration camps, torture, a dwarf, medical clinics and cruelty while the other class had a vocabulary of summer and love and flowers and pleasant things.

I am waiting here since ten minutes, when do I become a sausage?

Nehpets

Ich liebe Deutsch! Es ist nicht nur interessant sondern auch spannend!

Another one.. "Orgy" auf Deutsch ist "Orgie"

E92

I dont see why learning a language sucks. When we go abroad to the continent we complain about somewhere "cause they dont speak English/theres very little English". What about all the people who come here, even those who speak a major European language like French or German (German and French are much more widely spoken than English in the EU) and they try to use their own language? I know I'm not exactly comparing like with like, since it would be impossible to expect us to learn all the multitude of languages that exist in Europe, but most of us can't speak our own language(I mean Irish) anywhere close to fluently,myself included. We're nearly as bad as the Americans and British for languages.

In the continent its normal for most people to be very good at another language other than their own one, i.e B standard in Honours Irish, and a natural A, what I mean by that is that they could get a B grade in Honours Paper 1, Oral, and Aural without having stuff pre-prepared like we do. They also would have the equivalent of a B standard in LC Honours German etc in yet another language, again, a natural B by that I mean exactly as above.

As for German, the only thing hard about it is the word order, but as they say in German 'Übung macht den Meister'. A little bit of practice and it gets easy after a while. That and the fact that nouns have genders and cases and adjectiaval endings when they are before a noun e.g ein schönes Bier is the beautiful beer but eine schöne Frau is a beautiful woman.

Corruptedmorals

I wish I did German! Picked French way back in February 2001 because I used to go to France on holidays every year, so it seemed the most useful. Spanish isn't an option in our school..

But yeah, I don't know anyone who has done French and German so they can judge which is the hardest but it really seems that French is. Especially grammar, jesus the amount of tenses you have to know, past tense, past historic, imperfect tense, future tense, immediate future tense, the present subjunctive tense, the present tense and the conditional...rotten. I think French sounds lovely, German IS harsh, but it sounds legend..

I'm really good at Irish, you think it would follow that I'm good at French too but NO I'm average and I have to count it!

Haven't a Clue

Enemy Of Fate wrote:

Hahahahahahahahahaha....no.Also why the hell does everyone think German sounds harsh?It doesn't!!**** german sounds a hell of a lot nicer than French....uh French.

You can't be serious. German is widely regarded as one of the ugliest languages in the world whereas French is one of the most beautiful.

Personally, I'd've loved to have learnt Spanish if only so I could imitate the Spanish football commentators. Didn't have that opportunity in our school though.

E92

Here are some more words practically the same or the same in both languages.

der Test
pissen(verb) as in to go for a piss, to be pissed is
der Cheeseburger
der Hamburger
die Mayonnaise
some dirty words are the same eg f**k off is the same in both, and most people know what scheiße is, even those who dont speak German.
das Pint
in(preposition, though doesnt always correspond to the same word in English, the most obvious one is 'auf Deutsch' means 'in German')
das Taxi
Polen - Poland
das CD
das DVD
das Telefon
die Kamera
das Kamerahandy(camrea phone)
das Foto
der Apparat(as in an Apperatus in a Science experiment, Apparat has loads of other meanings like device or instrument that measures something)
die Mickrowelle(microwave)
das Team
das Projekt
praxis(practice)
die Droge(drug)
lernen(verb)
amüsieren(to amuse)
der Mann
imponieren(to impress)
das Fitnesscenter
passen(as in to pass in a game of cards, it means to match as well and Pass auf means be careful or watch out)
das Glas
praktisch(useful/practical or practically)
identisch(identical)

As for those big long German words, my favourite is Fremdsprachenkenntnisse (knowledge of a foreign language).

I did German and French for my JC. Got a B in both of them,now doing German for the LC. I had to work way harder for French than I did for German. Went to Germany on an exchange last summer for 3 weeks. Best thing I ever did. I have a way higher level(or Niveau in German) of German, both in terms of written and Oral ability than in Irish, as well as had a laugh.

German verbs are the easiest thing alive. You only need to know how to write/speak 3/4 tenses and to be able to recognise 4 others.
The ones you need to be able to speak and write are the Present tense, Perfect tense and Conditional and the Imperfect for a handful of verbs like sein. You need to be able to recognise the Pluperfect(Plusquamperfekt), Imperfect, Present subjunctive(which in most cases is exactly the same as the present) and Future for the comprehensions(so as to understand it better) and Applied Grammar(Angewandte Grammatik) section of the paper.

The Present tense has no less than 4 translations eg
ich gehe means I go, I do go, I am going, and I will go. In other words the present tense in German is also used in written(written in the sense of what you have to write in the German exam) and spoken German for the future tense unlike English. The future tense is never used by Germans, my German teacher told us she has family there and they even say it(that noone uses the Future tense), yet loads of people are told to use it like people are told to say 'Ich werde nach Deutschland fliegen' for I'll fly to Germany when what should be said is 'Ich fliege nach Deutschland'. Its not wrong to use the future in this context obviously, but German speakers wouldnt say it in the future, and using the Future means more learning(and possible word order mistakes), so why make learning it any harder than is absolutely necessary?
The Perfect tense has 3 translations eg ich habe gesehen means I saw, I did see, I have seen.
Then the conditional has one translation eg ich wäre is I would be.

JC 2K3

E92 wrote:

I dont see why learning a language sucks. When we go abroad to the continent we complain about somewhere "cause they dont speak English/theres very little English". What about all the people who come here, even those who speak a major European language like French or German (German and French are much more widely spoken than English in the EU) and they try to use their own language? I know I'm not exactly comparing like with like, since it would be impossible to expect us to learn all the multitude of languages that exist in Europe, but most of us can't speak our own language(I mean Irish) anywhere close to fluently,myself included. We're nearly as bad as the Americans and British for languages.

-I find it really boring learning foreign languages in a classroom setting.
-I don't think I've ever heard anyone complaining because people didn't speak English abroad.

And you've gone off on a tangent. You seem to do this quite often.

While I agree that a foreign language should be mandatory, there isn't actually any practical use to learning them. In the off chance that you might need them for working abroad, you'd pick up the langauge in 2/3 months anyway. That's the right way to learn a language if you actually want to speak it fluently, not in a classroom.

E92

JC 2K3 wrote:

While I agree that a foreign language should be mandatory, there isn't actually any practical use to learning them. In the off chance that you might need them for working abroad, you'd pick up the langauge in 2/3 months anyway. That's the right way to learn a language if you actually want to speak it fluently, not in a classroom.

Well I completely agree with you that learning in a classroom is not the way to go about learning a language, and you're absolutely right about going abroad to improve fluency in a language, I have first hand experience of it, but if you were to take what you said to its logical conclusion then there would be no need to go school, cause most things we learn in school has no 'practical use' either. Knowing the fact that (a+b)³ = a³ + a²b + ab² + b³ has no use whatsoever, unless you want to be an Engineer or Maths teacher. It is important to know about languages, just as it is important to know about Maths or English or whatever, whether or not you'll ever use them is irrelevant.
And in the case of foreign languages, with all the possibilites of travel, it is nice to go to a country which speaks a foreign language that you know, and being able to make some attempt at using, rather than being like everyone else and just using English, or at the very least recognise words that you have learned. I find it very hard to believe that there is no practical use to learning a foreign language. I say this as someone who finds Language subjects very difficult and as someone who finds the Mathematical subjects far more interesting and easier.

As for German sounding nice, well it doesnt really, but at least you can speak it normally, unlike French where you have to put on a French accent to make it sound decent. Pronouncing French is really weird. Dont know about othre languages. German is with a few exceptions a language that is spelt as its said, so long as you know the rules about 2 vowels coming together(like 'ie' in German which sounds like the letter 'e' on its own in English) etc.

JC 2K3

E92 wrote:

Well I completely agree with you that learning in a classroom is not the way to go about learning a language, and you're absolutely right about going abroad to improve fluency in a language, I have first hand experience of it, but if you were to take what you said to its logical conclusion then there would be no need to go school, cause most things we learn in school has no 'practical use' either. Knowing the fact that (a+b)³ = a³ + a²b + ab² + b³ has no use whatsoever, unless you want to be an Engineer or Maths teacher. It is important to know about languages, just as it is important to know about Maths or English or whatever, whether or not you'll ever use them is irrelevant.
And in the case of foreign languages, with all the possibilites of travel, it is nice to go to a country which speaks a foreign language that you know, and being able to make some attempt at using, rather than being like everyone else and just using English, or at the very least recognise words that you have learned. I find it very hard to believe that there is no practical use to learning a foreign language. I say this as someone who finds Language subjects very difficult and as someone who finds the Mathematical subjects far more interesting and easier.

"It's nice" is not a practical use.

And my point in many threads has been that nothing you learn in school has any real practical use, but that doesn't mean there shouldn't be school.

I personally hate learning French, that's basically all my point essentially was.

tolosenc

I HATE to go all etymologist on your asses, but close to 60% of all the words in English are derived from French, what with the Norman conquest in 1066 and all. Only very basic old stuff, or very new universally named things are mutual in German and English.
For example, most of the German words for colours are similar to English, but alot of stuff that's more specific is of French origin.

stickytape

German rocks...........and i only sounds harish because of the way Some people pronoucne it. I find it very easy and plan on taking it on in college. It just gets a bad rap because of the whole Nazi thing

I know a french and German teacher and she has told me she FAR prefers teaching AND speaking german to french and if given the chance to take a german or french class she would pick german a 100times oiver cause its just logical unlike the french langauge

E92

JC 2K3 wrote:

"It's nice" is not a practical use.

You tend to give views on something as if they were as true as the theorem of Pythagoras. Its only an opinion, just as much as what I say is only an opinion. What makes something a 'practical use' in YOUR opinion? Because I've answered that question quite explicitly IMO.

JC 2K3

obl wrote:

I HATE to go all etymologist on your asses, but close to 60% of all the words in English are derived from French, what with the Norman conquest in 1066 and all. Only very basic old stuff, or very new universally named things are mutual in German and English.
For example, most of the German words for colours are similar to English, but alot of stuff that's more specific is of French origin.

*cough*Latin*cough*

tolosenc

*cough*Pedantic*cough*

Latin by way of French/ Latin by way of Latin.

AdMMM

Enemy Of Fate wrote:

Hahahahahahahahahaha....no.Also why the hell does everyone think German sounds harsh?It doesn't!!**** german sounds a hell of a lot nicer than French....uh French.

It's harsh sound was one of the reasons why I picked it!

Enemy Of Fate

stickytape wrote:

It just gets a bad rap because of the whole Nazi thing

Exactly.Its like whenever people ask me what subjects I do at school, everytime I say german, I can see their eyebrows raise up slightly and hear them shout ''FASCIST!!'' in their mind.