GERMAN WORDS IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE PLUS

Although that’s often the case, it also happens that the opposite occurs: a word comes originally from English but has shifted its meaning after being adopted into German. With all this adoption into the German language, you might expect that these words would be preserved in their original meanings as a mark of difference from German. Today, a mixture of German and English (or Denglish) is no longer the mark of imperfect German or English that it once was. Just from interacting with this kind of media, Germans get comfortable with plenty of English words and they even feel comfortable introducing them back into their own informal German use. Although German is well-represented on YouTube, the sheer amount of English-langauge content overpowers it on Youtube, Instagram, and other social media. That’s not even counting the influence of the Internet.

GERMAN WORDS IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE PLUS

Many Germans take pride in the fact that a majority of the population can speak English well enough to get by – plus at least one other language thanks to the German primary and secondary education systems. Today, English is still seen as quite prestigious in German culture. After the wall fell, everyone started following suit. This took shape slowly, but by the time of the fall of the Berlin wall, many West Germans were regularly using English words in their conversations even with other Germans. It wasn’t until around the 1960s to the 1980s that English started becoming the “international language” even in Germany. German was actually a really well-respected international language of science and philosophy for many centuries in Europe, surpassing the English language in popularity in many aspects. However, there’s a distinct difference between these “old roots” and new English borrowings into German. Adapting English words to German doesn’t often take a lot of mental gymnastics. They’re both part of the West Germanic branch of Indo-European languages, and there’s a ton of shared vocabulary between the two languages just by virtue of this part of their history. German and English are, of course, related languages. However, it’s not going away, and so it’s better to learn it well when you can! Table of Contents Most media coverage of Denglish is either heavily critical of the whole concept or just goes over a couple of words you should be aware of. German-speakers from Cologne to Zurich can even be found sprinkling choice English turns of phrase into their speech with other Germans! In fact, this is a phenomenon so widespread that it even has its own name: Denglish, from Deutsch + English.

You see, if you’re going to take part in German society at this point in the 21 st century, you’ve got to reckon with the fact that Germans are international enough to already speak English at a high level. You’ve got to speak the right amount of English as well. German learners often have to put up with native speakers who only ever speak English to them.Īfter all, if you go up to a stranger in Berlin and start speaking English only, there’s a good chance you’ll hear English in response – often quite fluent English at that!īut it’s not enough that you have to speak excellent German in order to get people to speak German with you at all.

German words in english language