English vs. German

A short language comparison

Some basic information about the languages

• English and German are two Germanic languages and therefore share many of the same characteristics

• English and German belong to the “West Germanic” group of the Indo-European language family

• English developed from the “Low German”• Modern High German developed from the “High

German”

Language Tree

• German

- Deutsch official language of Germany, Austria, and Switzerland

- around the world, German is spoken by approximately 95 to 110 million native speakers and another 20 million non-native speakers

• English

- the official language of Australia, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom

- the standard language of the United States

- spoken by 370 million people as first language (estimated), circa 3 billion total

The sounds in both languages

• both the English and the German alphabet consist of 26 letters, using the Latin alphabet

• however, more phonetic symbols are used in transcription of German words

• sometimes, same sounds are pronounced in a different way

Phonetic symbols

The "th" sound (all positions)

English Old English German

think þencean denken

three þrīe drei

this þis dies

thou(you sing.)

þū du

leather leðer Leder

path pæð Pfad

/x/ before /t/

English Old English German

brought brōht gebracht

thought þōht gedacht

[ts] and [ç]

• English: sits /sɪts/, sets /sets/, cats /kæts/

• German: zu /tsu:/, zehn /tse:n/, Zunge /tsʊŋə/, Zimmer /tsɪmɐ/

• German: [ç] like in ich, Milch, Pech

Additional characteristics in German

• German umlaute: Ä ä, Ö ö, Ü ü

• [y] Fülle• [y:] Rübe, Tür

sounds doesn’t exist in• [ɛ ] mästen English• [ɛ:] wählen

• [ø] Ökonom• [ø:] Öl

• Eszett: - ß (also called “sharp s”)

- rules where “ß” can be replaced with “ss”Example: Fuß (foot), Füße (feet)

Inflectional system

• inflection: change of form or modification that words undergo to make distinctions such as case, gender, number, tense, person, mood, or voice

Gender of words

• Grammatical gender is not very important in English nouns in English have lost their gender (except for certain professions)

• All German nouns are either masculine, feminine, or neuter

• The gender of the German noun is often indicated by the article (definite or indefinite)

Definite article and gender

masculine feminine neuter

der Mann

(the man)

die Frau

(the woman)

das Kind

(the child)

der Ball

(the ball)

die Tasche

(the bag)

das Haus

(the house)

der Baum

(the tree)

die Lampe

(the lamp)

das Jahr

(the year)

- der Student (masculine)

student

- die Studentin (feminine)

- der Lehrer (masculine)

teacher

- die Lehrerin (feminine)

Cases of nouns

• In German, words (usually nouns) can have a variety of forms depending on its function in the sentence case

• The four cases in German: the subject or nominative casethe direct object or accusative casethe indirect object or dative casethe possessive or genitive case

• The nominative case is used in reference to the subject of a sentence.

• Der Mann / Die Frau / Das Kind isst. (The man / the woman / the child is eating.)

• The accusative case is used in reference to the direct object of a sentence.

• Ich sehe den Mann / die Frau / das Kind. (I see the man / the woman / the child.)

• The dative case is used in reference to the indirect object of a sentence.

• Er gibt dem Mann / der Frau / dem Kind den Löffel. (He gives the spoon to the man / the woman / the child.)

• The genitive case is used in reference to a possessed object of a sentence.

• das Buch des Mannes / der Frau / des Kindes (the man's / woman's / child's book)

Present tense of verbsPersonal Pronoun

German English

ich/I spiele play

du/you spielst play

er, sie, es/he, she, it

spielt plays

wir/we spielen play

ihr/you spielt play

sie/they spielen play

False FriendsMeaning in

EnglishMeaning in

German

GIFT a present poison

KIND nice, generous a child

ROCK a stone a skirt

BOOT a tall shoe boat

BAD evil, harmful bath

HANDY easy to handle cell phone