I. Theory
In German, there is a wide variety of words that look and sound similar to words we have in English. When these words share a common meaning in both languages, they are known as cognates. However, words that look similar and don’t have the same meaning are known as false cognates or falsche Freunde.In the following examples, we see that the meaning of the German words in question are not what they seem.
| Die meisten Künstler sind ein bisschen kurios. Most artists are a bit strange. Sie tastete in ihrer Tasche nach ihrem Handy. She fumbled around in her bag for her phone. Er hat sein Sohn blamiert, als er ihn vor seinen Freunden ausgeschimpft hat. He embarrassed his son when he scolded him in front of his friends. |
II. Falsche Freunde
This lesson will focus on four false cognates: tasten, Fall, kurios and blamieren. For each false cognate, the English definition is provided along with the word it may be confused with. The word in parenthesis is the correct German word for the word in quotation marks.Tasten: to fumble/feel around for, not “to taste” (kosten)
| Als sie das dunkle Zimmer betrat, tastete sie nach dem Lichtschalter an der Wand. When she entered the dark room, she fumbled for the light switch on the wall. Ich tastete nach meinen Schuhen unter dem Bett. I felt around for my shoes under the bed. |
Fall: Case/event/instance, not “fall” ie: autumn (Herbst)
Note: Fall does mean “fall” (the noun form of the action “to fall”)| Auf jeden Fall! In any event! Der Richter hat den Fall geschlossen. The judge closed the case. |
Kurios: strange/odd/weird, not “curious” (neugierig)
| Die alte Frau ist ein bisschen kurios. The old lady is a little weird. Es war kurios, dass er uns nicht begrüßt hat. It was weird, that he didn’t greet us. |
Blamieren: to embarrass
| Weil ich seinen Namen vergessen hatte, habe ich mich blamiert. Since I had forgotten his name, I felt embarrassed. Sie haben auf der Party zu viel getrunken und haben sich blamiert. They had too much to drink at the party and embarrassed themselves. |