Here are some false friends that are quite common among German native speakers. When talking about academic fields such as Physics, Mathematics or Genetics, you can quite often hear and read the false friends ‘Physic’, ‘Mathematic’ and ‘Genetic’, because in German the correct names do no have an s at the end: Physik, Mathematik and
Although I love the English language, I do not appreciate the (unnecessary) overuse of English words in German. Hence, I try to avoid words such as Beamer (Projektor), Handy (Mobiltelefon) or Headset (Kopfhörer). Today, I overheard two inspiring conversations featuring anglicisms I had not heard before. The first was Wir können ja wieder disconnecten referring
The German word ‘Karte’ is used with many different meanings. This fact often leads to confusion among German native speakers, because they use the potential false friend ‘card’ when they speak English. Here are two good examples: Karte (or Speisekarte) [False friend] This is a true classic. Just last week, the waiter in a posh
Most scientists are very familiar with the name and work of Richard Feynman. Among his many achievements and contributions, let me mention Feynman diagrams, the Feynman path integral (an alternative formulation of quantum mechanics), and his work on quantum electrodynamics for which he shared the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1965. Feynman is not only
Most people are very comfortable cursing in their native language, because it is (for so many of us) something we do every day. In recent years, certain English curse words have become very popular also in other languages, most notably the four-letter word starting with an F (yes, an F, see here). However, cursing in
Here is another example (for the first, see here) of what can go wrong when non-native speakers put too much effort into their American accent (in this case a successful German scientist who has been living and working in the US for many years). The name Kelvin, used for the unit of temperature and referring
The pronunciation of Chicago, home of Al Bundy and Al Capone, seems to be tricky for many non-native speakers. The problem is that the ‘ch’ is not pronounced as in words such as change, chance or chocolate. Instead, it is pronounced like the ‘ch’ in champagne or chandelier. The phonetic spelling is [ʃˈɪkɑːɡəʊ] or, also,