When false friends become real…
I just noticed that the programme of the DPG Spring Meeting, which is written in English, explicitly explains that a projector is also a “beamer”. For an explanation of why this is remarkable, see this previous post.
Who’s on the wood way here?
While flipping through the catalogue of a German company called Depot, my wife noticed the expression “You are on the wood way” in one of the pictures. Quite obviously, that is not a proper English expression, but a literal translation of the German phrase “Auf dem Holzweg sein“. The latter is usually translated as “to
Logistic or Logistics?
On a recent commute to work, I happened to notice the words Logistic Center written in huge letters on a company building here in Germany (you can see it in one of the pictures here). As mentioned in a previous post, there are many false friends of this type that differ from the correct English
Do you care for feedback?
Since a substantial part of the material covered in this blog comes from my encounters with scientific papers and talks, I am wondering how many of you would actually like to get feedback regarding potential shortcomings regarding their English skills. I have never been a fan of public practise talks, simply because I think that
Mathematical English: Series
Here are two common mistakes related to series. 1) A series is called a series but not a row (a false friend related to the German word Reihe). 2) A function is expanded in (or as) a series. German native speakers often make the mistake of saying “to develop [a function] in a series” (the
Letter closings: German vs English
As a follow-up to my previous post on subtle but important differences in writing letters in German and English, see here, I would like to discuss letter closings. Most of you are familiar with phrases such as Best regards, Sincerely yours, Yours faithfully. In German, some common letter closings are Hochachtungsvoll, Mit freundlichen Grüßen, Liebe
Be careful with full
I have noticed that words such as careful, beautiful or sinful are often misspelled as carefull, beautifull or sinfull. A spell checker will often flag such mistakes. However, in scientific writing, there are many technical expressions not recognized by the spell checker anyway, so that such mistakes will remain unnoticed. The best example I can
Actual and eventual as false friends
The words actual and eventual are very often incorrectly used by non-native speakers. German speakers in particular like to use them as translations of aktuell and eventuell. A real-life example is the above picture of the screen of the machine I use to top up (see this post) my chip card in the university canteen.
The red-nosed wendy
Since we are quickly closing in on Christmas (or Xmas), let me share one of the funniest language stories I have to offer. A couple of years ago, I was waiting at the Oslo Bus Terminal for my connection to the Jotunheimen National Park. While reading, I happened to overhear a conversation between two girls
Why candy bars are bad for your English
If you are over 30 and live in the non-English speaking part of Europe (also known as the Continent in the UK), there is a good chance that you remember the times when the Twix candy bar was called Raider. The name was changed to Twix in 1991 (see here), but Raider bars have recently