The word please is very important when you try to be polite, and hence plays a central role in the British culture. However, it is often used incorrectly by German native speakers, and can be classified as a false friend related to the German word “Bitte”. Please vs. Welcome My first example is the use
London, Boston and Washington are not only very nice cities to visit but also happen to be very often pronounced incorrectly by non-native speakers. This includes people on television, radio, and even English teachers. As I will tell you below, there are many other examples of the same mistake. English and other pronunciations Before calling
Non-native speakers often make mistakes pronouncing the words multi and multiple in English. A possible reason is that these words have their origin in Latin, and hence are used in a number of other languages. The typical mistake involves an incorrect pronunciation of the letter u, listen here: Instead of pronouncing it as in the
Here is an interesting false friend for those trying to learn German. The English word stress has a number of different meanings. According to the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, the word is used for, for example, mental pressure (as in stress management), physical pressure (for example, a stress fracture), emphasis (the boss lays great stress on
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
You all use the punctuation marks “.” and “:” when writing in English. However, in my experience, many German native speakers (and quite possibly other nationals as well) fall into the false-friend trap when actually having to name these symbols. Let me refresh your memory. The symbol “.”, used at the end of sentences as
During a recent chat over lunch, I heard two non-native speakers discuss the power of car engines, and one of them used the expression How many PS does the car have? This is a false friend originating from the German Pferdestärke, which is often abbreviated as PS. The proper English expression would be How much
English words that are frequently used in the German language can easily become false friends when used with the same meaning in English. A classic example is Handy, the widely used term for mobile phone (or cell phone), which will certainly confuse native speakers a lot. While very few advanced speakers make the mistake of
You certainly know that the English alphabet does not contain any umlauts. However, there is a pitfall for German native speakers which often leads to incorrect pronunciation. The difficulty is that in German, the letter y is in many cases pronounced as ü. Some examples are Physik, Rhythmus, System, and typisch. A common mistake is