26 Cognates
Cognates
Believe it or not, but you already know quite a bit of German simply because you know English! English and German are closely related languages, not unlike siblings that got estranged over the years. Therefore, there are many words that are shared by both languages. These words that survived in both languages for close to two millennia are called ‘cognates’.
They might look or sound slightly differently, or their meaning might have changed a bit, but you can still recognize them fairly easily if you know a few patterns. Learning to do this will give you a big advantage especially for reading German.
Aufgabe 1. Cognates. Below you see 4 patterns you can use to recognize German words you don’t know. Look at the German words in the list below, guess what their English equivalents are and group them according to the pattern. If you are stuck, look up the English equivalents in the list below the table.
Note: It will help you if you ignore the vowels (a, e, i, o, u, ö, ä, ü) completely and concentrate just on consonants only. Historically, vowels change a lot easier and faster than consonants and are thus not useful in recognizing related words.
German: weiß, der Fuß, die Pflanze, der Leiter, dünn, der Durst, gleiten, die Erde, die Katze, die Feder, der Bart, beißen, süß, danken, das Salz, die Nuss, der Garten, die Hitze, das Brot, das Netz
|
d – th |
t – d |
z/tz – t/tt |
s/ss/ß – t |
|
beide – both |
bett – bed |
herz – heart |
aus – out |
English: leader, beard, bread, to thank, think, thirst, earth, feather, to bite, foot, garden, to glide, heat, cat, net, plant, salt, better, nut, white, sweet
Aufgabe 2. Cognates. Same as the previous exercise.
German: der Kuchen, hoch, hoffen, leicht, die Käse, die Flucht, sprechen, lachen, schiff, die Milch, der Apfel, tief, strecken, kochen, das Kinn, reif, keuchen, der Bank, machen
|
f – p |
k – ch |
ch – k |
ch – gh |
|
Helfen – help |
Kirche – Church |
Buch – Book |
hoch – high |
English: ship, make, high, apple, chin, speak, laugh, cake, deep, hope, flight, ripe, bench, stretch, milk, chest, cough, cheese, light, cook
Aufgabe 3. Cognates. Cognates. Same as the previous exercise.
German: schwimmen, Grab, schier, halb, sagen, heben, legen, Schulter, lieben, schimmern, Tropfen, schmieren, Pfund, Schwan, Pflaster, haben, Leben, leben
|
b –v/f |
G – y/i/ow |
sch – sh |
sch – s |
pf – p/pp |
|
eben – even |
fliegen – fly |
schaudern – shudder |
Schleim – slime |
Pfeife – pipe |
English: grave, half, to say, to lay, shoulder, to shimmer, to heave, to smear, life, swan, plaster, to have, sheer, to love, to live, pound, drop