The wunderbare German language :)

Here's the thing about German--it is awesome. And sometimes awe-inspiringly tricky too! It is also hilarious :)

Amusing (and potentially dangerous?) cognates:

• Gift = 'poison'...yeah. be careful :)

Wonderful literalness (and longwindedness..*puff*, *puff*)

• Auspuff = 'Out-puff'; which means what exactly? 'Exhaust'. Literally the puffer-outter on a car :) love it!
• Nebeneinandersetzung = 'next-to-eachother-setting', or rather 'juxtaposition'..which actually means just that. A juxtaposition often makes a contrast more apparent because of their 'sitting next to eachother'...Yeah. You sound smart saying juxtaposition in English. In German you are just describing the facts (allbeit with a mouthful of a word, but still!)
• Mitfahrgelegenheit = 'with-drive-opportunity', or rather 'ride'. Yeah...in English, when you ask for a ride, or to carpool, you need 4, perhaps 7 letters...German needs a whopping 18!

Other awesomeness:

• Vokuhila = mullet. How does that mean mullet, you may ask? VOrne KUrz HInten LAng (literally the first two letters of all of those words, which mean 'front short, back long' or 'short in the front, long in the back'. Could that be more awesome?? I was recently reminded of that word and was able to teach it to the missionaries serving here. They thought it was wonderful :D

Here are some amusing things at home and around Kiel I've been noticing (and finally photographed :) ).

 So...what it says in German is "leicht löslich"...which does not mean slightly (as in just barely but not really..) soluble, but rather easily soluble. Hooray for translations!

Here is a container of puréed tomatoes. And the description 'puréed' is not 'püriert' (which also means puréed) like I would have thought, but rather 'passiert'. Passiert also means 'happened'. So apparently the tomatoes have been happened or rather had something happen to them. :)

This is a storefront in downtown Kiel for a tailor..and it is just full of joys :) Look at all those words underneath.

• Reparieren--so here's a thing about German--you can often make a verb by adding 'en' or 'ieren'--in this case this means 'to repair'--repar+ieren
• Flicken--so does this then mean 'to flick'? sadly no. It means 'to mend'
• Gardinen--and would this then be 'to garden'? also no (that is 'gärtnen'). This just means they do curtains. Gardinen is the plural form of curtain..because you can also add 'en' to make some nouns plural...go figure. Silly German.
• Stickerei--okay..you can often add 'ei' to make it 'the place where x is made/produced' --like Bäckerei is the bakery (where baked goods are made :) )--so does this mean where stickers are made? Sadly, also no. It is where stitching is made/done. 'Sticken' is 'to stitch or embroider'
• Leder--'leather'. Pretty similar.
• Textilien--does this have something to do with textiles? Are you scared to guess now, given the previous lack of success? Well, to adhere to a German saying 'Die Hoffnung stirbt zuletzt' (= Hope dies last), YES! It does have to do with textiles. In fact that just mean 'textiles'. Hooray! So...sometimes cognates work. And sometimes, amusingly, they don't.

So...If you look closely you will see that this graffiti (on an underpass near the church)...says 'toe' a whole bunch of times. I have NO IDEA why these German teens (I presume they are the creators.. ;) ) have an obsession with toes. But they are not just ordinary toes--they are toes that are pluraled with a z...but instead of being pluraled they are posessed with a z...haha. I mean, the posessive is spelled with a z. Go figure :)

And that is even stranger, because in German 'z' is pronounced differently..not an American bee, buzzzz, but rather 'ts', which would mean that is said Toe'ts...huh? Is that like the tendency to shorten everything? (don't know what era it comes from, but I picked it up a bit in high school)

Examples: probably --> probs, definitely --> defs, totally --> tots (but still a long o like in totally--which brings us back to this strange German graffiti "toe'z")..Confused yet? Yeah..it probably only makes sense in my brain. Hooray!

Last group of words for this post--English words that have been repurposed in German--not directly used (like Computer, CD, Jeans, etc.), but truly repurposed.

• Beamer--technically it does mean something that 'beams'..but we've already got a word for that. It's called 'projector', but nooooo! They couldn't use that word...so they call a projector a beamer (but an overhead projector they call--wait for it, wait for it--an 'overhead projektor'..of course the 'j' is pronounced like a 'y' but other than that...same thing. Okaaay...)
• Handy--while it is a thing that you put in your hand, it does not mean being handy. It means cell phone. And it is pronounced like 'hendy', rhyming with 'trendy'.
• Messy--While the person that this describes is messy, this is not an adjective. It means 'hoarder'. Someone who hoards is called a 'messy'. It makes sense..but I still find the repurposing a bit odd.

Hope you enjoyed the tour of the amusing German language! (And remember, as the Germans admit about their own language 'Deutsche Sprache, schwere Sprache'--'German language=difficult language') But it's awesome, and I love it!