Though it may seem counterintuitive, as German grammar is notoriously complex, English and German are considered to be 60 percent lexically similar. You may already know that German and English are both “ Germanic languages,” as opposed to languages like French and Italian, which are “ Romance languages.” Modern English, which evolved from Anglo-Saxon English in what is now Great Britain, is derived from the same root language as German: Proto-Germanic. But first, a little comparison of English and German to throw some light on your learning. You may find yourself adopting them and peppering them into your English the way many do with Zeitgeist, or just taking note of them for the next time you brush up on your German.

In this post, we’re going to share some German terms you may not be familiar with, which lack intuitive equivalents in English. You may be familiar with some of these already, such as the term Zeitgeist, or “time spirit,” which means the defining mood or spirit of a certain era. In German, these terms are often compound nouns, meaning they combine several words into a single term and a single concept. It’s often the case that native English speakers stumble upon German terms with no equivalent in English, though they’re intimately familiar with what the terms are describing.

While this happens frequently across a variety of languages, we’re going to focus in this post on the intersection of German and English. It’s something like reading a novel and identifying with a character’s experience when you thought you were the only one who’d felt that way before. One of the great joys of foreign language learning is discovering a word for a concept you’re familiar with but didn’t have a word for before.

French words vs german words in english