Englisch
7 cards from across every topic, each citing a source. Tap one to open it in the feed.
- 'Actual' isn't 'aktuell' – but Spanish 'actual' is.
English 'actual' means real, not current. Spanish 'actual', like German 'aktuell', means current; 'actualmente' means …
- 'Estoy embarazada' does not mean 'I'm embarrassed'.
Spanish 'embarazada' means pregnant, not embarrassed. It's the classic false friend: translate 'I'm embarrassed' …
- English imported 'Schadenfreude' because it had no word of its own.
English uses dozens of German words unchanged: Schadenfreude, Wanderlust, Zeitgeist, kitsch, doppelgänger, angst …
- How 'pater' became 'father': Grimm's law.
Jacob Grimm, yes, the fairy-tale Grimm, described a rule in 1822: on the way into Germanic, p became f, t became th, k …
- The German word Americans say every school day.
Friedrich Fröbel opened the first 'Kindergarten' in Bad Blankenburg in 1840: children should be tended like plants and …
- The colour orange has only existed since oranges arrived.
In English, "orange" as a colour name is first recorded in 1502, in a list of clothes bought for Margaret Tudor. Before …
- Why 'Gift' is deadly in German but lovely in English.
Both words share the same Germanic root meaning 'to give'. In German, Gift originally meant a present too, you can …