falsche Freunde (fAl-shuh fRoyn-duh)

I am starting to get excited about the days I'll spend in Deutschland in a few weeks, but I gotta say, it is slow moving for me learning this stuff.

I am loving all the 'cognates' - those words that look like what they actually mean in English- bier/beer, mein/mine, kommen/to come, you get the idea.

Now however, I have come upon false friends, also known as falsche Freunde ( again with the capitalized nouns!)

Linguistically, false friends are words spelled the same or almost the same in two languages that have different meanings.

For example-in English fast is an adjective. In German, fast is an adverb and means almost.

In English, knack is a noun, and in German it is also a noun but means old fogy.

Lastly- as an example, but by no means the end to my study of false friends- in English after is an adverb whereas in German it is a noun and means anus. ACHTUNG!!!

I love this stuff.

What are all these German words doing here?

I get to go to Vin Italy again this Spring and on the way home from a couple of days in Piedmont I'll fly from Milan to Frankfurt, hop a bus, then catch a ride with Dr. Loosen friends for my trip to German wine country.

I'll be there two days, and fan that I am of languages, I thought I'd spruce up my German language speaking abilities to bring along with my open mind. So I bought a copy of the Complete Idiot's Guide to Learning German.

Not that I speak any German or have anything to spruce up, in fact I nearly flunked out of German one term many years ago, along with a failed attempt at Mandarin Chinese.

Man it hurts my brain. Verbs and prepositions and adjectives and all that stuff aren't placed in a sentence where they are supposed to go!

And in a German sentence - nouns are......capitalized!

How much German do I need anyway to discover the ultimate German bier?

Yet the author is funny and warmly encouraging for minds like mine. It's full of interesting facets of life in Germany, quick glimpses into German culture, cool linguistic connections between German and my own language, English. Apparently similarities abound. We'll see.