var _gaq = _gaq || []; _gaq.push(['_setAccount', 'UA-12157528-1']); _gaq.push(['_trackPageview']);(function() { var ga = document.createElement('script'); ga.type = 'text/javascript'; ga.async = true; ga.src = ('https:' == document.location.protocol ? 'https://ssl' : 'http://www') + '.google-analytics.com/ga.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(ga, s); })();

German-English Cognates 2

You have probably noticed that German and English share many words that look or sound the same (cognates), because they share a common root. Recognizing the patterns that exist between the two languages can often help you guess the meanings of many words in German that you have never seen before.

This activity focuses on one of those patterns. Based on this information, see if you can find the correct English cognates of each of the German words. And then guess the pattern of correspondence between German and English.

(Note that consonants have much stronger correspondences than vowels.)
  • Before submitting and viewing the answers, look at your choices. What pattern of correspondences between German and English consonants can be observed above?

3 comments on “German-English Cognates 2
  1. Sinead says:

    I really love your site! Thank you so much for doing it.

    When I was in college, I took a course for people who had lived in Germany called “Super Deutsch,” in which we took the first two years of college German in one semester. The professor, now retired, specialized in linguistics but taught this course because he loved to see people learn German so quickly. In our first week, he did something similar to what you are doing here with your cognate list: he taught us some basic rules from linguistics that made recognizing new German words easier. We didn’t go very deeply into vowel and consonant shifts and when or why they happened, but he had a list of maybe 50 rules that we could apply when we encounter a new German word – and I still find myself using what I remember from those rules today!

    Might you have something like that list or be able to come up with something like that?

    Once again, many thanks for this terrific site. I have already referred many friends here!

  2. irine says:

    i need to learn german and i find this web site very helpful.Thank you

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

*