BRITISH REACTION To 20 German Words AMERICANS USE All The Time! & Their Real Meaning 

Let me know what you thought about this video. German (and English) subtitles are available on this video.

The invention of the Kindergarten Concept in its real meaning, like playing, going outside and learning social skills came from Germany. The noun GARTEN came from Friedrich Fröbel who thought that children should be cared about like little plants to grow. So a lot of primary schools have the name Fröbel.

Feli is a good teacher

_Schadenfreude_ usually is not a general joy for someone getting damage, but rather some "well deserved punishment" (often self inflicted), just like when someone gets some "instant karma" for something stupid or evil that he has done.

The science of the meaning of words is called ethymology. It's very interesting. There are thousands of German words in English - sometimes the spelling or pronounciation is different but the origin is Germanic. Here a couple that come in my mind right now: Vater - father Mutter - mother Finger - finger Hand - hand Fuss - foot Knie - knee Nase - nose (actually a latin word) Wand - wall Glas - glass Hammer - hammer Zweig - twig Strasse - street Regen - rain Wasser - water Mann - man denken - think du - you wir - we uns - us alle - all wo - where wer - who hier - here Ball - ball Winter - winter Sommer - summer schwimmen - swim gehen - go fallen - fall geben - give Knopf - knob etc etc etc 30% of the English words derive from French (Latin): table - table elever - elevate determiner - determine fourchette - fork couciner - cook parler - speak: parlor vomir - vomit battre - to bat etc etc etc

The use of "Stein" for a beer mug afaik originates from american soldiers who served in the south-western part of germany after WW2, where beer often was served in "Steinkrügen" (Stone mugs). They took some of these stone mugs home as souvenir and the shortened term "Stein" became common in the US for all kinds of big beer mugs, even if they are made of glass.

„Rucksack“ was missing in that list

love youre kind of videos and your acczent greetings from germany to malaysia :-)

Hello Mert, I've just watched a few of your videos. Since you're dealing with Germany, here are a few suggestions: "The Black Forest Family" makes objective videos about Germany vs USA, but also "My Merry Messy German Life", a family too. Both deal with everyday life, schoolsystem, travel, building a house, etc. And views of Brits living in Germany, there are some youtubers: - Brit in Germany - Lauren in Germany - rewboss - yourtruebrit 👋

I found you a couple of weeks ago how you explored Volker Pispers. Gotta say, I really enjoy how you diacover the German culture, language, humor. You have your unique way of doing it, completely open and frank. Paired with your unbelievably nice Scottish accent… you know, it’s entertaining, open-minded and in my point of view truly good (in so many ways to interpret that). Go on with this, I love listening to you! You are one example of people with a view from outside onto Germany which is different of the past centuries in which I grew up: Germans should feel guilty about their history. But it is really refreshing and relieving people not mandatorily see Germans in this way. New Zeitgeist. Thank you for your work and all the best to you and your nice international family! I am keen on a video about your background and your life. All the best from a German living in Austria. A place where the view on Germans seems to be more „classic“ 😜 at least in the heart of the mountains where I live. Thx again 🎉

The word "gift" means in English: "present" (in German this can translated to "Geschenk") But in German, the word "Gift" means: "poison". So you if say to someone in German: "Ich gebe dir ein Gift." Then this means in English: "I give you poison."

you can see that the girl is from western germany, in eastern Germany you still usually send you kid to the Kindergarten from 6 months old on untill 6 years old. before the wall came down there was a seperation between Kinderkrippe (chrildren crib) for newborns till 3 years old, and the kindergarten for children 3 - 6 years old. the reason behind that is that, compared to west germany, mother usually never stayed home aftzer giving briht for more than a few weeks, so child care was needed from day one on. in west germany mother foten didnt work cause the men earned enough money. these "traditions" are still present und the reunited germany. in the GDR (former east germany) kindergarten and kinderkrippe teachers had to study for 4 years and you could usually only work in one "department". that shows how much more important child care was in the east that it ever was in the west. nowadays its all combined under one roof and to become a kindergarten teacher (although teacher is the wrong word as they dont teach in a way you imagine teachers) you need 5 years of training but its a traineeship and you dont have to study anymore.

Missed "Weltschmerz". Litterly meaning world(Welt)pain(Schmerz). Discribing the emotional state of feeling every misery a human can experience at once, mostly in a existantantial sense. Often felt while depressed, sad or during a crisis.

7:40 the word "Spiel" is also used in terms of theater like "play" so it makes sense in the english adoptation.

OK, some English words used in German, that have a totally different meaning: Handy = Mobile (UK), Cell Phone (US) Public Viewing = A large Screen in a large public area, oftèn outdoors, that shows usually a Sports Event (World Cup, etc.). Bank = same as in English, but depends on context, as it also means bench.

I saw four videos now. Followed after the second. This one is just great. I like when you pronounce words and your scottish accent is just gold 🤘 Keep on going mate

1:06 example "Handy" means in German "Mobile".

The word "Hinterland" was missing, which is used in english, and other european languages as well. It refers to a sparcely populated area close to a bigger city. Also, as someone already pointed out: Rucksack for backpack

In Germany there is usually only one Bundesliga match day per week (Saturday). But there are exceptions where there is also a game day during the week (like in England). We therefore call a week with two match days "Englische Woche" - an "English week".

I think it's possible that some of these words are also from Yiddish, as Yiddish as very similar to German, too. I'm Russian and I had the very same experience as Feli, once I knew German (because my family moved to Germany when I was ten) I realised how many words in Russian were actually derived from German. This is partly because several of Russia's emperor's and tsars were actually fans of the Germans (or Prussians), and also probably because of all the Germans who moved to Russia in the 18th and 19th centuries

As a german, "zeitgeisty" absolutely killed me

9:59 She's mistaken here - Stool is a loan word, however unlike the rest of her examples it is not a High German word, it is Low German (also known as Plattdeutsch) which is a different language. Modern High German developed from the languages of the southern germanic tribes like the Allemanni and the Langobards (the tribes living in the Alpine regions, hence "high" which is meant in a literal sense in this case as in "the language spoken by the people living in the mountains") while modern Low German (and modern day English as well btw) is based on Old Saxon, also known as Old English and Old Low German - the language spoken by the tribes lving in the northern lowlands. This is the language the Saxons spoke when they conquered England, however many Saxons remained in their original homeland (most of which is modern day Lower Saxony in northern Germany). Both groups - the people who remained in the original area as well as the settler/conquerors who moved to England) spoke of course the same language. Stool in Low German has the same meaning as Stuhl in High German or chair in English btw.

I am really surprised how somebody with an heavy scottish accent (which I really like) can pronounce german words much clearer and better than someone from England or the US.

so glad you said " a person from vienna is a sausage" and not the other... english meaning of a saugage-like appendage 🤣

AFAIK the word "(der) Kitsch" -- for hokey sentimental knickknacks or artworks that are overly cheesy and sentimental -- is itself a loanword from Jiddish (the pidgin mix of German and Hebrew spoken by many European Jews prior to WW2) into High German. The adjective is "kitschig".

Hi Mert, many greetings from Germany. I really like your videos and your accent!

You usually feel "Schadenfreude" when someone else who _really deserves it_ gets their come-uppance. It's not the general joy of seeing a random person get hurt. But the snickering joy at seeing karma catch up to someone who has been a jerk or has been hurting people and now experiences an injury or major embarrassment of their own as karmic retribution, especially when it firectly follows from the jerk's own actions... like i.e. a jerk hurling a ball at an unsuspecting victim in the attempt to hit them in the head, only for the ball to miss and bounce off a wall and hit the jerk in the face.

Broad smile :) That was a first class English-Lesson

'Handy' is the most used word for 'mobile phone' in Germany :D Now imagine a German asking in broken English 'Hey, could I have a handy? I'll only take a minute, promise.'

Hello Mert, the word "Gift" is also funny. In German it means "Poison". Greetings from Germany.

There is a great video from robwords named "How anyone (including YOU) can read German". Maybe it is woth a reaction

In Germany/Bavaria when you order a beer at Oktoberfest it's not a Stein but a MASS, meaning "one measure". As for Shpiel, that isn't strictly speaking "german", but came to english through Jiddish from various german halflife/criminal jargon dialects, where it basically fulfilled the same purpose as "congame" in english... or maybe "trick" as related to 3 card monte or such things (not the negotiable affection kind), Jiddish of course combines a lot of german influences with eastern european and hebrew words through its historical and regional roots...

Hey brother, I like your videos. You always provide an interesting perspective and additional content when you react to something. Also you seem like a chill guy. Cheers from Germany!

german blued beer stone wear is traditionally coming from Ransbach-Baumbach RLP "Kannebäckerland"

In England is an old roman stone road also called Steinweg. Stoneway

I feel the same surprise when I see how many German words have Yiddish origins. I was first aware of that when visiting Jewish Museum in Berlin but now also in various Jewish related TV movies /series with subtitles. I like the idea of adopting words from other cultures to enrich languages.

In the past, beer was served in these mugs made out of burned clay. The sun could not heat up the beer when being served in these mugs, which was important the days when refrigerators were not yet available. One german expression for things made out of this material is "Steinzeug" (=stone things). So one could perfectly call such mug a "Steinzeugkrug" - but that's a very long word, and at least after the third or fourth litre of beer speaking clearly becomes difficult, especially for such long words. So just saying stein and then trying and failing to add "-zeugkrug" might have been the origin of "Stein" as an expression for such beer mugs. But you might want to know, why the term "Stein" is vanishing: When you get serverd such a stony mug filled with beer, you will see the foam on the top, but not the beer below. So sometime the customers got cheated by getting served a mug with only little beer but much foam. Of course this remained not unnoticed, so the stony mugs got effectively banned and the beer got served in glasses or glass mugs. When served within a glass mug, the customer can easily see whether he got cheated on or not and refuse to accept the mug before he even touched the mug. And as the beer can be filled in pretty cold even in summertime nowadays, the advantage of stony regarding beer temperature is no more important. There was no longer the need to use the term "Stein", in fact it was avoided to ensure the beer got served within a glass mug. Nevertheless, sometimes some beer gots served in stony mugs, just because these look cool. It is announced previously that this beer is served within a stony mug (e.g. in Tübingen/Baden-Württemberg there is a restaurant "Wurstküche", where you can order a "Naturtrüb's em Stoi" (this is swabian, in standard german one would say "ein naturtrübes Bier im Stein", which translates to "a naturally cloudy beer within the stone"). Regarding the Wiener: In Wien (=Vienna), the very same version of sausage, that is called Wiener in Germany, gets called "Frankfurter" there. Frankfurt, however, is city in Germany.

Oktoberfest? We got that here in Munich as well. :-)

Americans use more German words than British people because a lot of Americans have German heritage

Geist has more than the two mentioned meanings: ghost, spirit, and mind! And for spirit its both, the mythical entity and liquor. Though in the liquor case you usually only say it in combination, like Weingeist (spirit of wine).

cool channel, love the reactions to german words in ur language yeah english is 25% old german, 25% old french, 25% latin, so its also connected by history long time ago

Well, I think she missed out that "Spiel" has another meaning in german. In a technical point of view it means "free play" of a bearing or joint.

"Spiel" has multiple meanings in german, it can also be a performance in the theatre

09:12 Wrong, we Germans have a equvalent for "spiel". Wir finden kein deutsches Wort dafür, weil wir den Satz nie so beginnen würden: "Er gab mir...". Wenn wir also von dieser Satzbildung absehen, wäre das deutsche Hauptwort für "spiel" => Redeschwall, Leier, Verkaufsrede. Er hat mir seine Verkaufsrede aufgedrückt. Würden zwar die Wenigsten so sagen, ist dennoch ein grammatikalisch korrekter deutscher Satz. Eher würde man noch sagen: "Er hat mir die Litanei gesungen." Meist würden wir jedoch ein Verb wie z. B. zutexten, zulabbern, totquatschen, .... verwenden. Das liegt uns halt sprachbildlich eher als ein Hauptwort. Schließlich hat der andere ja auch was getan oder zumindest versucht.

Ich komme aus "Rheinland-Pfalz", aber das Wort "Stein" in Zusammenhang mit einem Liter eines Getränkes habe ich noch nie gehört. Aber das heißt nichts!😁(I come from "Rhineland-Palatinate", but I've never heard the word "stein" in connection with a liter of a drink.)

As a Child I learned that Kaputt is "out of order" ... Glad to see you take the easier/shorter german word😜....

As German I love for example the word "Püblic Viewing" what is very different to the english meaning. In is meaning an big event to watching a footballmatch for exemple.

Some English words that are used in Germany: Cool, nice, Handy (it means mobile phone :D), Smartphone, cringe, Bro, lost (in the context of getting lost in life, but more ironically), Computer, Shit (in a positive context or for swearing), Touchscreen, Homepage, Web (but only for the internet), Crush (person that you like), Browser, some use Mom and Dad, Training/train(ieren), Baby, Casting/cast(en), Code, smart, clever, Crashkurs, Teenager, Workshop, Meeting, Blockbuster, Groove/groov(en), Hardware, Job, Kickboxen, Remix, Running-Gag, Trend, Service, Standby, E-Mail, E-Scooter, Knockout/KO, Leasing/leasen, Quickie, Gender/gendern (formulate texts so that all genders are included), Trailer (for movies), Party, Marketing, Byte, Bit, Design/designen, Content (only for web content), Killer/killen, Clan, Nonsense, Swimmingpool, Newbie/Newb/Noob/n00b And a lot more. Capital words are nouns btw

Haha, was nice to listen to, for a german like me. Thanks! 🙂

I really like your videos and things you have to say. (I think in English the idiom "bringing to the table" is more accurate; correct me if I am wrong.) ❤ from Germany 👍

The English verb “to gloat” is similar to the concept of “Schadenfreude”.

One thing with german is that we often use very very discriptive combinations of to existing things to form a new word for something else. A light is called "feuerzeug" made up from Fire and stuff/thing in german. and a plane is a "Flugzeug" so a Flying Thing or Fylthing. I personally don't KNOW it because I didn't study that subject, but I feel like most of those rather discriptive words orginate from the more military speech style of German. tehre used to be a stronger distinction between military ways of speech and civilian. the Civilian words are often way softer and longer, while the military words are short and very strongly pronopunced and maybe that's where a lot of the whole "german is such a hard sounding language" thing comes from still. German Military terms and orders are short and hard on purpose to be yelled on a battlefield back in the day and be understood correctly. while poetry is very long and often soft. also harder to pronounce. but that amkes form some very funny parts of our language which can be very intelligent or well.... firething cause it's a thing that makes fire. xD

Trivia: *Doppelganger* is the title of an english SciFi Film.

Ich habe nicht gewusst, dass der legendäre Physiker eigentlich Albert 1 Liter heisst. There are quite a lot of German words in chess: Zugzwang (forced to make a move), Zwischenzug (in-between move), etc.

And you are right about Feli. Great teacher and hella cute too.

The englisch use of "Spiel" may have it's origin in the jiddish language which is also a west-germanic language at all.

Wenn e in Bierkrug aus gebranntem Ton ist, heißt dieser Steinkrug und nicht nur in Rheinland-Pfalz. Man bestellt ein Bier im Steinkrug, da das Bier anders schmeckt, als aus einem Glaskrug.

A conversation between two Americans I was driving in Luxembourg. 'It was really funny that Austrian guy using such a random American word, 'kaput.' " I think 'kaput' is a German word." 'They use American words in Germany too!' Sad but true.😢 😅😂😅

I am german and i like to watch (mostly US) english TV-Shows or Movies in english just to improve my english - more or less successfull. And more than once i am astonished how many german words has found their way into the (us) english language. My favorite is Richard Dean Anderson as "Jack O'Neil" in an Stargate episode (SG-1 or Atlantis, not sure) when he said "Oh come on, try being a Mensch". Mensch is the german word for Human and he wanted the other one to be nice, kind and understanding. Using a word from the language of most hated people in the 20th century to ask someone being nice and kind?

Kluges Mädchen. Mit diesen 20 Wörtern kann man ganz gut die deutsche Mentalität beschreiben mit allen Stärken und Schwächen.

Watchin for Feli in your thumbneil ;)

Schnaps is liquor made from wheat or fruits. Also pretty specific.

The word "Handy" is a very common word to be used for the English mobile phone.

Eine interessante Zusammenstellung, in der mir manches neu ist. 8:27 Stein ist auch im deutschen Sprachgebrauch ursprünglich vorhanden. Erinnere Dich an bayrische Bierkrüge, die aus Ton/Stein hergestellt wurden. Also Dich nicht ganz so weit her geholt, wie Du annimmst.

That´s quite interesting indeed! Some of those words however, may have entered (American) English via Yiddish. That´d be the language of the ashkenasi Jews, basically deriving from middle high German and interspersed with a whole lot of hebrew words. "Schmutz" is such an example, also "Shvitz" (from German schwitzen = to sweat) meaning a traditional steam bath. "Schlepp/ Shlepp" is another example, comming fron the German word "schleppen", meaning to drag around heavy things. Yiddish hebrew words beeing used both in German and American English are "Schnorrer/ Shnorrer", meaning scrounger or freeloader, and "massel" which is another word for luck or being lucky, and meshugge/ meschugge meaning crazy, not right in the head.

"Schadenfreude" is one concept , that makes German satire as it is .. making joy out of harming (others)

Did you ever hear the word "Blitzeis"? I hope you never get to feel or experience it. Especially while people are driving.Its there in no time, a thin layer of ice on the road. Usually quite hard. most people have no control over their cars no matter how good they usually are driving. It comes or goes quickly.

To the point of midweek football it exist in Germany as well but we only say Englische Wochen so english weeks

Feli is indeed a good teacher. She understands about the mutual influxes between our nations and languages. And the connections we actually got. She Made myself aware of some Points. Feli is pretty awesome when it's about learning about German and English speaking world culture.

"Stein" is a mug? Born and living in Rheinland-Pfalz since 1986, I never heard this. :O But I know "Stubbi" for a short bear bottle! :D

Your German pronunciation is very good😊

Wanderlust and Fernweh came a bit short as I believe they are one of the most interesting ones as, similar to Schadenfreude, the concept is either not existent in or differs from other contries/cultural backgrounds. you can really have a deep dive into Wanderlust or Fernweh plus these aro very typical German terms, compunds, but also the feeling that comes with it which is even hard to explain in German. The cultural roots of these words are very interesting but I dont want to spoil too much :) might be worth making a video on them.

We say 'Handy' what means 'mobile phone'.

An interesting one we use is handy. Which is used for mobile phones in german

German words also exist in Slavic languages, but these are usually completely different words. I assume it has something to do with history. Prussia has long subdued parts of Poland. Austria long held Czech territories/Bohemia and parts of the Balkans. German words in Slavic languages often have negative connotations, e.g. from the field of military or civil law, but also academic language - which is what the occupying power was expressing. Conversely, there are hardly any Slavic words in German. The opposite case is France and Germany: in German there are quite a few French words, but in French there are hardly any German words. There are of course a few exceptions, e.g. boulevard (from the German "Bollwerk") or the re-import "Chance": The German word "Chance" comes from the French word of the same name (and the same word also exists in English). This in turn was derived from the German word "Schanze" / "Schanzwerk" (= trench), so it comes from the military: Those who had entrenched themselves well had a good chance. Hence the expression "good trench" became synonymous with "good chance".

„Verboten“ is also a german word btw

The mobile phone we in Germany called „Handy“

Oh Jesus, there are so many english expressions used in the contemporary german language: First of all, basically any four letter word (sh*t, f*uck, bullsh*t...) are part of everyday language (generally, swearing is rather common in Germany), a vast amount of activities (e.g. surfing, browsing, chatting, skating) have been adopted to the german language, including new conjugations, there are even some expressions that are supposed to sound english expressions, yet they are not part of the english language at all: Handy (as anoun) is a very common expression for a mobile phone/cellular phone. As a matter of fact, there is a word designed by linguists just describing the adaptaion of english expressions: Anglizismen (anglicism). There are even people trying to reduce the amount of those anglicisms, being afraid of loosing the languages integrity (or plainly being nationalistic).

The use of stein is a British invention.

As a german, i think most of the german words were picked up in or After WW2, from english and us ppl who stayed here in Germany

Now we in Germany called a Kindergarten „KiTa“ = Kinder-Tagesstätte a place where children stays for the day.

as a fellow german I have to weigh in at "Angst". we have 2 main words for describing fear. "Angst" and "Furcht". "Angst" is the one that get used more. "Furcht" has become oldfashioned. but "Furcht" originally (and actually still) means the fear of something specific while "Angst" is a nasty, unspecified sense of dread. we dropped "Furcht" mostly and use "Angst" for both now. wich... I find telling. we still make the difference in how we use the word. "Angst, dass/Angst vor..." means a specific fear. but you can say that you just have "Angst" without specifying and then you are at the original meaning and at the english meaning. that word propably traveled to the US with german speaking immigrants before the change of meaning happened in the german language. so the old meaning got preserved in the american use of the word. I think that also explains why there are so many german words in american english. a lot of people who emegrated to america came from germany. germany (or the area that was to become germany) was relatively densly populated, there were wars going on.. people were starving and hopping on ships to get to a better life. there was actually a bit of an organised emigration. whole ships were full of german speaking people going to the new world. the headless horseman in sleepy hollow was a hessian (form Hessen) soldier that was sold in to the american war by his... er.. king or lord. who, aledgedly, bought diomonds for his mistress with that money. blood diamonds the other way round. with the war paing for the diamonds and not the diamonds for the war.

'plunder' is also a German word, from the German 'plündern' "to pillage, plunder"

When I saw the Avenger movies for the first time I was thinking: funny, Tony Stark has German ancestry as it seems. Not knowing that stark is actually an English word (coming from the German word stark). Meaning the same like strong, powerful, awesome, etc.

I really enjoyed watching this video. You would be bamboozled listening to German streamers. They use English words all the time an mix them into German sentences. Words like sweet, cute, weird, crazy, fancy are absolutely normal. People would say something like: "Danke für den support" instead of using the German word "Unterstützung", "Danke für eure Unterstützung". They just use the English word instead. That's totally normal here.

very nice and entertaining reaction

Believe me,we don't say Stein!!!

USA would have become a German speaking country. Unfortunately there was a huge fire where most Germans died. C'est la vie. Nice to see people having fun with the German language

I assume the subtitles are generated automatically, they're hilarious 😂

Hello again 🤗... The most popular Word a HANDY only we Germans say Handy to the Phone but Handy means in English Handmade😅

See this video: Der Wunsch - Penny (Duitsland) - flowresulting

also stuhl and stool both mean fecies in both languages...kinda funny

When I was a kid, I loved Negro kisses. Negro kiss, today the word is forbidden, but as a child I didn't put the name of this candy in context. It's often like that, so I understand you when you say... you never thought about some words :-)

Feli looks like a turtle, a beautiful one that is.

be4 we used glases for beer we used "steinzeug". maybe here its the historian root of this word in english.

Sometimes we Germans can be quite simple too. We see two things for which there is no single word and we combine them. Children hopefully play outside or in the garden, so Children+Garden= Kindergarten... It gets difficult then when it comes to "Donaudampfschifffahrtselektrizitätenhauptbetriebswerkbauunterbeamtengesellschaft"

Oktoberfest is not a celebration. It's the German version of Harrisburg, Chernobyl and Fukushima all at once and on a yearly basis. People act like completely radiated, a lot of mutants develop and in the end toxic liquid is released into the environment...

Your german pronounce is cute 🥰 bringe es dir gerne bei, dass ist nicht schwer😉

Glockenspiel is another one. Glocken = Bells, Spiel = Game (play)

Sorry, Feni is not up to date since more than 10 years!!! Kindergarten in Germany is for children from 0 to 6 years, may be not in all german land.