Germans have proved themselves to be masterful engineers, scientists, and philosophers. The German language reflects this practical, thorough, and rigorous mentality.

Mit diesem Beitrag geht es um Deutsch, aber es ist diesmal nicht sinnvoll auf Deutsch zu schreiben.

As a metaphor, and a way to flush out the ingenuity of the German language, think of German as a complex engineering project. Words, prefixes, and suffixes are like components which can be assembled and connected using a complex system of rules. It is precise, clever, efficient, and highly adaptable.

Giving someone the freedom to think of words as components, means he or she can easily connect them to create something more expansive.

Das Zeug

Take the noun Zeug which is neutral (das Zeug.) Depending on the context it could be translated as: stuff, thing, junk, gear, equipment.

Fahr is the German word for driving. Kraft is the German word for power. So our engineer simply combines the components and we have: Kraftfahrzeug literally power-driving-thing which we would call a motor vehicle.

Flug is the German word for flight. So a Flugzeug is a flight-thing, or an aircraft.

Feuer is fire. So Feuerzeug is literally a fire-thing or lighter.

Werk is a factory. So Werkzeug is literally factory-equipment or tools/instruments.

Fahrvergnügen

Thanks to the U.S. television advertisement by Volkswagen (literally peoples-car) in the 1990s, Americans learned that Fahrvergnügen means "driving enjoyment" in English.

You now know what Fahr means, and now you understand that Vergnügen must mean pleasure or enjoyment.

Efficiency

In German a shoe is Schuh and I bet even without me telling you, you would understand what a Handschuh is. Of course it is a glove. Another example of Germany efficiency.

Bringen

To demonstrate the efficiency and constructive capacity of German, let's examine the verb bringen. (You can do the same thing with virtually any verb.) Here we can readily recognize the Germanic roots of English, bringen is obviously "to bring" in English.

By learning this single word and a few prepositions and prefixes, one would readily understand why it is useful to think of German words as component parts. This is a partial list of words created this way:

aufbringen, anbringen, ausbringen, beibringen, durchbringen, einbringen, mitbringen, nachbringen, überbringen, unterbringen, verbringen, vorbringen, wegbringen, zurückbringen, zusammenbringen

There are more, but you get the idea. By learning these "component" parts (i.e. prepositions and prefixes) you can expand your vocabulary quite rapidly.

Sometimes the meanings are obvious. Aus, as you might have guessed is "out." So ausbringen would mean something an English speaker would understand. The musician brought out an album.

Sometimes the meanings are not so obvious, and for beginners they are sometimes easy to confuse.

My own German life lesson

Here is a real example that happened to me when I first came to Germany. For me it was terribly embarrassing, but it provided my German colleagues with a good laugh. I am a vegetarian, so when it was lunchtime at the office my new colleagues asked me what my wife prepared for me at home. I wanted to say she might give me something like a potato casserole Kartoffelauflauf (Kartoffel=potato and Auflauf=casserole.)

I got it mixed up, and instead of saying Auflauf, I mistakenly said Einlauf. One of them said, "Oh my, isn't that painful?" All of them started laughing like crazy. That day I learned a new word I will never forget: Einlauf= enema! So I unwittingly told them my wife prepares potato enemas for me!

Yes German do have a good sense of humor, and that guy was schlagfertig. In American English we would say quick with a comeback.

Umlaut ÄÖÜ ?

The Umlaut is something exotic to a lot of Americans.

Um = around. And in this case Laut=sound. I'm not certain if this is the actual root of this word, but for me it makes sense to think of Umlaut as something that changes the sound around.

In any case, it is another example of Germanic efficiency. Think of the English words: Mad and Made. The "e" at the end of "made" changes the "a" vowel.

Thus, in a way, the Umlaut does with a couple of dots what English does with an additional letter. In terms of pronunciation, in German the "ä" in Mäd basically functions like the "e" on the end of "Made."

If you study German, I suspect you will be impressed by its clever and efficient structure.

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