49. Guessing the Meanings of German Cognates

49.  Guessing the Meanings of German Cognates 

Following on from the last post, I thought you might like to try your hand at guessing the English meaning from their German equivalents but before I give these, I would like to recommend a couple of wonderful resources that will help you enormously in finding the meanings of German and English words. If you go to the following sites:

dict.leo.org-English.German Dictionary / www.dict.com (German / English)

you will be able to look up words in either German or English and discover their translations. Another fantastic feature of this site is the small megaphone alongside each word. If you click on the megaphone, it will give you the pronunciation. Give it a try - they are brilliant sites!

OK ... guessing time ... I will give you the answers next time but if you become a little impatient to see if you have had some success, you can try out your 'leo'. Remember, you may well have to go through the vowels to make the correct change.

I have also added another couple of changes as well here which will help you to guess meanings.

b, p, f, v:  reif;  Sieb; taub (t - d also); Taube; Liebe; Tropfen; Topf; Schaf; Huf (note Eng. pl.)

k - c:        Kohle; kalt; kommen; Kamm; kann; Kissen; Kuss; Klub; Kloster; Klinik; Klasse

d, t, th:     danken, Dieb; Pfad; Tod; trinken; Trieb; triefen; treiben; Traum; Tag; tragen.

ig- (e)y; sch - sh / isch - ic:  lustig; frisch; schlau; freundlich; sportlich; optimistisch; romantisch

ch - gh - k:    lachen;  acht; brechen; suchen; Buch; Dach (old Eng.!); riechen; machen. 

tz - z - tch - t:      setzen; sitzen; kratzen; Hitze; heizen; schmelzen; Witz; Katze.

I must confess here, you will need to really use your imagination in some cases with the words above, however, they are all connected in some way. If you ever find a new word in German, it is worth trying the above changes and you just might guess its meaning.

Berlin Street Sculpture