To properly use German idioms, you need to understand their actual meanings. Some idioms directly translate to English equivalents, like "ein Fisch auf dem Trockenen" meaning "a fish out of water". However, other German expressions like "Da liegt der Hund begraben" don't literally translate, instead meaning "That's the heart of the matter" rather than feeling sorry for a buried dog. Learning pronunciation by studying the alphabet helps sound like a native, and many German and English words are cognates or share Latin roots, making their meanings recognizable to English speakers.
To properly use German idioms, you need to understand their actual meanings. Some idioms directly translate to English equivalents, like "ein Fisch auf dem Trockenen" meaning "a fish out of water". However, other German expressions like "Da liegt der Hund begraben" don't literally translate, instead meaning "That's the heart of the matter" rather than feeling sorry for a buried dog. Learning pronunciation by studying the alphabet helps sound like a native, and many German and English words are cognates or share Latin roots, making their meanings recognizable to English speakers.
To properly use German idioms, you need to understand their actual meanings. Some idioms directly translate to English equivalents, like "ein Fisch auf dem Trockenen" meaning "a fish out of water". However, other German expressions like "Da liegt der Hund begraben" don't literally translate, instead meaning "That's the heart of the matter" rather than feeling sorry for a buried dog. Learning pronunciation by studying the alphabet helps sound like a native, and many German and English words are cognates or share Latin roots, making their meanings recognizable to English speakers.
to use them appropriately, you need to find out what they really mean.
Some expressions have an
English equivalent that’s recognizable, so using them correctly isn’t too hard. For example, the German idiom ein Fisch auf dem Trockenen (ayn fish ouf deym trok-ên-en) literally translates into a fish on the dry, which somewhat resembles the English a fish out of water. Other German expressions are a little harder to figure out. For instance, if you were to take apart the German expression Da liegt der Hund begraben (da leekt dêr hoont be-grah-ben) word for word, you’d probably feel sorry for the poor dog, because in essence, it means something like That’s where the dog is buried. However, the English equivalent is That’s the heart of the matter. pronunciation, you familiarize yourself with the German alphabet and find out how to pronounce words so you can start to sound just like a native. Starting with What You Already Know Because German and English are both Germanic languages, quite a few words are either identical or similar in the two languages. Words that share a common source are called cognates. Another group of words common to German and English stem from Latin-based words that English speakers are familiar with. Many of these words have direct equivalents in German (for example, nouns that end in -tion).yes
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