5.2 Family and people — Epoché
What you will be able to do Name every member of a family, including the ones English handles with a hyphen or a phrase instead of a word. Use the three family words that exist only in the plural, and stop looking for a singular that is not there. Address a stranger, a colleague and a child correctly, and name the two verbs German has for choosing between the two words for you . Recognise the nouns that behave like adjectives, which is why the dictionary has no fixed entry for them. Prerequisites : 5.1 — you need the habit of learning each noun with its article, and the rule that the last element of a compound fixes the gender, because this field is built almost entirely out of compounds. The second vocabulary lesson uses the same method as the first, and the saving is even larger here. Family words are the oldest layer of the vocabulary in both languages, so they have had the least time to drift apart. The German for father , mother , brother , sister , son , daughter and man is recognisable on sight, and you are not going to spend a lesson on words you already know. What is left, once those are set aside, turns out to be the interesting part of the field. German has a single everyday word where English has to say brothers and sisters . It has a word for a grandson that looks like nothing in English at all. It builds its in-laws out of one prefix instead of a hyphenated phrase. And it has a whole small class of nouns for people — the relatives, the acquaintances, the adults — that are not really nouns at all, but adjectives wearing a capital letter, and that change their ending depending on what comes before them. The forty-eight words below are sorted into three groups: the relatives, the people around you, and what you call them to their face. The last group is the one that matters most in the first week of speaking, because getting it wrong is rude in a way that a grammatical mistake never is. The ones you already have Read this table once and then leave it alone. It is here so that you can see what you are not paying for. Each of these words is close enough to its English cousin that you will recognise it in speech the first time you hear it, and none of them is in the word list below. German English — what changed der Vater father — the consonant shifted, nothing else die Mutter mother — the same shift; note the plural fronts the vowel der Bruder brother — the same shift again, and the plural fronts the vowel too die Schwester sister — the schw- is the older form; English lost the w der Sohn son — long vowel, otherwise untouched die Tochter daughter — English spells a sound it stopped making; German still says it das Kind child — a different root from child , but the same root as kin and kind der Mann man — identical, and it also means husband der Freund friend — identical root; but a possessive in front of it can mean boyfriend der Name name — identical, with an extra vowel at the end die Familie family — the Latin word, borrowed by both languages separately Two of those rows carry a trap rather than a gift, and it is worth naming them now. The word for man is also the word for husband , so the phrase that looks like my man is the ordinary way to say my husband , and the same is true of the word for woman and wife . The word for friend is worse: with no possessive it is a friend, but with one it usually means a partner, and a speaker who wants to avoid that reading says something longer instead. English solves this with two separate words; German solves it with context, and you will get it wrong at least once. Word list Forty-eight words. Every noun carries its article, because the gender of a family word is not guessable from its meaning — the word for girl is neuter, which is the single most quoted example of that fact in the language. The relatives you have to learn Word Meaning Notes die Geschwister de brothers and sisters, siblings — plural only ; English has no everyday single word for this Hast du Geschwister? Do you have any brothers or sisters? Ich habe drei Geschwister. I have three siblings. die Eltern de parents — plural only ; for one parent, forms use the compound der Elternteil Das sind meine Eltern. These are my parents. Das sind meine Großeltern. These are my grandparents. die Großeltern de grandparents — plural only, like the word above it, and built on it Das sind meine Großeltern. These are my grandparents. der Großvater de grandfather — a compound; the second element fixes the gender Guten Abend, Großvater! [1] Good evening, grandfather! die Großmutter de grandmother — also means an old woman generally, which English grandmother does not Das ist meine Großmutter. [2] This is my grandmother. der Opa de grandpa, grandad — and also any elderly man, sometimes rudely Opa lebt allein. Grandad lives on his own. die Oma de grandma, granny, nan — and also any elderly woman Meine Oma wohnt auf dem Land. My grandma lives in the country. der Enkel de grandson; in the plural, grandchildren of either sex — no English cognate Du bist mein Enkel. You are my grandson. Wo ist deine Enkelin? Where's your granddaughter? die Enkelin de granddaughter — the feminine suffix again, as in lesson 5.1 Wo ist deine Enkelin? Where's your granddaughter? das Enkelkind de grandchild — a compound used when the sex is unknown or irrelevant Sie hat drei Enkelkinder. She has three grandchildren. der Onkel de uncle — from French, like the English word, which is why the two match Das ist mein Onkel. This is my uncle. die Tante de aunt — also from French; can be a mildly dismissive word for a woman Das ist meine Tante. This is my aunt. der Neffe de nephew — a native German word, a cousin of Latin nepos ; English took nephew from that Latin word through French Das ist mein Neffe. This is my nephew. die Nichte de niece — the same root as niece , with the German consonant in the middle Das ist meine Nichte. This is my niece. der Cousin de male cousin — kept the French spelling and roughly the French so