Six German vocabulary keys to unlock your word power

At first sight, you’ll probably recognise a lot fewer words in a German text than a Spanish or French one. Add to that those super-long words the language seems to love and you could be forgiven for thinking that German vocabulary is just impossible. Not so! If you discover just a little about where German gets its words from (and how longer words are formed) you’ll see that things aren’t so alien after all. In this post, we’ll look at six German vocabulary keys to help you unlock the treasure chest of German vocab. Read this post and things will look less daunting at the start of your German journey. If you’re already an intermediate learner, what you’re about to discover will help you with one of your most pressing tasks: expanding your word power rapidly.   

Before we go any further, vocabulary building is a central aspect of my popular intermediate Weekly German Workouts program, which you can check out here: 

=> Link to Dr P’s popular intermediate German course

Recognise words with a shared Germanic root

Did you know that English and German developed from a common “Germanic” ancestor language? 

That means that there are a stock of words that will take no effort at all to understand and remember because even today they’re, erm, exactly the same both languages (or very nearly so). They’re often connected with the body, nature and the basics of life: die Hand, die Name (pronounced naah-muh), das Bett (bed), die Erde (Earth), das Wasser (water), die Nase (nose), kalt (cold) and so on, many times over.

How English and German words have diverged from a common root wasn’t a random process. German historical linguist Jacob Grimm (also of Grimm brothers fame) identified a regular “consonant shift” pattern now called “Grimm’s law”.

So, “f” in English often corresponds to “v” in German (father > Vater, full > voll). English “k” is German “ch” (make > machen; book > Buch) and “y” corresponds to “g” (yesterday > gestern; yellow > gelb).

Several other letters are also affected by Grimm’s regular consonant changes.  

Sometimes, the meaning of the German and English “descendent” words have come to have different (though often related) meanings. For example der Knabe (boy) corresponds to English “knave” and der Bauer (peasant) to the English boor.  Das Tier means “animal” not the just the corresponding English “deer”. Das Zimmer is “room”, corresponding to English “timber” (z to t is another of Grimm’s pairs, by the way: die Zeit > the time). 

The word for “root” itself, die Wurzel, has the same origins as the English “wort” for vegetable, plant or root (as in St John’s wort”).

Become aware of this shared “Germaninc” history and it’ll help you remember many German words (and maybe decipher some from scratch). 

Don’t go overboard, though. 

German has its share of “false friends” that could easily confuse the unaware English speaker.  

Be alert for words like der Rat (advice), das Gift (poison), fast (almost), bald (soon), der Brief (letter in the sense of missive), sechs (six), die Last (burden, load). 

Keep an eye out for shared foreign borrowings…and equivalent coinages

Just like English, German has many familiar borrowings from Latin or Greek: die Nation (nation), die Strategie (strategy), die Zelle (cell), die Politik (politics), die Gruppe (group). 

The meaning is usually obvious and will otherwise be easier if you start to pay attention to how the English and German spelling systems has had its way with these words.  

Despite the many international borrowings, German – like Finnish or Welsh – often has its own literal translations of a Latin or Greek word’s component parts (“calques”). English tends to stick much more with words from the Classical languages or French.

Das Mitleid, for example, literally means “with + suffering”. It’s just like our Latin “compassion” or – similar – Greek “sympathy” (with + feeling). 

Sometimes there’s been competition between German and Latin/Greek-derived words and German coinages.  

So, in English we have “television” (“tele” – Greek – far off) and Latin-derived (“vision”). German coined der Fernseher (distance + seer).  The equivalent coinage for telephone is der Fernsprecher (distance + speaker) but this is now used much less frequently than das Telefon (derived, like our version, from Greek elements).  

If you tune in to the classical origins of a lot of English vocab and brush up your Latin and Greek prefixes and suffixes and how they might translate into German. 

Do you know your “auto-” from your “endo-” and your “peri-,” your “ego-“, “intra-” and “circum-“?  What about the equivalent German prefixes?

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Embrace “Denglish” and remember all the German words in English

“Denglish” is the jokey name for the proliferation of direct borrowings from English (“Anglicisms”) used by some German speakers. 

Some of the borrowers seem appropriate as they refer to unique aspects of Anglophone culture (like der Jazz).  

Others are linked to new phenomena (often from the US), such as internet vocab (die Homepage; chatten).  

Sometimes the borrowings seem to be for no reason other than fashion and there are suitable, alternative German coinages also in use: die Startseite for homepage, for example. 

How about der Babysitter? A necessary borrowing or not?

Like or loathe Denglish, all this English flying around is only going to help us, the German learners.

To my mind, more pleasing than such superfluous borrowings are words taken from English but given a different meaning. They’re not quite the “false friends” we met above, because they’re not used in English at all. Once you some, they’ll make you smile; and they’ll be easy to remember!

So, you can make a call on das Handy (mobile/cell phone) as dress your baby in der Body (all-in-one type baby’s “romper” outfit) before you both climb into your Old Timer (classic car), parked beside a wall recently vandalised (or brightened up, I’ll leave you to decide) by ein Sprayer (graffiti artist).

Some wholesome “English” words like rucksack, zeitgeist, doppelganger, poltergeist, putsch and schadenfreude will help reduce your angst about learning Deutsch too.

Yes, borrowings between English and German aren’t an entirely one way street  😉 .

Understand how compound words are formed in German

German, like English and other Germanic languages, likes to “compound” words and compounding is the next of our German vocabulary keys.

Compound words are made by smashing together two or more nouns, adjectives or verbs which can also stand alone: 

Haus + Frau = Hausfrau in German and house + wife means exactly the same in English.  

Sometimes there’s an additional link between elements of the compound.  So, -s (or, after words of one syllable -es) may pop up: Ort (place) + Name (name) > Ortsname (placename)   

By the way, the grammatical gender of the compound word (der, die, das) will be the same as the gender of the final component (it’s “die” Hausfrau because Frau is feminie).   

In English, though, the two elements are often written apart (or hyphenated): das Esszimmer is “dining room”, Fremdsprache is “foreign language”, die Muttersprache is “mother tongue” and die Zweitsprache is “second language”.

Some other languages routinely require a more roundabout way of building vocab. 

In French you have to say “salle à manger” (room for eating) and sometimes the English equivalent of a pithy German compound also requires a more roundabout translation der Ort > der Wohnort (place of residence, not X living place X). 

In other words, you’ll have to circumlocute (umschreiben – German went native here, English stuck with the Latin)(see the section above on Latin and Greek borrowings in English and German).

The most common German compound pattern is noun + noun (e.g. der Handschuh) but you’ll also find various other combinations.  Die Putzfrau – cleaning lady – derives from the verb putzen (to clean) + Frau. Einhändig (one-handed) is the numeral ein + the adjective handig (useful, handy).

Why stop at two elements?  How about the famously long word Donaudampfschifffahrtsgesellschaftskapitän (captain of the Danube steamship transport company). I’m loving that triple “f” in there 🙂

Ah, those Germans, as Boney M almost sang.

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You’ll find one or two more of these super loooooonnnnnnng words in this fun “German pronunciation challenge” video I shot at the Polyglot Conference in Berlin a few years ago:

German has many disarmingly literal compounds that are easy to decipher and often charming or amusing to the English ear.  

The word for “vocabulary” itself is der Wortschatz (literally “word treasure”). Handschuh is “glove” (die Hand + der Schuh), Die Stechpalme is holly (“stechen” (to prick) +‎ “Palme” (palm)).  Picture the literal meanings and it’ll help you remember!

Often groups of related German words share a common, logical root where English isn’t so simple: der Brief is a letter and you put it in a Briefumschlag (“letter-around-wrap”) before you drop it into the Briefkasten (letterbox) from where der Briefträger (letter carrier – postman) collects it. 

Look out for these clusters of easy-to-remember related words.

Know your prefixes and suffixes

The meaning of a verb or noun can become obvious when you see that it’s derived from a common underlying word that you already know with a prefix stuck on the front or a suffix on the end. 

Many of the most common prefixes you’ll already know as high-frequency prepositions in their own right: ab- (away, off); ein-  (in); mit- (with.along) and so on. 

Aus (out of) can combine with Fahrt to give Ausfahrt (exit – for a vehicle – on foot it’s an Ausgang) or with brennen to give ausbrennen (to burn out).

These prepositional prefixes are separable from a verb whose meaning they modify. Die Kerze brennt schnell aus (the candle quickly burns out). 

At first sight,the meaning of prefixes that are not based on prepositions are usually harder to work out: ver-, ent-, er- and friends.  

Unlike the “prepositional” prefixes, these “exotic” prefixes are inseparable when added to verbs.  

Even with the “exotics”, there are some meanings you’ll quickly become familiar with.

So, ver- is the most common of this group of prefixes.

It can convey the idea of finishing or away: reisen (to travel) > verreisen (to leave, go away on a trip) or the opposite of an action: kaufen (to buy) > verkaufen (to sell). 

Ent- often implies escaping or removing: lasten (to weigh on someone) entlasten (to relieve, literally: to unburden), entschärfen (to diffuse, literally: unscharpen). 

Er- often conveys a sense of outcome or result (bitten – to ask for > erbitten – to obtain by asking; schießen – to shoot > erschießen – to shoot dead). 

When you can’t spot any obvious “logical” explanation for the choice of the prefix the meaning of the “basic” verb will often work as a useful hook to help you remember, ich verspreche es dir! 

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What about German suffixes?  

Well, the ending -er (or -ler) can replace a verb’s final -en or -ern to give us the person who performs the action of a verb: lehren (to instruct) > der Lehrer (teacher); betteln (to beg) > der Bettler (begger). 

-er can also flag a tool that performs the action: bohren (to drill) > der Bohrer (the drill) and you can add the suffix to a place name (Ortsname) to indicate where somebody comes from: Frankfurt > der Frankfurter.

A common ending that turns a verb into the action it describes is -ung: sich entschuldigen (to excuse oneself, apologise) > die Entschuldigung (apology). 

Words with these endings are usually pretty predictably a set gender.

So, -ung words are overwhelmingly feminine (check out my post on German noun gender for more on this).

One way of turning nouns into adjectives is to add -lich (the vowel often gains an Umlaut): der Tod (death) > tödlich (deadly, fatal), die Name (the name) > nämlich (namely). 

Sometimes, in a further twist, you can add the suffix -keit (another feminine ending to create a noun: Tödlichkeit (deadliness).

Some verbs can be made into adjectives (that describe a thing) by taking off the -en and adding -bar to the stem. The result is like the English ending -able/-ible: machen > mach- > machbar (doable). 

Of course, by adding un- a great many adjectives can be made negative, just like in English. 

Vowel changes

Vowel changes are another way that German vocabulary has expanded and the last of our German vocabulary keys. 

When a noun comes from the root of a strong verb, you’ll often find a vowel change in a derived word: aussteigen (to exit, climb out, e.g. get off a bus), ich stieg aus, ich bin ausgestiegen > der Ausstieg (the exit, getting off, getting out); sprechen (to speak), ich sprach, ich habe gesprochen > die Sprache. The vowel might not be one found in the imperfect or past participle form: werfen (to throw), ich warf, ich habe geworfen but der Wurf.

Another common change is the appearance of an Umlaut which flags that the vowel has become “front, rounded” (pronounced at the front of the mouth with the lips rounded).

An Umlaut + feminine suffix is added to der Arzt (male doctor) to give die Ärztin (female doctor), for example. 

To turn the noun der Druck (pressure) into the verb to print add an Umlaut + the verbal suffix -en: drücken. 

Der Kraft is strength while kräftig is “strong”.  Der Bart is the beard and bärtig is “bearded”.  

Some adjectives are turned into nouns by adding an Umlaut: groß (big) > die Grӧße (size); lang (long) > die Länge (length).

Unlike compounding or adding prefixes or suffixes, vowel changes aren’t “productive” in modern German: new words are hardly ever formed this way these days.

That said, today’s language is chock full of them. Pay attention as you go!

Turn you German vocabulary keys and fill your boots with treasure!

That’s it then. If you’ve read this far, you’re now equipped with six keys to unlock the German vocab treasure chest and fill your boots with new words:

• words that are the same in English and German or very close due to their common “Germanic” roots;
• shared international loanwords (usually from Latin or Greek), with German sometimes preferring a literal translation of the elements;
• many direct English words in modern German (sometimes bordering on “Denglish”) and German borrowings in English;
• compound words strung together in German;
• words made by adding prefixes and suffixes to a simpler core;
• vowel changes as central to how one word morphs in meaning.

Now you know what’s going on, you’re more likely to be able to work out the meaning of words that somehow look familiar.  You’ll understand what’s “behind” a lot of the new words that you encounter and that’ll help you remember.  

A word of warning to finish: notice, understand, remember but don’t start trying to coin your own words.

Our six German vocabulary keys are not those little bits of metal you get with Ikea flatpack furniture.

Remember, imitation not innovation is the name of the game when you’re expanding your German vocabulary!

Discover how YOU can use Dr P's free Weekly Workout Routine to get ready for more confident German conversations in a matter of weeks. Click here to get the training !

Other posts in this series:

How to learn German fast

Intermediate German (B1) vocabulary and grammar: what and how?

Motivation for Intermediate (B1) German: enjoying the highs and getting through the lows

German cases made simple (goodbye to endless tables)

German genitive case: the only guide you’ll ever need

German modal verbs: the ultimate guide

Joining it up: how conjunctions can transform your intermediate German