snetleft.blogg.se - German trainslation

German Localization Tips Localizing websites using hreflang meta tags

The shared roots of German and English, as well as the adoption of food, cultural artefacts and concepts originating in Germany, have led to this borrowing. German loanwords include commonly used terms such as hamburger, frankfurter, rucksack, doppelganger and zeitgeist, as well as less common terms such as ersatz (a substitute, usually of inferior quality), schadenfreude (taking pleasure from the misfortune of others) and verboten (something forbidden). Speakers of English will be familiar with a number of German words, perhaps without even realising. For example, Swiss German speakers have adopted the English word “harddisk” (capitalized to “Harddisk”), while in standard German, the word “Festplatte” is used.

A particularly noticeable difference between Standard German and Swiss German is the latter’s adoption of the English terms for technological innovations. Standard German, Austrian German and Swiss German are generally mutually intelligible, despite a considerable number of vocabulary differences.

Due to their close relationship, German and English share over half of their vocabulary.Īlthough the vast majority of German speakers can be found in Germany itself, it is important to remember that the language can also be heard elsewhere, including in Austria (8 million German speakers) and parts of Switzerland (5 million speakers).

German is the third most widely taught language, just behind Spanish and French, with over 15 million language learners worldwide.

Though most German speakers are located in Germany, German is also an official language of five other countries: Austria, Belgium, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg and Switzerland.

The German language comes from proto-German, which dates as far back as 500 B.C.

With over 100 million native speakers, German is the most widely spoken language in Europe, beating out Italian, French, Spanish and even English.

Despite geographic proximity, the German language differs significantly from European Romance languages like French, Italian and Spanish.

German is a West Germanic language, closely related to other languages of the same family such as English, Dutch and Afrikaans.