These are the mistakes Germans make in business English: “We see us tomorrow”

Sank ju for traveling with Deutsche Bahn – a sentence like fingernails on the blackboard. But even if the announcements of the railway employees often sound as if CDU politician Günther Oettinger Even though they are spoken personally, one has to give them credit for one thing: After all, they are grammatically correct – at least for the most part. Expats in particular, who exchange more than just “Hello” and “Goodbye” with them, know that Germans often have difficulties with English.

To save our honour, however, it must be said that we Germans – unlike the Swedes, for example – are rarely confronted with it in everyday life. For example, while all cinema films are translated in this country, the Swedes watch them in their original language – lucky you!

So it happens that the pronunciation of German occasionally sounds harsh to the ears of most English speakers. The relationship between German citizens and the English language is also caught in a dilemma. “The Germans have the advantage that their language is very similar to English in many respects – but the direct translation doesn’t always work,” explains Ted Mentele from the language learning platform Babbel.

In fact, there is a close language relationship between English and German – both are Germanic languages. A large part of the words in English has a Germanic origin. A critic becomes “critics”dynamic too dynamicignore too “ignore” and accept “accept”.

In many cases, even the sentence structure is the same, such as with “I am tired” and I am tired”. Or “I see you” and “I see you”. And even some idioms, i.e. ways of speaking of a so-called regionally or socially defined group, have a very similar meaning. be exemplary “The early bird catches the worm” (In other words: the early bird catches the worm) or “To hit the nail on the head” (pronounced hitting the nail on the head).

So it’s no wonder that many Germans feel relatively confident in English and often don’t realize that they make one or two mistakes in everyday life – which, however, are quickly overcome. We learn fast, don’t we?

We make some mistakes again and again, especially in the work context. So “like” is often synonymous with “how” translated. That works with “How are you?”, explains Ted Mentele, but still doesn’t always fit. This would, for example, constructions like “How does this look like?” arise when we actually want to know: “What will this look like?”

Babbel language expert Ted Mentele, who originally comes from the US state of Wisconsin, knows other examples that show how we Germans fall for the dilemma. For example, we often give notice to employees who work from home “I’m doing home office” what no one would say. Actually it should “I’m working from home” be called.

“Actually, it should be ‘I’m working from home’.”

However, both sentences have another typical German weakness: while “We’ll look, how that looks” in German can very well refer to the future, the corresponding tense is missing in English. “How this looks like”, “I’m doing home office” or – also popular – “I make a party” English-speaking colleagues understand it, but they are still surprised that the future tense is missing.

According to Ted Mentele, this is a common mistake that Germans make again and again in the proverbial heat of battle with the English language. However, once you are aware of it, you will always remember it from now on. For statements in the future it needs a “want”.

Another popular mistake: “Us” always with us “us” to translate happens as often as in the case of “like” with “how” – and even that is not always correct. Germans who say goodbye therefore often say: “We see us tomorrow!” A mistake that almost every English beginner stumbles over at the beginning. The sentence sounds a bit strange, doesn’t it? Correct is: “We’ll see each other tomorrow.”

The problem here is not only the direct translation, which initially appears to be meaningful, but also the obvious interference, i.e. that the words are extremely similar. Basically, only the “n” in the middle is missing. In this way, a connection is quickly made in the head, which, however, does not stand up to good English.

When writing e-mails, too, native speakers often come across sentence constructions that are faulty. “Look forward to meet you” sounds just as weird to English speakers as “Looking forward to meet you.” “Look forward to meeting you” It works somehow, since a “-ing” form has to be used, explains Ted Mentele – but better is: “Looking forward to meeting you.”

If the deadline is set for Friday, so will “until” and “by” reliably often confused. It must “We need to finish this by Friday” and not about “We need to finish this until Friday” be called. By the way: “Days of the week are proper nouns and they are always capitalized,” adds Ted Mentele.

While the words mentioned at the beginning “critics”, dynamic, “ignore” and “accept” are considered real friends of the German language, there are also a few extremely false friends in English, as Mentele calls them. This can be fatal, especially with fixed expressions, such as with “to table something”. The translation with “bring something to the table” seems obvious – but means exactly the opposite of what is said in English.

“To table something” means to put something on the back burner first. In this context is also the popular wrong use of the verb “become” called – it stands for “become” and not “get”. Another dilemma!