147 - 10 Words a Day: German Words in English (1-10)

It's story time! Welcome to a true story about my friend, Nina, who is from Berlin, Germany. In the story of our friendship you'll learn 10+ German loanwords in English. A loanword is a words borrowed from a foreign language.

American English has many German words; how do we pronounce them?  Well, I know a lot of you are saying we butcher them, that's okay (I don't disagree with you!) In general, the pronunciation of a words depends on how popular / common a word is. If a German word is common in American English, naturally, there's an expected way to pronounce it, even if it's not how it is pronounced normally in German. 

The goal of this episode is to teach you how we pronounce the common ones and what to do when you come across uncommon loanwords. Here is a sample of some of the words in today's episode. 

1. doppelgänger
2. wanderlust
3. schadenfreude
4. Volkswagen
5. kindergarten
6. Rottweiler
7. gesundheit!
8. fest 
9. angst or angsty
10. waltz
11. über
12. kaput

Note: German loanwords in English follow English rules! While nouns are capitalized in German, in English, they are lowercase UNLESS they are proper nouns like Volkswagen OR if they derive from a proper noun, such as Rottweiler. Diacritical marks, such as the umlaut, are optional! 

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