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There are many thousands of German words that are cognate to English words, in fact a sizeable fraction of native German and English vocabulary, although for various reasons much of it is not immediately obvious. Yet many of them are easy to correlate, since the German words follow the rules of High German consonant shift, which is a German phenomenon and makes English stay closer to the protogermanic language, from which both, English and German, derive. These rules are:
Rule
English
German
Notes
engl. t → germ. s (after a vowel)
water
Wasser
engl. t → germ. z
two
zwei
German "z" is pronounced "ts"
engl. c → germ. k
cold
kalt
engl. f → germ. v
full
voll
engl. p → germ. f (after a vowel)
ripe
reif
engl. p → germ. pf
path
Pfad
engl. k → germ. ch (after a vowel)
break
brechen
engl. ch → germ. k
chin
Kinn
also: chest/Kiste, child/Kind
engl. gh → germ. ch (after a vowel)
light
Licht
The now-silent gh marks places in English words which once had a sound much like Greek "chi". (Chaucer's English pronounced "light" very similarly to modern German Licht.)
engl. d → germ. t
bed
Bett
engl. th → germ. d
three
drei
engl. th → germ. t
father
Vater
engl. v → germ. b
silver
Silber
engl. f → germ. b
wife
Weib
engl. x → germ. chs
fox
Fuchs
cf k → ch, as above.
engl. y → germ. g
yarn
Garn
engl. y → germ. ig
windy
windig
engl. w → germ. b
swallow
Schwalbe
engl. w → germ. g
follow
folgen
Most of the words in the following table have almost the same meaning as in English.
When cognates have slightly different consonants, this is often[Citation needed] due to the High German consonant shift. Vowels tend to be more unpredictable than consonants, and there are cases where the vowel(s) found in a German word in a non-standard dialect have a greater affinity with English than with standard German:
German
English
German dialect
allein
alone
allon (Hesse)
blasen
blow
blosa (Hesse)
heim
home
hom (Hesse)
nein
no
no (Hesse)
nicht
not
net (Hesse)
Stein
stone
Ston (Hesse)
Ofen
oven
Ova (Hesse)
Furz(vulg)
fart
Farz (Hesse)
schaben
to shave
schava (Hesse)
Silber
silver
Silver (Hesse)
speien
to spout
spauza (Hesse)
streben
to strive
streva (Hesse)
Einkommen
income
Inkomma (Palat.)
Feuer
fire
Feier (Palat.)
fühlen
feel
fihla (Palat.)
füllen
fill
filla (Palat.)
geben
give
geva (Palat.)
gehört
heard
ghärt (Palat.)
gesehen
seen
gsihn (Palat.)
gesucht
sought
gsucht (Palat.)
grün
green
grien (Palat.)
komm herein
come in
kumm rin (Palat.)
kühl
chill
kihl (Palat.)
Krüppel
cripple
Krippl (Palat.)
Läuse
lice
Lais (Palat.)
leuchten
to light
leichta (Palat.)
Mäuse
mice
Mais (Palat.)
Müller
miller
Miller (Palat.)
Regen
rain
Reen (Palat.)
Silber
silver
Silver (Palat.)
There are cognates whose meanings in either language have changed through the centuries. It is sometimes difficult for both English and German speakers to discern the relationship. On the other hand, once the definitions are made clear, then the logical relation becomes obvious. Sometimes the generality or specificity of word pairs may be opposite in the two languages.
German
Meaning of German word
English cognate
Comment
antworten
to answer
an-word
the cognate prefix German 'ant' is equal to Old English 'and-'〈"against"〉(→an). 'wort'=word, 'swer'=swear, so the suffix isn't cognate.
Both derive from West Germanic *baumoz meaning "tree". It is the English one which, in Anglo-Saxon and Old English, has radically changed its meaning several times. (The original meaning is retained in the English terms for some trees, such as hornbeam.)
bekommen
to get
to become
Beutel
bag
bottle
Blume
flower
bloom
Dogge
mastiff
dog
Dach
roof
thatch
Draht
wire
thread
drehen
to turn
to throw
cf. to throw (make) a pot by turning it on a wheel
düster
dusky
dusty
ernten
to harvest
to earn
fahren
to drive
to fare
O.E. faran "to journey, to make one's way", from P.Gmc. *faranan (cf. Goth. faran, Ger. fahren), from PIE *por- "going, passage"
fechten
to fence (sport)
to fight
Flasche
bottle
flask
Gasse
lane
gate
Gift
poison
gift
the original meaning of Gift in German can still be seen in the German deflection Mitgift "dowry"
gleich
equal
like
gültig
valid
guilty
herüber
over
river
Hose
pants
hose
hüten
beware,tend
heed
kaufen
to buy
cheap, chapman
klein
little
clean
Knabe (formal)
boy
knave
Knecht
servant
knight
Koffer
suitcase
coffer
Lache
pool
lake
Lachs
salmon
lox
Luft
air
loft
Mut
courage
mood
nehmen
to take
numb
sensation has been taken away; cf. German benommen, 'dazed'
Pflaster
pavement
plaster
Pflicht
duty
plight
Rad
wheel
road
raten
to guess, to advise
to read
cf. riddle, akin to German Rätsel
reißen
to tear
to write
cf. also ritzen in German - "to scratch" -, the old intensive form
Riegel
bar
rail
schmal
narrow
small
Schmerz
pain
smart
The verb smart retains this meaning
schlecht
bad
slight
Sense of Ger. cognate schlecht developed from "smooth, plain, simple" to "bad", and as it did it was replaced in the original senses by schlicht, a back-formation from schlichten "to smooth, to plane," a derivative of schlecht in the old sense. "Bad" refers to "bête" in French or to "bestia" in Latin
schlicht
plain, simple
slight
Schlüpfer
underpants
slipper
schmeicheln
to flatter
to smile
schmeißen
to bash
to smite
schütten
to pour, to dump
to shed
sich rächen
to take revenge
to wreak (havoc)
Sieg
victory, win
siege
spenden
donate
spend
stehen
stand
stay
stören
perturb, bother
stir
Stuhl
chair
stool
Tier
animal
deer
Tisch
table
dish, desk
Latin discus
Vieh
cattle
fee
from O.E. 'feoh' money, property, cattle
Wald
forest
wold
cf. English placename "Cotswold(s)"
werden
to become
weird
see wyrd
weich
soft
weak
Zaun
fencing
town
Zeit
time
tide
the root is used in German Gezeiten as Tiden ('tides') and belongs to the old Saxon vocabulary in German
German and English also share many borrowings from other languages, especially Latin, French and Greek. Most of these words have the same meaning, while a few have subtle differences in meaning. As many of these words have been borrowed by numerous languages, not only German and English, they are called internationalisms in German linguistics. For reference, a good number of these borrowed words are of the neuter gender.
